Protocol and the post-human performativity of security techniques.

Area of Science:

• Emergency Management
• Sociology of Science and Technology
• Organizational Studies

Background:

• The United Kingdom Fire and Rescue Service utilizes exercises to prepare for potential future emergencies.
• Exercises are crucial for assessing and developing response protocols, which are guidelines for action during incidents.
• Understanding how exercises create a sense of future emergencies is key to evaluating their effectiveness.

Purpose of the Study:

• To explore the deployment and function of exercises within the UK Fire and Rescue Service.
• To analyze the 'aesthetic forces' (knowledge and technologies) used in exercises to represent and imagine future emergencies.
• To critically assess the role of exercises in protocol development and the operation of security apparatus.

Main Methods:

• Qualitative analysis of exercise deployment and function.
• Conceptual framework drawing on Karen Barad's post-human performativity.
• Examination of how exercises evoke future emergencies through sensory and representative means.

Main Results:

• Exercises function as sites where diverse 'aesthetic forces' entangle, creating a 'bricolage' of future emergencies.
• This entanglement allows for the sensual and representative evocation of emergencies, enabling a present-day experience of the future.
• Protocols are understood as phenomena arising from the enmeshing of aesthetic forces and as devices grounding security operations in contingency.

Conclusions:

• Exercises are vital for preparing emergency services by making future events tangible.
• A critical appraisal of exercises reveals their role in shaping protocols and the contingency-based nature of security operations.
• The theoretical lens of post-human performativity offers new insights into the effectiveness and implications of emergency preparedness exercises.