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- Convenors:
-
Des Gasper
(Erasmus University Rotterdam)
Su-ming Khoo (University of Galway)
Michael Drinkwater (NA)
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- Format:
- Thematic Panel
- Theme:
- Human security and wellbeing
Short Abstract:
The first of two sessions by the Human Security Thematic Group, on connecting the issues and ideas in the recent UNDP reports on human security to existing compatible practical approaches and theoretical/ methodological perspectives. This session looks at possible links to, especially, Max-Neef's Human Scale Development, collective capabilities work, and feminist-decolonial thinking.
Long Abstract:
This is a proposal from the Human Security Thematic Group, for a thematic panel consisting of two sessions, as permitted in the conference call for papers. The coordinators are the three coordinators of the TG: Des Gasper, gasper@iss.nl; Michael Drinkwater, drinkwatermichael@gmail.com ; Su-Ming Khoo, suming.khoo@universityofgalway.ie .
Given multiple overlapping global crises of conflict, environmental change, health, democratic legitimacy, and more, the concept of human security, and its partner ‘human insecurity’, are frequently turned to in both theorizing and practice. It has been the subject of the 2022 UNDP Special Report on Human Security and the subsequent Human Development Report 2021/22: Uncertain Times, Unsettled Lives: Shaping Our Future in a Transforming World. Currently (end-February) a progress report on Human Security is being prepared by the UN Secretary-General for the General Assembly.
The human security policy model that was presented in the Special Report added a focus on Solidarity, and a deepened emphasis on Agency, to the elements of Empowerment and Protection that have been familiar since the 2003 Commission on Human Security. How to fulfil these elements in contexts of 'unsettled lives' is the challenge.
This two-session panel connects the issues and ideas raised in this series of reports to possibilities for policy and action in various locations and levels, including by seeking linkages to existing compatible practical approaches, e.g. from Max-Neef, Scharmer, and applied capabilities approaches (especially on collective capabilities), and potential partner theoretical/ methodological perspectives, including from feminist-decolonial thinking and transdisciplinary approaches.
The proposal addresses Conference theme 3: Human security and wellbeing, and also Conference theme 5: Social solidarity, grassroots approaches, and collective action. Two papers discuss Colombia, whose government declared human security as a lead policy principle in 2022.
The panel is part of a work programme towards a book on the new generation of human security thinking and practice, that aims to draw on the Thematic Group’s sessions in a series of conferences, webinars and discussions. Previous meetings included considerable attention to conceptual architecture, as well as some case studies of policy practices. In this meeting the balance of attention shifts towards operationalization through partnerships with relevant available partner approaches and practical methods as well as further case studies of practice.
The design for the two sessions is this:
SESSION 1: INTELLECTUAL PARTNERSHIPS IN POLICY APPROACHES
• Des Gasper: Vehicles and partners for Human Security thinking – thoughts from reviewing BRAC and Human Scale Development
• Michael Drinkwater: Reconnecting the Human Security agenda to capabilities theory
• Su-ming Khoo: Integrating feminist-decolonial approaches and Human Security thinking and practice.
SESSION 2: CASE STUDIES
• Oscar Gomez: The human security concept as a guide for development planning - The case of the Colombian National Development Plan 2022-2026
• Eduardo Wills: The importance and relevance of transdisciplinary methods to understand and apply a complex concept: Human security in the Colombian context.
• Plenary discussion, also in relation to publication plans. Alternatively, if the conference organisers suggest a relevant good quality paper(s) that has been separately submitted, it can be considered for possible addition to the panel.
Accepted papers:
Paper short abstract:
Keywords: participatory approaches; synergistic satisfiers; collective capabilities This paper looks at locally led and grounded development approaches , their capability elements and links to the contemporary human security framework and the transition challenges we face today.
Paper long abstract:
The key elements of the UN’s Human Security framework that focus on agency, empowerment, solidarity and protection, all need to be grounded in dialogical approaches that link locally led initiatives horizontally and collaboratively. Plenty of theorists talk about the value of generative, locally grounded action (e.g., Scharmer and Kaufer 2013, Max-Neef 1991, Guillen-Royo 2016). This paper looks at the capability elements required to address these human security challenges.
