‘Vasudhaiva Kutumbakam’ to ‘Vishwa Guru’: India’s shrewd management of (In)security in Indo-Pacific

This article explores ontological security and insecurity in Daniel Keyes’s novel, Flowers for Algernon. It opens with a very brief overview of the 1960s counter-culture to contextualise not only Keyes’s novel but also Laing’s theories of ontological (in)security. After a discussion of Laing’s concept of ontological security and insecurity, the focus shifts to Arthur W. Frank’s notions of the wounded storyteller and how Charlie Gordon’s entry into the medical world constitutes a colonisation of the body that brings with it a deepening sense of ontological insecurity. In entering the world of medical research, Charlie becomes the wounded storyteller, offering a first-person account of his experiences during the experiment and its aftermath. As the initial success of the surgery deteriorates steadily into failure, with the protagonist’s intelligence returning steadily to its pre-operation level, the question of time and how he can make the best use of it to record the experiment becomes paramount. The final section of the article centres on the growing link between the surgery’s failure and how it increases the protagonist’s ontological insecurity. He uses the diminishing amount of time available to him in search of understanding the fuller implications of the experiment. Eventually, he reverts to his initial rudimentary ontological security when he finds himself with the same intellectual level, as prior to the experiment.

This article extends the “material turn” in ontological security (OS) studies to include the OS politics of toponyms (place names). It does so by critically unveiling a crucial overlooked aspect of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict: The process whereby “Gaza Street” in Jerusalem, a “benign toponym” with a functional meaning, became an “abject toponym”—an ambiguous object that elicits anxiety and ontological insecurity since it blurs the boundaries between “self” and “other” and disturbs existing political and social orders. Integrating “walking as method” and “participatory IR,” ethnographic fieldwork, archival research, and textual analysis in an extensive six-year study, the article further delineates the various formal and informal ontological security-seeking strategies—ranging from elimination, distancing, and normalization to humor, denial, and integration—that diverse actors (street residents, business owners, municipal bureaucrats, passers-by, and civic and political activists) adopted to manage and contain the ontological insecurity emanating from this “abject toponym.” However, despite considerable efforts to “separate Gaza from Jerusalem” by overlooking, erasing, or replacing the connection between “Gaza Street” in Jerusalem and the Gaza Strip, the article demonstrates that the toponym “Gaza Street” prevails in Jerusalem, and Israel and the Gaza Strip remain intimately connected. The article concludes by highlighting its contribution in developing a new conceptual framework for studying toponymic abjection, and offering a novel typology of diverse OS-seeking strategies utilized vis-à-vis everyday abject objects, which can be applied on different scales (global, national, local) and across diverse political and geographical contexts.

Like success at the individual level, ideas of “winning” and “victory” in war have reaffirmed American exceptionalism, its place in the world, and its ontological security. This has been true in response to both policy successes and failures. As other studies have noted, the indeterminacy and longevity of the War on Terror has brought US perceptions of order and control into question, thus generating widespread ontological insecurity. Conducting a discourse analysis of the rhetoric of Presidents Bush, Obama, and Trump, this paper is the first to explore how the ideas of “winning” and “victory” have manifested themselves in political discourse on a national scale. All presidents utilized different components of American identity narratives for their own political purposes, but the inability to produce results commensurate with previous American wars produced significant national ontological insecurity in each case. Accordingly, this paper has implications for politics and policy. Contrary to scholarship that predicts that presidents will avoid predicting unrealistically short conflicts against transnational terrorist groups, the paper shows how the unique promise of ontological security associated with “victory” encourages presidents to use the decisive language of interstate warfare. However, the realities of postmodern war and great power competition mean that presidents will ultimately be unable to create a consensus around what “winning” or “victory” might look like in these conflicts, thus producing widespread ontological insecurity. In that way, the paper illustrates the significance of identity-based issues in policy evaluation processes.

Drawing on ontological security and recognition scholarships, this paper develops a theoretical framework for understanding the relationship between changing collective identity and foreign policy. I argue that the underlying impetus for changes in identity and foreign policy is the need for ontological security. A strong sense of ontological security emerges from the confluence of reflexive and social aspects of identity, suggesting that an ontologically secure Self is also a recognised Self. In IR ontological security-seeking at the state, societal and individual levels is closely intertwined, making individuals, societies, and states susceptible to international recognition. Since the state is responsible for negotiating external recognition of collective self-image and ensuring ontological security for individuals and groups subscribing to that self-image, misrecognition, or partial recognition of collective identity, will prompt the state to make three interrelated decisions concerning 1) the degree of state compliance with external recognition claims, 2) the extent of relative agential autonomy the state in question will choose to exercise in determining collective identity, and 3) the choice of foreign policy strategy to manage misrecognition and ontological insecurity. Drawing on Social Identity Theory (SIT) and stigma management literature, I distinguish between the strategies of emulative alignment, innovative creativity, and conflictual competition. This framework is used to explain recent changes in Russian identity and foreign policy.

