Paper short abstract:

This paper explores the porous nature of the boundaries between counter-terrorism and community safety in a city that includes many IDPs from rural areas. It considers the implications of this for the meaning of security and how it might be conceptualised as an urban process.

Paper long abstract:

Analyses of security provision in Africa's cities reflect Western ideals and experience. Although it is increasingly accepted that the divide between formal/informal policing is blurred rather than binary, researchers continue to assume that regime-oriented internal security is separate from community safety. Fieldwork in Mogadishu shows that this is not the case: the boundaries between counter-terrorism and community safety are porous, as are those between security and development, with the balance determined by residents' need for physical security. This paper focuses on Mogadishu's most successful scheme for increasing the community intelligence needed for effective counter-terrorism (CT) while facilitating the social mobilisation and welfare that the city's high-level security plan depends on: the Neighbourhood Watch (NHW) scheme found in Wabeeri district. NHW shows that the boundaries between CT and everyday soft security are porous; the two may be procedurally and financially separate but they are not analytically exclusive. Western value-based divisions between security and development do not necessarily transfer to the Somali environment, but the notion of a continuum based on everyone's need for physical security may. The best way to conceptualise this as an urban process remains challenging.