Abstract
Airport security has become a distinctive topic in the contemporary debate concerning counterterrorism, privatization and practice. The particular combination of this topic with Actor-network theory (ANT) inspired approaches is then probably the most flourishing research option and for a good reason as the airport represents a fine intersection of both, given the importance of relationality among the complex set of heterogenous actors.
This paper follows this vein and presents an ANT-based map of interaction among the actors concerned within airport security. As the important section of the works deals with the particular relations among passengers and full-body scanners, this paper focuses on the interaction of the more common types of security equipment with the persons on the other side of the security check - the employees of security services.
The core of the work is based on an ethnographic research consisting of participant observation from the role of a security employee and the series of interviews conducted on one European airport. Based on this, the paper presents employees as the mediators, in ANT terms, within the chain of translation providing security.
It points at the leading agency of technologies - not only that of screening techniques but also the layout of airport controls and the concrete materiality of threads in the formation and enactment of security procedures. The interaction among technology and employees is then presented as a fragile, flexible and responsive relationality, which needs constant activity to be maintained.