Executive Summary This paper examines the ontological insecurities faced by Syrian refugees in Turkey following the 2023 earthquakes. Ontological security refers to the security of being, encompassing a sense of confidence in the apparent stability of the world. This concept is intimately linked to managing existential uncertainties and maintaining routines to ensure a sense of security. Previous literature indicates that uncertain situations, such as the COVID-19 pandemic and natural disasters, including earthquakes and floods, exacerbate ontological insecurities. Additionally, these challenging situations often intensify anti-refugee attitudes. Historically, the impact of earthquakes on individuals has been considered predominantly within the realm of physical security, a perspective critiqued by critical security scholars. In alignment with this critique, our study adopts an ontological security perspective to analyze the situations of Syrian refugees in Turkey post-earthquake, addressing a gap in the literature which has previously focused on the physical security aspects of Syrian refugees. While numerous studies documented the relationship between security and migration, fewer explored the nexus between ontological (in)security and migration in the context of natural hazards. This study addresses this gap by investigating how the recent earthquake heightened existing insecurities among Syrian refugees. Drawing on ontological security studies, narrative analysis, and data from in-depth, semi-structured interviews, the study finds that the vulnerabilities of Syrian refugees were intensified by the earthquake. Their perceptions of home, society, and future shifted significantly, decreasing their ontological security and exacerbating existing inequalities. Our findings suggest that the February 2023 earthquake posed threats to refugees beyond physical inadequacies, exacerbating the ontological insecurities of Syrian refugees in Turkey. This compounded their displacement-related existential anxieties and undermined their sense of stability and belonging by altering their perceptions of home, trust in public authorities, and their future. The earthquake significantly disrupted Syrian refugees’ understanding of “home” by compounding their sense of loss and insecurity, thereby challenging their ability to establish a stable, predictable environment essential for ontological security in Turkey. Furthermore, the earthquake altered Syrian refugees’ trust in public authorities. The government’s handling of the post-earthquake process significantly impacted refugees’ access to essential resources, with discriminatory practices and mobility restrictions amplifying their vulnerability and precariousness. The state’s crisis management capabilities and emphasis on border security, aimed at ensuring control, inadvertently increased refugees’ precariousness regarding their identity and future, leading to a loss of trust in public authorities. In addition to these challenges, the earthquake also changed Syrian refugees’ perception of their future in Turkey, causing them to question their safety and sense of belonging in the host society. Existing challenges faced by refugees were exacerbated by the earthquake and compounded by societal exclusion, further shattering their sense of stability and predictability. Post-earthquake, language barriers and stereotypes intensified, leading to increased discrimination and a reliance on informal survival networks, further diminishing their trust in the future. This heightened ontological insecurity, compounded by economic and social barriers, deepened divisions and made the refugees feel perpetually out of place, undermining their trust in Turkish institutions and society. Our suggestions and policy recommendations underscore the need for comprehensive policies that address both the physical and psychological dimensions of refugee well-being with reference to concrete policy designs in a post-disaster process. • To build trust in the post-disaster process for refugees, the government should ensure that central and local authorities distribute survival resources equally and transparently. • Clear communication channels must be implemented to keep affected communities informed about aid processes. • To address societal exclusion and improve refugees’ future outlook, the government should offer language training and translation services to help refugees navigate post-disaster process. • Providing critical information in multiple languages will ensure all community members are informed and can access aid. • Fostering community integration initiatives and supporting NGOs working specifically with refugees will promote interaction between refugees and host communities, building social cohesion. • Recognizing the importance of informal networks and incorporating them into formal aid structures, as well as supporting community-based organizations (particularly NGOs) that provide aid and support to refugees, is also essential.

