Human Insecurity Research Articles

Reframing the Debate on Migration, Development and Human Rights

ABSTRACTThe relationship between migration, development, and human rights is a topic of growing interest among international organisations, academics, and civil society organisations. To varying degrees, international organisations such as the World Bank and the International Organization for Migration see remittances as an essential tool in the development of migrant‐sending, underdeveloped countries. They also envisage international migration management as a core element in the design and implementation of migration policies that are apparently beneficial for all parties. We argue that this perspective, which has dominated the academic and policy agendas, is essentially one‐sided, de‐contextualised, reductionist, and misleading. It overlooks the realm of neoliberal globalisation and unequal development in which contemporary migration is embedded. It also disregards human and labour rights as central and intrinsic elements of coherent migration and development policies, as well as the exploitation, social exclusion, human insecurity, and criminalisation suffered by international migrants. In addition, it masks most of the fundamental contributions made by migrants to the destination countries and ignores the costs of migration for the countries of origin; costs that go far beyond the overemphasised ‘positive’ impact of remittances. The purpose of this article is to provide some key elements for reframing the debate on migration, development, and human rights with particular emphasis on the promotion of a comprehensive, inclusive, and human‐centred alternative agenda. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Quality of life, human insecurity, and distress among Palestinians in the Gaza Strip before and after the Winter 2008–2009 Israeli war

This study investigates changes in the quality of life (QoL) of Gaza Palestinians before and after the Israeli winter 2008-2009 war using the World Health Organization's WHOQOL-Bref; the extent to which this instrument adequately measures changing situations; and its responsiveness to locally developed human insecurity and distress measures appropriate for context. Ordinary least squares regression analysis was performed to detect how demographic and socioeconomic variables usually associated with QoL were associated with human insecurity and distress. We estimated the usual baseline model for the three QoL domains, and a second set of models including these standard variables and human insecurity and distress to assess how personal exposure to political violence affects QoL. No difference between the quality of life scores in 2005 and 2009 was found, with results suggesting lack of sensitivity of WHOQOL-Bref in capturing changes resulting from intensification of preexisting political violence. Results show that human insecurity and individual distress significantly increased in 2009 compared to 2005. Results indicate that a political domain may provide further understanding of and possibly increase the sensitivity of the instrument to detect changes in the Qol of Palestinians and possibly other populations experiencing intensified political violence.

Human Insecurity: Understanding International Migration from a Human Security Perspective

This article examines contemporary, mass migration from the perspective of human security. It tracks the development of the human security model of international relations, and compares it to the well-established state security model that has served as the dominant paradigm for international relations since the seventeenth century. The article argues that human security offers a more effective approach to many of the underlying problems and threats associated with mass migration, than does the traditional state-security model. It challenges national and international authorities to address threats to human security, in order to minimize forced migration and to create the conditions for migration by choice, not necessity.

Shopping and Insecurity: Visualizing the Aid/Other Nexus

That the phenomenon of Brand Aid—that is, the “combined meaning of ‘aid to brands’ and ‘brands that provide aid'” (Richey and Ponte ⇓:10)—sits firmly at the intersection of international political economy, global health-care policies, and marketing, is powerfully brought out by Lisa Richey and Stefano Ponte in their important book, Brand Aid: Shopping Well to Save the World , as well as by the other contributions to this Forum. One idea that the book does not pursue, however, is how Brand Aid, as embodied by and enacted through Product Red (RED), speaks to political and academic debates over the securitization of HIV/AIDS (Elbe ⇓). Thus, this contribution is concerned with the way in which RED raises—but also evades—questions of international, human and gendered insecurity. Considering the extensive securitization of HIV/AIDS by politicians, international organizations, and the media, within the North as well as the South, the absence of RED branding is striking. As Richey and Ponte's work shows, RED is situated on a political and discursive terrain cognizant of HIV/AIDS's securitization, but it refrains from both “security speech acts” that authoritatively declare HIV/AIDS to be a threat to “Africa,” and the familiar stable of images depicting suffering, dying, AIDS-afflicted women and children (Bleiker and Kay ⇓). Yet, viewed through the lens of security, RED invokes a remarkable ambiguity. The gratification promised the shopper/savior hinges on a securitization logic, because if combating HIV/AIDS is not an urgent issue warranting our …

Not going back

There is a temptation, probably based on all sorts of primaeval human insecurities, to go back. Stephen Hancocks speculates that it applies just as much to dental practice as it does to other fields of life and work.