• First, there is a large measure of agreement that transition initiatives towards a sustainable economy and society need to be locally generated, while supported by enabling governmental policies, laws, regulations. Max-Neef’s Human-Scale Development (HSD) (Max-Neef 1991), elaborated by Guillen Royo (2016) and others, for example, is a form of locally led development, as are the participatory approaches that gained traction in the 1990s (e.g. Chambers 1997).
• Second, one question arising is the link between satisfiers in the Max-Neef model and capabilities in Sen’s and Nussbaum’s approaches. Many HSD satisfiers are capabilities, especially those in the non-goods categories, and can be used to develop further a set of capabilities sufficient for a human security approach. Guillen-Royo (2016) develops, for example, through community workshops sets of ‘synergic bridging satisfiers’, and some of these can be soon too as capabilities. This link will be explored.
• Third, we need to address the role and nature of collective capabilities, which are essential to the advancement of solidarity and forms of HSD. The types of satisfiers talked about in the Max-Neef approach, and any focus on solidarity, empowerment, agency and locally led development, can generate thinking around the form of collective capabilities required. Guillen-Royo (2016) notes how her workshop participants agree that collective activism and networking are synergistic satisfiers, and these can be seen as collective capabilities.
The final section of the paper will link this discussion on capabilities in HSD approaches back to the UNDP human security framework (UNDP 2022) and its emphases on agency and solidarity in addition to protection and empowerment. Bringing these threads together aids thinking on locally led human development approaches, and how these might aid transition to more sustainable societies and economies more centrally.
Chambers, Robert (1997) Whose Reality Counts? Putting the first last, Rugby: Practical Action Publishing.
Guillen-Royo, Monica (2016) Sustainability and Wellbeing: Human scale development in practice, London: Routledge.
Max-Neef, Manfred (1991) Human Scale Development: Conception, Application and Further Reflection, London: Apex Press.
Paper short abstract:
Human security thinking contributes in norm setting, intellectual framing, and policy orientation, but less as a concrete policy planning approach. Perhaps the task is to link it to existing practical approaches. The paper investigates two: Max-Neef’s Sustainable HD approach; and the BRAC approach.
Paper long abstract:
Human Security thinking covers a series of domains:
1. Human security as a concept and norm/set of norms (e.g., freedom from fear, from want, from indignity)
2. Human security as an intellectual frame that underlies the conceptualization and that functions for describing and analysing situations so as to understand (non-)fulfilment of the norm(s) and aid its/their pursuit
3. Human security as a policy philosophy/perspective for furthering the norm(s), that emphasizes themes of precautionary investment, common security, public goods, solidarity, etc.
4. Human security tools, instruments and detailed policy formats, such as human (in)security indicators and indexes, ‘hotspot’ mapping, etc., and structured packages of procedures and tools as in agencies’ manuals (e.g., UN Human Security Unit).
Human security thinking makes valuable contributions at levels 1, 2 and 3 (e.g., UNDP 2022). Some commentators express dissatisfaction regarding its evolution at level 4. However, there is perhaps a danger of reinventing the wheel. Is the main task instead to link HS thinking at levels 1-3 to existing approaches relevant at level 4? This paper investigates two examples, of different types.
First, Max-Neef (1991)’s Sustainable Human Development approach has a strong record of combining inspirational appeal and practical applicability for supporting local communities (Guillen-Royo 2016, Gasper 2024).
Second, Smillie (2009) presents a model of the learning human-development organization, from study of BRAC, from its establishment in 1971 to becoming the world’s largest NGDO. Trying to respond to the systemic insecurity faced by poor Bangladeshis (Wood 2007), BRAC’s founders gradually realized that urban outsiders did not already understand the nature of rural poverty or how to tackle it, so needed to engage in long-term processes of learning via experimentation and review, and to build systems and institutions for doing so.
Gasper, D., 2024. Understanding Max-Neef’s model of human needs as a practical toolkit for supporting development work and societal transitions. Ch.4 in: Beyond Ecological Economics and Development, eds. Luis Valenzuela-Rivera & María del Valle Barrera. Routledge.
Guillén-Royo, M. 2016. Sustainability and wellbeing: Human scale development in practice. Routledge.
Human Security Unit. 2016. Human Security Handbook. United Nations.
Max-Neef, M. 1991. Human scale development. Apex Press.
Smillie, Ian. 2009. Freedom from Want, Kumarian Press.
UNDP, 2022. New threats to human security in the Anthropocene. New York.
Wood, Geof. 2007. The Security of Agency: Analysing Poor People’s Search for Security. Conference paper.