This study evaluates inpatients' ontological insecurity and daily epidemic prevention behavior during the pandemic and explores the factors influencing daily epidemic prevention behaviors. The outbreak of coronavirus disease (COVID-19) in December 2019 caused a global public health crisis that has affected the very structure of society and the order of daily life. Ontological security is the ability to predict the impact of changes in social environments on personal security, such as during the pandemic. A cross-sectional study was used to collect data from 1185 inpatients of a hospital in Zhejiang, China, from July 11 to August 9, 2021. Our questionnaire recorded information on demographics, ontological insecurity, and daily epidemic prevention behaviors. The Mann-Whitney U test, Kruskal-Wallis H test, Spearman's correlation analysis, and logistic regression analysis were used to determine the influencing factors of daily epidemic prevention behavior on ontological security. Results showed a negative correlation between inpatients' ontological insecurity and daily epidemic prevention behavior (r = -.253, P < .001). The logistic regression analysis showed that the independent factors affecting daily epidemic prevention behavior include ontological insecurity (OR: 0.952; 95% CI: 0.937-0.968) (P < .001), sex (OR: 1.292; 95% CI: 1.004-1.663), age (OR: 0.880; 95%: 0.790-0.980), education (OR: 1.307; 95% CI: 1.098-1.556), and occupation [famers vs civil servants, staff or professional (OR: 0.596; 95% CI: 0.374-0.949),other versus civil servants, staff, or professional (OR: 0.693; 95% CI: 0.503-0.953)] (P < .05). Inpatients were shown to have good ontological security during the COVID-19 epidemic, younger patients, female patients, patients with stronger ontological security, patients with a higher educational level, and those who work in a fixed unit or organization showed higher levels of daily epidemic prevention behavior. Hospital managers should strengthen the intervention management of epidemic prevention behavior based on patient characteristics.

Introduction: Research has established that experiences of substance use and housing insecurity leads to violence, alienation, and health deterioration for women. However, no literature has assessed how the gendered nature of substance use and housing insecurity influence the ontological insecurity of women. This paper examines the relationship between ontological insecurity, substance use, and housing insecurity for women. We provide considerations for the theorization of ontological (in)security to account for gender. Methods: Feminist-informed interviews were conducted with 20 women who were clients of a safer supply program located in Kitchener-Waterloo, Ontario. Interviews took place in person, were audio-recorded, and transcribed. Interviews focused on women’s experiences of substance use and housing insecurity across their lives. Data analysis was guided by a feminist re-reading of the theory of ontological security. All women completed a socio-demographic questionnaire. Results: Most women were aged between 22 and 43 ( n = 11), with nine being over the age of 44. Fifteen women identified as white, with five identifying as First Nation, Indigenous, or Metis. Ten women resided in supportive housing units, five resided in transitional housing units, social service agency run motels, or in the private rental market, and five resided in tents or encampments. Women shared how gendered experiences of substance use and housing insecurity, which were associated with trauma and violence, contributed to perceptions of ontological insecurity. Dimensions of ontological insecurity which were discussed by women included a disrupted sense of self, instability, and a loss of autonomy. Conclusion: Our results demonstrate how mechanisms of ontological insecurity for women who use drugs and experience housing insecurity are engrained in the gendered structuring of society. These findings suggest that the current theorization of ontological (in)security is insufficient in examining complete mechanisms which promote ontological security or insecurity for women. Future work which explores ontological (in)security must consider the gendered ordering of society.

India is a rapidly growing democratic naval power. Moreover, its features such as the strong and fast-growing economy, newest military technologies and nuclear weapon make a big impression. Considering the other major powers, it seems that the world is becoming multipolar where India could have a significant role and become one of the major poles. It has been a subject for discussions among journalists and academics for a log time. On the other hand, there are a lot of discussions about India’s “friendly and mild” foreign policy; also, it is sometimes named the non-ambitious passive player in the international arena. The optimism with doubts: the paradoxical situation composed of the history of the impressive imperial civilization, modern-day economic growth, huge progress in technologies versus the major internal problems and “soft” state image. Here emerges the problem: why India’s foreign policy, despite its power growth, is still passive/neutral on the international arena? The hypotheses to answering this question are: 1. India’s role and status are restricted by its lack of power. 2. India’s role on the international arena is restricted by its ideological and neutrality traditions, which provide ontological security to India. The aim of this article is to ascertain and explore India’s status (regional or global) and to ascertain India’s role (self-identification) on the international arena by using the ontological security theory.The theoretical background of this essay is ontological security theory which ten years ago was absorbed from sociology and is quite new in the international relations and security studies. Its main arguments are: ontological security is the security of being; in addition to physical security, states also seek ontological security (security of the self); ontological security is achieved by routinizing relationships with significant others, after all players become attached to those relationships, even if they are dangerous to their physical security. This theory is strongly bound with the identity that India always gives the self culture prominence in its discourse and its friendly discourse in the Ministry of Defence annual reports. This is the reason why the ontological security theory was chosen to help understand and explain India’s foreign policy. First, links between ontological and traditional security are discussed in the first part of this work. There is a broad analysis of the assumptions of the ontological security theory in the same paragraph. Second, there is a short criticism of the ontological security. Finally, the ontological security theory as the India’s foreign policy explanation tool is discussed; the discourse analysis is introduced as a methodological instrument of the work, and the model of analysis of the second part of the work, is defined. The second part of the work contains the content analysis of experts’ articles and official documents of India’s Foreign Ministry, using the model defined in the previous part and ontological security for the results’ explanation.The analysis made in the second part of the work has shown that the ontological security theory is able to explain India’s foreign policy and does it. The first hypothesis (India’s role and status are restricted by its lack of power) was denied. This means that India can be a major global power. The second hypothesis (India’s role in the international arena is restricted by its ideological and neutrality traditions, which provide ontological security to India) was approved. Strictly, it means that India does not want to be a major power because of it self-identity and ontological security. India does not expose itself as a major power but thinks that is worth to be such. On the other hand, if India has absorbed the international politics routine form the British Empire, this could mean that India’s identity is to be a global power, but it does not want to publicise it yet.The study has shown that it is hard to regard India in the international community as a major power without special observation or using just the realism theory tools. Consequently, the ontological security theory has shown that it has the tools that can be used in countries’ foreign policy explanation.