The Humanitarian Side of Statelessness; Statelessness within the Framework of the Millennium Development Goals

The issue of statelessness has begun to receive attention from a legal perspective. While this work should be commended and continue this article argues that we should also remember that at its core statelessness is a human issue that deeply affects the lives of those who suffer from it. It causes and perpetuates, amongst other things, extreme poverty and human insecurity. Statelessness is still greatly under-examined and under-appreciated as a potentially significant barrier to progress in the humanitarian and development fields. This piece aims to begin to situate statelessness as an important issue within these fields. This is done by taking the framework of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) and looking at how statelessness affects the realization of each and every goal. This approach shows that by overlooking statelessness development actors and agencies could be failing to meet the needs of the world’s poorest. While far from being a comprehensive analysis of all available literature on statelessness and its relationship to each goal, this article is as an exploratory piece with the aim of encouraging development actors and agencies to recognise the importance of statelessness in their current and future projects and work to gain a greater understanding of the relationship between statelessness, poverty and human insecurity.

Deconstructing the National Security State – Towards a New Framework of Analysis

The concept of national security is merely an elite tool, which causes human insecurity at home and abroad. Our perception of what and from whom we need to be secured is not based on the actual threats that exist, but on the threats that we are told to perceive by the state. Thus, terrorists, drugs, illegal immigrants, “Third World” dictators, rogue states, blacks, non-Christians, and the Other, are considered as threats to the national security apparatus, and consequently, as threats to the individual American. This state construction of threats pervades our minds, causing a trickle-down effect that encourages a culture of fear, where the only limit to the coming danger is our imagination. Thus, national security and human security are contrary to one another, and we need a paradigm shift in our notions of security, which squarely places the individual and civil society at the center of the security framework.

Human Insecurity: Understanding International Migration from a Human Security Perspective

Human Insecurity: Understanding International Migration from a Human Security Perspective

Solidarity and Human Insecurity: Rethinking Solidarity from the Point of View of Africa

AbstractThe practice of family solidarity is a fact in African societies even if the people are facing all kinds of risks from an early age, before they exert their activity to take charge. There is lack of civil protections as “social security” which covers individuals from illness and other risks thus transforming African societies into scenes where violence and social insecurity reigns. Under these conditions, the freedom of the individual is in question as well as the protection of citizens, taking into account the risks to life, work, education, health, other environment. The social role to be played by the rule of law is also in question. But the bond of solidarity is primarily ethical. It binds one human to another, beyond the laws and social institutions.

Thinking critically about food security

This article examines the tension between food security as strategic practice and as the human insecurity of hunger. It makes the case that hunger is a security matter that warrants greater attention from security scholars, but identifies some limitations with state-centric and human security approaches. The article explores Ken Booth’s ‘emancipatory realism’ security project as one avenue for overcoming these limitations and uses Booth’s work to assist in developing a reframing of food security. It proposes redefining food security in terms of securing vulnerable populations from the structural violence of hunger, and argues that such a framing offers both conceptual and practical value for efforts to confront the problem of increasing and widespread hunger.

