Student Network for Human Security (SNHS) Blog

Hi, there!

Hope that the news section on the right had somehow filled the absence of posts.

Next month, I plan to concentrate in the theoretical section of my research while I exchange ideas some where in Europe - if volcanoes allow us. Thus, there are tons of papers I must read before leaving, so I thought it would be a nice opportunity to use this space. Here is the first try:

+ Gasper & Truong (2008) "Development Ethics through the lenses of Caring, Gender, and Human Security" And Gasper & Truong (2005) "Deepening Development Ethics: From Economism to Human Development to Human Security"

Both papers attempt to establish a common ground to enhance human security through development ethics, partly based in the latter characteristics, and partly in the holes on human development theory that human security has the opportunity to cover. From this composed view, the authors provide the following description of the concept:

‘human security’ is a return to the substantive agenda of basic human needs, but better grounded in an ethnography of the risks and pressures, hopes and fears, of ordinary lives rather than only an abstracted accounting of deficiencies or an elevated language of opportunities.

There are two elements to comment about in this depiction. First, the contextual sense entailed by human security is given top importance. Through the paper, the authors underscore this characteristic under the light of its substantive content, opposed to a reductionist understanding of the human, and the consequent necessity of deep understanding of the populations studies. This characteristic helps the authors to bridge feminist theory and the ethics of care, a branch of ethics that also supports situated ethics, and situated knowledge, as necessary to reference the principles of caring. Some values derived from the ethics of care cited in the article are attentiveness, responsiveness and responsibility, which authors relate to citizenship, though it would be interesting to explore how those transform security in a positive endeavor.

The other element that is key in the description of the concept is the importance conferred to "hopes and fears", which I associate to the subjective side of security and perception. This element is present in many sections of the paper, supporting criticisms to human development as "the danger that thinking can be displaced by counting", or them importance of highlight ethics and perceptions as well as objectives in initiatives as the MDGs. Authors affirm that human security requires an methodological broadening, in order to include emotive dimensions, and propose the arts and the humanities as possible sources. In this sense, it will be interesting to explore the recent advances in perception that have been discussed in economics, or the experience of criminology addressing fear.

There are several references in the works about identity that are still to be threaded together in a more harmonic way. Concepts as ontological security, the conception of self, belonging are part of the complements that ethics has to offer to an over protective vision of security. However, it has not being considered how do the threats define the individual or the community, and the possible positive or negative consequences of this definition, something already observed by some authors from security studies (Civilizing, Booth). An additional question that emerges with the issue of identity is the boundary of what should be considered security. Some concern is express about the problem of co-option of human security by the psychic insecurities of the rich, but not discussed whether the psychic insecurities are relevant at all. This problem of levels is somehow considered while explaining how feminist bridge from the personal to the political, but a critical appreciation of this transition is well deserved.

It is not very clear the authors' position regarding democracy. On the one hand they straightly criticize Sen's maxim about famines and democracies, noting that the latter does not increase sympathy nor willingness to help, elements that the authors regard as important as the information flow behind Sen's stand. Nonetheless, on the other hand, the authors keep supporting democracy in the rest of the paper. Most probably, their position is one of "necessary but not sufficient", though it will be interesting to contrast the position with views as the one of Kaldor (2008), who does not conceive democracy as a requisite for human security as long as there is political stability.

Finally, I have some concerns about the tensions among academic disciplines that emerge through the analysis proposed from the development ethics perspective. As it is expected, the authors have to deal with the broad range of expertise that contributes to development studies: economics, international relations, politics, sociology, and so. Research in the field does not even fix in just one discipline, and mixed theories are common - and appreciated. However, when issues like the people-centeredness or context specificity of human security are at stake, I think it is vital to leave clear the deep ontological differences that condition the knowledge produced. In other words, I have problems to lambaste distorted visions of the "human" derived from theories that have as referent "the state", or other entities, without pointing out the initial limitations the starting point ensues. For example, it is somehow problematic when the argumentation jumps from the contextual requirements of caring - i.e. personal encounters - to care as a moral orientation for global social justice, without a more elaborated quilting in the middle. again an issue of level, now from the outer realms to the micro-politics of the population of the selected context. More elaboration in this boundaries will be of help to better understand the positive side of (human) security.