Following the 2004 establishment of the World War II memorial in Washington DC, itself a product of the collective re-commemoration of the so-called ‘Greatest Generation’ of WWII veterans in the US, nonprofit organizations began the practice of ‘Honor flights’. These flights transported US veterans of the Second World War to Washington DC to visit that memorial and other commemorative sites, meet with Congressional members, and return to their local airports to great fanfare and celebration. The practice has evolved to incorporate Korean War and now Vietnam War veterans. As honor flights include much more than the veterans themselves, and as it has become an affectively charged festival for local communities to ‘honor’ their veterans during periods of unresolved wartimes, I articulate the Honor Flight as a treatment for – but also a symptom of – US ontological insecurity in the 21st Century. Honor flights are celebratory, judgmental, and political micro-practices that reflect and reproduce US militarism in ways that will likely outlast the wartimes of the 21st century United States. Along with other micro-practices of US ontological (in)security, Honor Flights threaten to destabilize the politics of military intervention hereafter, and encourage the extension of or inauguration of new times of war.

David Fell: What is Cool? Exploring Consumer Experiences Abstract The notion of cool, or the label of coolness with respect to people’s identity shaping practices, has fascinated scholars and marketers since its emergence in the mid-20th Century, but remains difficult to describe. Most previous studies frame it as a positive and desirable concept, but often theorise without seeking deeper empirical insights. CCT studies, however, advise exploration of historical discourses to understand difficult consumer phenomena. Disassembling cool, also unearthed many negative connotations. Cool seems edgy, so disturbances to psychological margins appear relevant. Anthony Giddens (1991) concept of ontological security describes a strong drive where individuals seek to create a sense of continuity and order in their lives. Its disturbance creating ontological insecurity, where identity or its boundaries seem threatened (Mitzen, 2006). As cool and ontological security/insecurity have not been previously connected in research, this thesis offers new theoretical insights. The subjectivity of cool summoned gathering a wide-range of consumer perspectives. I therefore developed an interpretive case-study methodology, exploring consumer experiences that were bounded by some describable cultural-forces. Two contemporary lifestyles commonly linked with cool; a) skateboarding and b) surfing provided contexts where individuals might be pursuing cool identities. A third anti-case; c) caravanning, provided a counterfoil, exhibiting few attributes associated with coolness. The case-studies involved 47 skateboarding, 31 surfing and 74 caravanning participants. Their insights and uncovered practices, allowed thematic, intertextual and emerging understandings of relationships between cool and various forms of ontological security and insecurity. My case-study research reveals those seeking coolness are often reacting to feelings of ontological insecurity. Driving a need to change by engaging in ‘reskilling’; deliberately seeking-out precarious, exciting, fateful encounters. Surmounting them leads to higher-levels of ontological security. Mastery indicating successful morality and the ability to share progressive futures. Colonising the future, though, also needs legitimate belonging to progressive communities. Conformance within them builds trust but also requires mastery of unique cultural practices, while shielding the edgy desirability of the identity. Cool, though, is far more than narcissistic survival, requiring a profound, broader-consciousness for negotiating various threats to ontological insecurity. Those successfully attaining higher-levels of ontological security through true, committed relationships, however, seem less concerned. Transposing their anxieties towards other threats; protecting jobs, property or their intimate relationships.

