Terrorism, the Worker and the City

Chapter 2Working People as Witnesses and Victims of Terrorism

Introduction

This study of how working people perceive contemporary terrorism places the simulation, the image and the spectacle at the centre of an understanding of terrorism. It employs the notion of terror-work as a way of understanding how terrorism remains different from other dangers, risks and anxieties that are induced by the precariousness and vulnerability of living and working in the contemporary city. My argument is based on four fundamental assumptions: that terrorists seek to affect the behaviour and attitudes of people who do not die in the attack but bear witness, becoming victims in the process; that this is achieved by combining simulations and images of violence ...