Building on What's Already There

Twenty years have passed since release of Boutros Boutros-Ghali's influential agenda for The publication of this document coincided with a rapid expansion in United Nations -mandated complex humanitarian interventions, as well as with new efforts to apply postconflict as an operative framework for restoring and wellbeing to societies fractured by armed conflict. The present anniversary provides an opportunity not just for retrospective thinking about impact of past international efforts, but also for prospective thinking about how next 20 years might be more dynamic and sustainably effective.The advent of as an evolving practice supported by United Nations has created new opportunities for coordinating constructive responses to protracted conflict. Given its aspiration to develop instrumentalities for addressing root causes of violence and establishing foundations for stable peace, represents a significant development in thinking about problems of human insecurity, and helps to shape collective intentionality in ways that support lasting solutions. Nonetheless, deficits and challenges in contemporary practices must be faced squarely if we are to define a new or renewed agenda for decades ahead. Increased international capacity to mitigate organized violence and provide relief to suffering populations has not yet been matched with a corresponding ability to make stick or to avoid dangers and pitfalls associated with large-scale external intervention in fragmented and frague societies. Activities undertaken in name of have often marginalized local actors, proceeded in ways that did not adequately respond to local expectations and needs, and at times replaced one set of problems with another. In many cases, efforts to transplant through international efforts yield disappointing results - a temporary reduction in armed violence, but not a robust and deeply rooted process of reconstruction and social transformation.In light of these challenges, there is a need to acknowledge local agency and empowerment as one of foremost challenges of contemporary practice. If a special commission were to rewrite agenda for peace to incorporate lessons from last 20 years of experience, its authors would be well advised to localize peace - that is, to partner with local actors to tap indigenous resources and energize context- specific processes - as a central goal of 21st century efforts.FROM GALTUNG TO BOUTROS-GHALI AND BEYONDPeacebuilding is a subject and activity that predates work of United Nations' sixth secretary-general, but that was nonetheless substantially influenced by his contributions. In its early uses, term peacebuilding held currency almost exclusively among academic specialists in enterprise known as research. Though research tradition is seldom credited for its impact on Boutros Boutros-Ghali' s formulation, intellectual fingerprints of scholars are readily apparent. An early usage of term can be found in writings of Johan Gaining, who conceptualized it as one of three approaches to peace, alongside peacekeeping and peacemaking. Like Boutros-Ghali, Galtung contrasts with both peacekeeping and peacemaking. He describes peacekeeping as a dissociative path to peace: the antagonists are ktipt away from each other under mutual threats of considerable punishment if they transgress, particularly if they transgress into each other's territory.1 In contrast, Galtung designates peacemaking as the conflict resolution and as the associative approach.2 Critical of traditional approaches to keeping through threat and coercion, Galtung offers a qualified endorsement of conflict resolution approach - provided it is not merely an effort to paper over deep inequalities and divisions - and presents a case for as a process of change that seeks to redress global as well as intra-national structural violence by building nonexploitative structures and infrastructures of peace. …

Unfree Again: Social Reproduction, Flexible Labour Markets and the Resurgence of Gang Labour in the UK

Abstract: The reproduction of human insecurity in contemporary capitalist societies is linked to the need to “produce” labour at a price that permits the realisation of surplus value, and crises of social reproduction (both generalised and specific). In this paper I use a social reproduction lens to focus on the example of the emergence, and recent resurgence, of gang labour in the UK. I look first at the gang labour system, its evolution, and processes and institutions of regulation. The paper then examines the ways in which the gang labour system sheds light on interrelationship of relations of production and reproduction, processes of class formation, and how the power of supermarkets and the political imperative to keep food costs down, which are related to patterns of migration and racialisation, privilege the reproduction of some workers over others. This in turn signals the need to engage with the role and significance of unfree labour in contemporary economies.

When Should We Care About Sustainability? Applying Human Security as the Decisive Criterion

It seems intuitively clear that not all human endeavours warrant equal concern over the extent of their sustainability. This raises the question about what criteria might best serve for their prioritisation. We refute, on empirical and theoretical grounds, the counterclaim that sustainability should be of no concern regardless of the circumstances. Human security can serve as a source of criteria that are both widely shared and can be assessed in a reasonably objective manner. Using established classifications, we explore how four forms of sustainability (environmental, economic, social, and cultural) relate to the four pillars of human security (environmental, economic, sociopolitical, and health-related). Our findings, based on probable correlations, suggest that the criteria of human security allow for a reliable discrimination between relatively trivial incidences of unsustainable behavior and those that warrant widely shared serious concern. They also confirm that certain sources of human insecurity, such as poverty or violent conflict, tend to perpetuate unsustainable behavior, a useful consideration for the design of development initiatives. Considering that human security enjoys wide and increasing political support among the international community, it is to be hoped that by publicizing the close correlation between human security and sustainability greater attention will be paid to the latter and to its careful definition.

Food riots as representations of insecurity: examining the relationship between contentious politics and human security

The 2007–08 global food crisis saw the eruption of a wave of contentious action across the developing world, represented most clearly by the food riot. Food riots are sudden, unexpected events, presenting a challenge to the state that moves beyond simple demands for food. The upheaval caused by a food riot can lead to lasting instability and violence as social and political structures are challenged. The aims of the article are to: (1) identify the character of contemporary food riots in relation to traditional forms; (2) determine the extent to which food riots can be seen to represent broader human insecurity; and (3) demonstrate the utility of contentious actions in demonstrating insecurity. This article examines the causes of the 2007–08 wave of food riots in relation to earlier manifestations. The findings show that the contemporary food riots have similar origins to their historical counterparts. The article also shows that food riots are a clear sign of insecurity, demonstrating the benefit of examining contentious politics in this context.

