This article scrutinizes in sociological terms the professional activity of security guards in trade centres, looking to analyze the kind of professional skills and qualifications demanded, how the hierarchy within their profession is configured and how this connects to the everyday communication between the security guards and, finally, the challenges and dilemmas informing their work. Methodologically the research is based on data from semi-directed interviews with guards and direct observation of their work spaces. The findings show that the activity of security guards in trade centres involves a unique service relationship with clients, determined by the specific nature of the organizational space, the tasks that they perform and the clients that they protect and with whom they interact. The study reveals a power relation derived from the social classification of clients by the guards, in tune with the array of rules developed by the administration of the trade centre, which sees private security as an indispensable means of implementing its commercial logic in concrete terms.
Security guards; Work activity; Producing security; Trade centres