From the beginning of the project the work has focused on:
• Fieldwork: extensive fieldwork and interviewing have been undertaken with relevant actors (including banks, Financial intelligence Units, courts, police organisations, international policy platforms) from the beginning of the project until the reporting period though over 40 research expeditions. The team as a whole has also undertaken participant observation at a number of industry and practitioner conferences and fora in diverse European countries. We have also been able to visit and interview the most important international organisations that play a key role in global counter-terrorism financing.
• Methodological work: The first half of the project has been dedicated to refining our approach and developing new methods and research tools, specifically to address the challenge of secrecy in security research. This work took place at our workshop “Secrecy and Methods in Security Research” in October 2017. Parts of it were published in the Journal of European Integration (2017). The project will culminate in our edited collection “Secrecy and Methods in Security Research: A Qualitative Fieldguide” to be published by Routledge in 2019.
• Conceptual dialogue: The first half of the project has focused on conceptual refinement and dialogue with Science & Technology Studies (STS). This work centered around our workshop “Translating STS to Security Sites” in June 2018 and our key conceptual contributions have been published in Review of International Studies, European Journal of Social Theory and several book chapters. A Special issue project is in progress.
• Main results. We have published 15 articles and book chapters to date, and have delivered over 60 lectures and conference papers.
Findings concerning the four research elements related to our core research objectives can be summarized as follows.
- Concerning privacy, we observe a shift toward targeted public-private financial data sharing. We analyse the development of Fintech solutions to address privacy challenges at the finance/security nexus. We conceptualise privacy as at least partly infrastructural.
- Concerning knowledge practices: we observe a vibrant international field of workshops, practitioner conferences with an important role for trust and training.
- Concerning situated judgement, we observe a diffuse public private security field, where responsibility is dispersed and elusive.
- Concerning effects, we have contributed to policy discussions by raising questions concerning accountability, transparency and privacy of security decisions based on financial data in our report ‘Counter-Terrorism Financing Policies in The Netherlands: Effectiveness and Effects’
