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Reconciling the Geographies of Human Security
Karen O’Brien
Department of Sociology and Human Geography
University of Oslo, Norway
WUN SEMINAR
NOVEMBER 14, 2006
Lecture Outline
• Definitions of human security;• Human security and the geography of
inequalities;• Human security and the geography of
interconnections;• Individual and ”collective/connective” human
security – a case of cognitive dissonance;• Examples from climate change research;• Reconciling the two geographies of human
security.
Human Security – the concept
• Freedom from fear, freedom from want (1945);• Safety from chronic threats, protection from disruptions. Seven
dimension of human security: personal, environmental, economic, political, community, health, and food security (UNDP 1994);
• ”The objective of human security is to safeguard the vital core of all human lives from critical pervasive threats, in a way that is consistent with long-term fulfillment (Human Security Commission, 2003);
• Human Security is achieved when and where individuals and communities have the options necessary to end, mitigate or adapt to threats to their human, environmental and social rights; have the capacity and freedom to exercise these options; and actively participate in pursuing these options (GECHS 1999).
Human Security – the discourse
• Includes normative claims: equity, justice and fairness;
• Disaggregates to the level of individuals;• Recognizes that threats and risks will affect
individuals differentially.
Human Security – strengths and weaknesses
+ an integrative concept that “directs us to examine major connections, across the disciplinary and national boundaries...” (Gasper 2005, p. 238).
+ a policy-based discourse
+ has both protective and enabling dimensions
+ a political and theoretical concept
- too much attention to the unit of analysis, not enough attention to the interplay between levels of analysis
- notion of security has been ”militarized”
Human security and the geography of inequalities
• Recognizes deep social and economic inequalities;
• Emphasizes the role of context;• Focuses on structures that create insecurities
based on race, class, caste, gender, age, or simply place;
• Relational aspects: one individual’s security is often another’s insecurity.
Human security and the geography of interconnection
• Takes a broader view of human security, as not only collective, but ”connective”;
• Sees humans as part of a larger ”global system”, where processes and outcomes are linked over space and time.
Cognitive dissonance?
• Tensions in distinguishing between individual human security and collective/connective human security;
• Exemplified by climate change, where the uneven outcomes are superimposed on a geography of inequalities and inequities; Climate change is likely to transform the context for human security, creating new and potentially unexpected outcomes;
• Difficulties relating individual dimensions of human security to collective-connective dimensions.
Climate change as an equity issue
• Not everyone contributes equally;• Not everyone has an equal voice in deciding
what to do about it;• Not everyone will be equally affected – some
will benefit, others are highly vulnerable;• Vulnerability analyses can be used to identify
where, how and why human security may be affected by climate change.
Climate change as a global issue
• Individuals and communities exist as part of a larger context, and changing the larger context (warmer temperatures, extreme climate events, sea level rise, melting of glaciers, etc.) is likely to affect both the secure and the insecure;
• Examples: Melting of Arctic sea ice, Changing variability and extreme events.
The Northern Sea Route
• New opportunities: for shipping, trade, consumption; for northern communities; for countries/companies who have oil and mineral rights;
• Equity dimensions: may negatively influence resource-based livelihoods, and individuals and communities who cannot adapt to rapid change;
• Collective/connective dimensions: sea level rise, coastal storms, accelerated warming.
Changing variability and extreme events
• The magnitude and frequency of extreme events will change with the climate;
• Many small-scale farmers are already vulnerable to current variability;
• The capacity to adapt to changing conditions is unequal.
Source: Smit and Pilisofova 2003
Adaptive capacities differ, whether we are talking about Norway or India.
Cognitive dissonance & climate change• Results when beliefs in the individual dimension of
human security are held firm, in the face of growing evidence of the interconnected dimension;
• E.g.,a belief in benefits from the Northern Sea Route does not resonate with the possibility of losses that can result from climate change (temporal dissonance);
• E.g., a belief in the struggle for livelihoods and the need to cope with normal variability and everyday insecurities does not resonate with the possibility of creating a different future climate;
• The individual dimension of human security dominates over the collective/connective dimension of human security.
Reducing the dissonance?
• ”The theory of cognitive dissonance states that contradicting cognitions serve as a driving force that compels the mind to acquire or invent new thoughts or beliefs, or to modify existing beliefs, so as to reduce the amount of dissonance (conflict) between cognitions”*
• Climate change strategies: emphasize adaptation, invoke fear, make moral and ethical appeals, promote indifference… redefine human security??
*(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cognitive_dissonance)
Human security: A useful discourse?
• Can give meaning and relevance to global issues;
• But does not capture the collective/connective dimension of human security;
• Focuses on human development and the North-South divide, reinforcing an ”us and them” perspective, rather than an ”I and we” perspective.
Redefining human security in the context of global change
• ”Human security as a collective and connective state of well-being that is continually negotiated by and for individuals and communities who recognize that processes and outcomes are linked to one another across both space and time.”
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