T0134: Human security in a world of insecurity: conflict resolution and the capability approach

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T0134

Human security in a world of insecurity: conflict resolution and the capability approach

Convenor:: PB Anand (University of Bradford)
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Chair:: Des Gasper (Erasmus University Rotterdam)

Discussant:: Enrica Chiappero (University of Pavia)

Format:: Thematic Panel

Theme:: Human security and wellbeing

Short Abstract:

The human security (HS) approach draws significantly from the philosophical foundations of the capability approach (CA). In this thematic panel, our aim is to re-consider some of the barriers and challenges to applying HS-CA analytical lenses to protracted and significant conflicts and post-conflict settings and identify priorities for policy and research.

Long Abstract:

Johan Galtung has been well-known for creating the ideas of negative and positive peace. For us within the HDCA community, Galtung's idea of positive peace resonates so much with the concept of capabilities and substantive freedoms that one has reason to value. In the context of current conflicts and extensive human suffering in terms of deaths, morbidity, and displacement, there is some urgency to adapt, use, and apply the capability approach to clarify what works and what does not and how we can influence actions that will not be mere wound dressing but contribute to significant institutional development. Gasper (2021) in chapter 29 in Martinetti et al (2021) noted: "While human development thinking has centred on capability, the ability to fulfill well-reasoned values, human security analysis looks from the other side, at vulnerability, exposure to risks and misfortune, and ability to prepare for, cope with and recover from threat and harm." This thematic panel aims to explore philosophical, methodological and practical approaches to applying human security (HS) and capability approach (CA) lenses to explain the different dimensions of vulnerabilities including due to climate, geography, economy, as well as local, national, regional, international conflicts and what new insights these lenses can provide than traditional conflict resolution theories or framings such as positive peace as used by the Global Peace Index of the Institute for Economics and Peace (2024). As Gasper noted in the conclusion of that chapter: "....Security is a language of priority-claiming, inevitably connected to power politics. But 'human security' language may help to counter the already entrenched priority-claiming by established privileged groups, and to converse with and broaden the thinking of security organisations". We welcome papers that explore specific conflict contexts or vulnerabilities of population groups or those that aim to extend or use the CA-HS lenses to identify relevant indicators to understand causal and associational factors influencing such vulnerabilities and whether and how we could use such analyses for mediation, conflict resolution and rebuilding long term human security and peace.

Accepted papers:

The importance and relevance of transdisciplinary methods to understand and apply a complex concept: human security in the Colombian context.

Eduardo Wills Wills (Universidad de lso Andes)

Paper short abstract:

In this paper we discuss, based on an applied case of victims from Colombia´s rural conflict, how human security models can be worked out from a transdisciplinary methods approach which stresses the importance of understanding local contexts as well as understanding subjective feelings of inscurity.

Paper long abstract:

Human security is proposed as a holistic concept to tackle security issues from a human-centered approach (UNDP Reports, 2021, 2022). We deal with a transdisciplinary concept that proposes security, not from a military–state concept of defense, but rather as a model to understand the fears that individuals and communities feel. Multiple external insecurities are involved. Interdependent uncertainties influence people´s and communities¨ feelings of insecurity according to their capacity for agency, their level of association and solidarity, and their particular world view which takes into account their vulnerabilities, needs, and fears.

A discussion about the relevant and valid methods that should be employed for that purpose becomes an important issue. I propose that transdisciplinary methods for research (Nicolescu, 2022) and action give important insights for designing and implementing new strategies on public policy. Transdiciplinarity becomes relevant when studies and policies are formulated in particular contexts, for instance in the case of land redistribution and restitution for victims of conflict in the case of Colombia.

Human security problems are unstructured problems in which it is important to involve the dimensions of being, feeling, and thinking of individuals and communities. They also require cooperative solutions. Fears of insecurities originate in the eye of the beholder and cannot be solved by fragmented, sectorial thinking. I stress the importance of assessing human insecurities directly from the dimensions of being, thinking, and feeling of the persons and groups involved. In this paper, I will discuss the fundamentals of transdisciplinary methods as proposed by Max-Neef (2005) and Fals Borda (2008). These authors develop approaches of participatory action research, involvement of different agents and stakeholders in their context, and social interactions through informal social networks,. In this regard, Heidegger´s insight of dasein ( being in the world) and the concepts of authenticity (1968) are important to be considered.

References

Fals Borda, O. (2008). Action research in the convergence of disciplines. International Journal of Action Research, 9(2): 155–167.

Heidegger, M. (1968). What is called thinking? (J. G. Gray, Trans.). New York: Harper Row.

Max Neef, M (2005). Foundations of Transdisciplinarity. Ecological Economics. Vol 53.

Nicolescu, B. (2002). Manifesto of transdisciplinarity (K.-C. Voss, Trans.). Albany, NY: State University of New York Press.

UNDP (United Nations Development Programme). 2022. Human Development Report 2021-22: Uncertain Times, Unsettled Lives: Shaping our Future in a Transforming World. New York.

UNDP (United Nations Development Programme). 2022. 2022 Special Report on Human Security. New York.