Despite continuing to be a strong tendency in international relations today, “state revisionism” has been theoretically and empirically understudied. This article attempts to fill the lacuna by further conceptualizing revisionism and subsequently investigating its relationship with ontological (in)security through studying the ways in which revisionist states envision their identities and interests and take measures to secure them. It argues that revisionists define their relationship with outside “Others” primarily in terms of dissatisfaction and self-extending change and thus find themselves operating within an enmity-centric “Hobbesian culture of anarchy,” which may ironically serve as a source of ontological security due to the consequent “singularity” status it confers upon them. By opposing the prevailing status quo, however, revisionists are likely to subject themselves to a “geopolitics of exclusion,” which in turn helps render them more prone to feelings of ontological insecurity. To instantiate the theory, I focus on Iran and its nuclear behavior, contending that it represents a case of “thin revisionism” aimed at attaining ontological security, but which also entails undesirable consequences that generate ontological insecurity. The case furthermore reveals the limits of seeking ontological security, suggesting that the degree of revisionism is usually checked by existential fears of threat to survival.

This article explores how ontological insecurity: fear of disruption to predictable existence, drives spatial reordering in the Kyrgyzstan–Tajikistan borderlands. What does this mean for those who live there? States respond by hardening territory, building infrastructure, and building bypass roads. Yet these anxiety-management techniques produce deeply uneven effects: some actors gain security; others are rendered more vulnerable. Drawing on borderland ethnography, the article reveals a central tension. On one hand, existential continuity is pursued through state-led control and demarcation. On the other hand, it is sustained through Ata-Jer (ancestral land relations) and everyday memories of cross-border coexistence – attachments that quietly subvert the very boundaries official practices seek to fix. These two logics do not simply oppose one another; they are co-constituted, shaping a political field where security for some rests on insecurity for others. By foregrounding this friction, the article advances a material and spatial account of ontological (in)security, showing that border-making does not resolve existential anxiety but redistributes it, highlighting the asymmetry of power.

The Mahakumbh, held at the confluence of the sacred rivers Ganga, Yamuna, and Saraswati, is an ancient spiritual and cultural event that offers profound lessons on unity, tradition, and faith. Rooted deeply in Indian culture, the Mahakumbh is not just a religious gathering, but a representation of the educational values passed through generations. It embodies the ideals of 'Vasudhaiva Kutumbakam' or the concept that the world is one family, promoting harmony across diverse cultures. This article explores how the Mahakumbh serves as an open university, imparting education through its rituals, collective participation, and cultural exchanges. It emphasizes the role of the Kumbh in educating humanity about tradition, faith, and cultural pride, as well as the importance of unity in diversity. Furthermore, the article highlights how modern technological advancements, such as QR codes, are integrated into this sacred event, bridging the gap between tradition and innovation. The Mahakumbh thus becomes a global symbol of spiritual, cultural, and social education, providing invaluable teachings for individuals and societies at large.

This paper analyses Romania’s foreign policy during the first post-communist years, by employing a theoretical viewpoint based on ontological security and trauma. It uncovers the elite efforts to secure the post-totalitarian state’s identity and international course. Romania’s search for ontological security featured the articulation of narratives of victimhood, which were linked with its proclaimed western European identity. The Romanian identity narrative has long struggled between “the West” and “the East”, trying to cope with traumatic historical events. These discursive themes and ontological insecurities were crystallized in the controversy surrounding the Romanian-Soviet “Friendship Treaty” (1991). Key Romanian officials displayed different typical responses to cultural trauma and debated the state’s path to ontological security, which was reflected in the foreign policy positions.

When ontological insecurity looms, what comes next? Is chaos the sole alternative to the maintenance of established role-identities and routines? Or is there a more complex set of possible responses to the dread threat of ontological insecurity? The principal approach to ontological security in International Relations (IR) relies unduly on Giddens' account. Consequently, this approach fails to adequately capture both the variety of ways in which coherent and continuous identities can be maintained and the variety of ways in which the available cultural repertoire can support ontological security differently when challenged. Typically, ontological security is re-established, prior to collapse, through re-balancing of the cultural repertoire to give broader scope to an alternative cultural form and the qualitatively different practices it organizes. Due to misrecognition, this reorganization may proceed without disturbing the ontological security of states-in-interaction. Unconscious processes, encoded into cultural forms, are integral to such variable defenses against ontological insecurity. A re-conceptualization that regards Wendt's cultures of anarchy, and their qualitatively different modes of relating, as dynamically co-present within cultural repertoires, but with potentially variable weightings, complements this approach to ontological in/security.