Turkish culture of migration: Flows between Turkey and Germany, socio-economic development and conflict

In this paper we explore the rise of Turkey as a destination for new migrants including the children of Turks and Kurds who emigrated to Europe and Germany over the last five decades. An environment of social, economic and human insecurity dominated migration from Turkey to Europe and in particular Germany over the last five decades; and today, shifts in Turkish society, economy and security are attracting migrants to the country. Ethnic conflicts were one key factor driving migration in the past and as we note, they continue to moderate the relationship between socio-economic development and emigration rates for Kurdish movers in the present. Nevertheless, we argue that the growth of the Turkish economy and increasing social freedoms support an increase in immigration to Turkey. Immigration to Turkey includes returnees as well as second and third generation Turks from Germany among other places.

Peace, security and global climate change: the vital role of China

Climate change presents much of the world, and possibly most of it in the long term, with chronic human insecurity. More than any other country, China has become a central actor in the practical and political aspects of this problem. On a practical level, it is the largest national source of greenhouse gases (GHGs) causing global warming, and the rapid increase in its GHG emissions means that its contribution to climate change will continue to grow for some time. Politically, China's role in climate change diplomacy is crucial to so-far failed efforts by states to reach consensus on robust efforts to reduce GHG pollution and to respond to the inevitable consequences of climate change. China's domestic policy responses to the problem convey important signals that will influence the behaviour of other national actors. Without China playing a major part in efforts to curb GHG pollution, notably through limitations on its future emissions, international efforts to mitigate global warming substantially will certainly fail.

Netwar Geopolitics: Security, Failed States and Illicit Flows

Recent and emerging security policies and practices claim a mutual vulnerability that closely links human insecurity in failed states with the threat to powerful states from illicit flows. This article first examines this ‘emerging orthodoxy’ of transnational security issues that reinforces the securitisation of poverty and the poor. It then subjects this orthodoxy to theoretical and empirical critique. Theoretically it shows that this orthodoxy is formed as a ‘geopolitical imagination’ that associates and stabilises particular views of weak states and illicit flows in a ‘netwar imagination’ by reasserting and reconfiguring traditional assumptions of the spatiality and nature of threats. A final empirical section, focusing on drug production and nuclear smuggling, argues that those assumptions and their assemblage are a partial, incomplete and often self-referential reading of illicit flows.

The ‘human’ as referent object?

Humanitarianism rivals security in its ability to legitimize emergency measures, and has also proven to be as ambiguous and open to abuse. In this article, humanitarianism is reconceptualized as a sector of securitization, like state and societal securitization, meaning that it is a structured field of practice that draws on existing discourses and institutions to enable the implementation of emergency measures. This reconceptualization contributes to the theory of securitization by expanding its applicability beyond states and societies to humans as referent objects, but also by challenging the Copenhagen School’s conceptualization of normality/exceptionality at the domestic and international levels. Drawing on the humanitarian securitization of the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami, the article demonstrates how the structured security field of humanitarianism privileges particular actors in speaking to human insecurity, and how the humanitarian discourse reifies and reinforces a monolithic form of human identity. The article draws attention to the process of representing developments as humanitarian emergencies and uses the framework of securitization to critically examine the discourses, practices and agents of humanitarianism.

Remaking Canadian identity: A critical analysis of Canada's human security discourse

In the late 1990s, Canada was at the forefront of promoting the human security agenda internationally. It is generally argued that Canada's human security policy was not an accidental element of Canadian foreign policy but a natural expression of Canadian identity and Canada's international reputation as good international citizen, peacekeeper and honest broker. This paper takes a more sceptical approach towards the overarching humanistic tone in Canada's foreign policy under its human security agenda. It argues that Canada's human security agenda discursively reconstructs Canadian identity. This 'humanist-activist' agenda recalls the essentialist claims of Canadian identity by naturalising the idea of Canadian goodness; thereby it enhances the social control of the population by masking 'human insecurities' within Canada. The paper argues that while Canadian discourse on human security claims to encourage a bottom-up approach to security, it works ironically as an elitist policy, which endorses an ideal form of identity and governance in Canada.

Sources of Human Insecurity in Post-War Situations: The Case of Gaza.

This paper explores classical and war-related factors associated with human insecurity reports in the Gaza Strip following the winter 2008-09 Israeli attack. A cross-sectional survey was conducted six months after the Israeli attack with adults from 3017 households. Results demonstrate that persons with greater human capital and socioeconomic resources were somewhat protected from human insecurity associated with the attack and siege. Results also underscore the significance of including both classical and war-related factors in assessing human insecurity in conflict, and the link between individual and communal/national security. While it is important to intervene by supporting Gazans with food and aid, interventions should also address the violence of war and ongoing siege as one of the causes of human insecurity.