Human security in a world of insecurity: understanding water insecurity in the context of contested claims over water in space and time

PB Anand (University of Bradford) Anisha Samantara (University of Bradford)

Paper short abstract:

This paper aims to extend the human security and capability approach lenses to examine key dimensions of water and sanitation inequalities and the possible areas for policy and action.

Paper long abstract:

There are long term as well as temporary water inequalities in many cities in the Global South. These can be further exacerbated by conflicts including disputes of claims over water resources. In a previous work, one of us has explored the application of the capability approach (CA) to examining, explaining and resolving structural and systematic water inequalities (Anand, 2010). The aim of this paper is to connect both human security (HS) and the capability approach (CA) lenses to dig deeper into the headline level and also detailed indicators of the Sustainable Development Goal 6 and in particular in the context of sustainable cities and communities (SDG11).

In Political Liberalism, Rawls outlined a scheme for a just society and this scheme begins with a focus on basic liberties and mechanisms including constitutionalism, overlapping consensus, public reasoning as ways to achieve political liberalism. In trying to apply this schema in in the context of complex realities of Asia and Africa, we need to consider the existing mix of informal and formal institutions and how these converge in some instances but conflict in other instances. Where these do conflict, we can see that chaos is created with parallel and conflicting sets of norms or behavioural codes in existence.

Drawing upon the numerous papers of Gasper and the principles of justice enunciated in Sen (2007), we want to explore some of these real world cases including of flooding, droughts, water shortages and other rapid and well as slow onset climate induced disasters and how the pre-existing inequalities are accentuated by these disasters and some of the ways in which attempts are being made to reduce these highly unequal vulnerabilities. As Gasper noted, access to political power can be an important determinant here. Using civil society and grassroot action and documenting water inequalities including through the use of 'barefoot researchers' (Appadurai, 2005; PUKAR, 2022) and through participatory action research including community photography and videography can be a means to enhance public reasoning. We examine these and other approaches and some of the important ethical and pragmatic dilemmas.

Integrating feminist-decolonial approaches and Human Security thinking and practice.

Su-ming Khoo (University of Galway)

Paper short abstract:

This paper draws on feminist, decolonial, and ecological practices of collective struggle and organization. Decolonial ‘double translation’ compels human security theory and practice to centre the least-advantaged, and keep open a transnational feminist dialogue on universalism and vulnerabilities.

Paper long abstract:

This paper extends theorizing towards more ‘operational’ HS concerns, looking to progressive, but also highly contested expansions of universality and social solidarity, drawing from feminist, decolonial and ecological practices of collective struggle and organization (Davis 2016). The decolonial idea of ‘double translation’ (centring marginal perspectives, and engaging in multiple horizontal dialogues, Meghji 2023) challenges and exceeds the colonial fractures of race, gender and ecology (Ferdinand 2022). It compels human security theory and practice to centre perspectives from the least-advantaged, while keeping open a transnational feminist dialogue on universalism (Khader 2019) and vulnerabilities (Fineman 2017).

Practical strategies could then include engaging in horizontal or ‘pluriversal’ dialogue (Meghji 2023; Mignolo 2002), learning from social movement knowledge (Cox 2014), and anticolonial perspectives (Patel 2023), and using decolonial tools in education (Andreotti 2016) and social dialogues (Meghji 2023). Responses can be coordinated to minimize harm within communities of the already-disadvantaged (Whyte 2020), and consider essential resources required for care and social reproduction (Vergés, 2021; Bhattarcharya 2017). The discussion emphasises how colonial fractures constitute oppression, obstruct, and disable solidarity from the onto-epistemic realm outwards. It considers the role of political struggle, education, and ‘reverse tutelage’ (Meghji 2024), and not only policy and distributional strategies, to address the deep roots of insecurities that are unequally, viscerally, and vitally experienced.

References

Andreotti, V. (2016). The educational challenges of imagining the world differently. Canadian Journal of Development Studies/Revue canadienne d’études du développement, 37(1), 101-112

Bhattarcharya, T (2017) Social Reproduction Theory: Remapping Class, Recentering Oppression. London: Pluto Press

Cox Laurence. (2014). “Movements Making Knowledge: A New Wave of Inspiration for Sociology?” Sociology 48(5):954–71.

Davis, AY (2016) Freedom Is a Constant Struggle : Ferguson, Palestine, and the Foundations of a Movement. London: Haymarket Books.

Ferdinand, M (2022) Decolonial Ecology: Thinking from the Caribbean World, translated by Anthony Paul Smith . Cambridge: Polity

Fineman, MA (2017) Vulnerability and Inevitable Inequality, Oslo Law Review 4,3, 133–149

Khader, S (2019) Decolonizing Universalism: A Transnational Feminist Ethic. Oxford: Oxford University Press

Khoo, S (forthcoming, under review) A Vital Sociology

Khoo, S (2023) Humane Security: Solidarity in Policy and Practice, Journal of Human Development and Capabilities, 24:2, 284-293, DOI: 10.1080/19452829.2023.2200241

Khoo, S (2022) Humane security and crisis epistemology - On (not) changing the referent subject, Paper presented at HDCA 2022 Antwerp, 21 September 2022.

Meghji, A (2024) From Public Sociology to Sociological Publics: The Importance of Reverse Tutelage to Social Theory, Sociological Theory