I forgot to tell you las time the objective of my upcoming academic excursion: a more concrete idea about what the positive side of security is - if such a thing does in fat exist. As a keen reader of this blog would have noted - is there any? - a good part of the news posted here has to be with either the changing role of traditional security, or the nature challenge of new threats and old security apparatuses. However, there are some scholars that maintain that security is more than just "the absence of threats," or, in other commonly used words, living more than just surviving.

My first encounters with that idea have not get me convinced, but I admit that reaching to the bottom of this matter is key to give the concept more robustness. The "human" side of the concept well deserves it. I found an insightful introduction to the issue in this paper by a Rhonda Powell, but I have several doubts about her position - wait for them in the paper I plan to submit this term. So, then, lets keep the review going on:

+ Truong (2009) "Feminist Knowledge and Human Security"

The author offers this time a deeper insight on the work of feminists about care, further elaborating on the links to human security. There is an especial emphasis on epistemology, and the kind of knowledge that is considered when studying the proposed problems. From the feminist side, there is a constant plea for a more inclusive construction of knowledge. Truong says "[T]he assumption that a standard of impartiality (strong objectivity) enables one to judge some perspectives as better than others contradicts the situated knowledge claim - which purports that all knowledge is partial." Therefore, the author links the context to subjective views of it, granting an importance that is not observed by the orthodoxy of social sciences.

There are at least to implications from this posture: first, methodologically, it is argued that human security is due to go beyond objective analysis and inform indexes with qualitative views of the situation. This view, shared by many other authors, may not totally forbid attempts to measure the concept, but it will restrict any idea of stand-alone factor as those of the HDI.

Second, a less considered consequence of the insertion of subjectivity is how it hinders the possible quality of the concept as a policy tool. Following the dictum, there is no reason to consider human security less partial than other analyses, and so any recommendation on any issue - poverty, conflict, any - product of a human security study can be as wrong as any other analysis. This a fact that has been already observed in the field of vulnerability studies, close to human security, where the same situation occurs. If we add serous doubts about the methodological improvements in the assessment of causalities brought by the concept, one wonders if the focus should not be reoriented.

The ethics of care also have some implications about identity that are well-worth examining. Close to more traditional - may I say Aristotelean - ideas of identity, Engster brings forward a 'rational theory of obligation' that bases provision of security to someone that is not from one's immediate group out of interdependence. Accounts grounded in more emotive principles give more importance to affinity or sympathy as engines of care. The author uses the umbrella term of "relational ontology". Let me observe that care seems to be more related to protection than empowerment or fear, so the kind of identity here serves as a boundary element to move from the threat to its absence, but does it relate to a security community? It seems to me that the model so far proposed is too focused on protection and less on empowerment, and somehow disconnected of the nature of the threats.

From the recent article in the NYT about the G.D.P.:

The question is: How many measures beyond G.D.P. — how many dials on a new dashboard — will you need? Stiglitz and his fellow academics ultimately concluded that assessing a population’s quality of life will require metrics from at least seven categories: health, education, environment, employment, material well-being, interpersonal connectedness and political engagement. They also decided that any nation that was serious about progress should start measuring its “equity” — that is, the distribution of material wealth and other social goods — as well as its economic and environmental sustainability. “Too often, particularly I think in an American context, everybody says, ‘We want policies that reflect our values,’ but nobody says what those values are,” Stiglitz told me. The opportunity to choose a new set of indicators, he added, is tantamount to saying that we should not only have a conversation about recasting G.D.P. We should also, in the aftermath of an extraordinary economic collapse, talk about what the goals of a society really are.

I feel like reading about the "vital core", don't you? The open option suggested by the authors of the "Human Security Now" report fits the necessity of context in order to determine the values to protect. It cannot be done a priori, heavily depending on the people who will live - suffer - the consequences.

However, it is not clear for me the role of the categories. Is not any list arbitrary? Do we need them? Umberto Eco may say yes, but I have my doubts.

Good day!

Considered the father of Peace studies, this interview is a good introduction to professor Galtung's life and work. Via Peace and Collaborative Development Network:

Louise Arbour, head of the International Crisis Group (ICG), says the Sri Lanka model consists of three parts: what she dubs “scorched-earth tactics” (full operational freedom for the army, no negotiations with terrorists, no ceasefires to let them regroup); next, ignoring differences between combatants and non-combatants (the new ICG report documents many such examples); lastly, the dismissal of international and media concerns.

And there are some interested on learning from this success story...