Transcript Lecture: Reconciling the Geographies of Human Security

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.”
© Seppo Leinonen, www.seppo.net
Thank you!