Human Security

Gender, Resistance and Human Security

Citation:

Hoogensen, Gunhild, and Kirsti Stuvøy. 2006. “Gender, Resistance and Human Security.” Security Dialogue 37 (2): 207–28.

Authors: Gunhild Hoogensen, Kirsti Stuvøy

Abstract:

In the debate on human security, the leading question for many is ‘where do we go from here?’ Through this article, the authors contribute to the discussion by exploring both the extent to which gender approaches have been relevant to the human security debate thus far and how they can offer some directions forward. They argue that gender approaches deliver more credence and substance to a wider security concept, but also enable a theoretical conceptualization more reflective of security concerns that emanate from the ‘bottom up’. The authors therefore incorporate gender theory to develop human security as an epistemological perspective to security studies. Gender theory claims that security must be linked to empowerment of the individual, as well as to the capabilities to create positive environments of security. They employ the tool of resistance as one crucial example of human agency in security. Practices of resistance, in the latter’s various empirical forms, are present in all social contexts. Such a perspective on security directs attention to the practices of agents and provides a basis for exploring contextually dependent insecurities and securities.

Keywords: security, human security, gender, resistance, dominance/non-dominance

Topics: Gender, Security, Human Security Regions: Americas, North America, Europe, Nordic states Countries: Canada, Norway

Year: 2006

Power, Borders, Security, Wealth: Lessons of Violence and Desire from September 11

Citation:

Agathangelou, Anna M., and L. H. M. Ling. 2004. “Power, Borders, Security, Wealth: Lessons of Violence and Desire from September 11.” International Studies Quarterly 48 (3): 517–38.

Authors: Anna M. Agathangelou , L. H. M. Ling

Abstract:

America's "war on terror" and Al Qaeda's "jihad" reflect mirror strategies of imperial politics. Each camp transnationalizes violence and insecurity in the name of national or communal security. Neoliberal globalization underpins this militarization of daily life. Its desire industries motivate and legitimate elite arguments (whether from "infidels" or "terrorists") that society must sacrifice for its hypermasculine leaders. Such violence and desire draw on colonial identities of Self vs. Other, patriotism vs. treason, hunter vs. prey, and masculinity vs. femininity that are played out on the bodies of ordinary men and women. We conclude with suggestions of a human security to displace the elite privilege that currently besets world politics.

Topics: Gender, Femininity/ies, Masculinity/ies, Military Forces & Armed Groups, Militarization, Security, Human Security, Violence Regions: Americas, North America Countries: United States of America

Year: 2004

Gendered (In)Security in South Africa: What Can Ubuntu Feminism Offer?

Citation:

du Plessis, Gretchen Erika. 2019. “Gendered Human (In)Security in South Africa: What Can Ubuntu Feminism Offer?” Acta Academica 51 (2): 41–63.

Author: Gretchen Erika du Plessis

Abstract:

Gendered human security as a focus for protracted violence against women in a society in transition calls for urgent attention, especially in South Africa. The author summarises some tenets of ubuntu feminism and juxtaposes them with state-centric and people-centric discourses of human security and their link to development, gendered well-being and interpersonal violence. Inadequate attention paid to human interdependency as seen through an ubuntu feminist lens is linked to poor responses in addressing interpersonal and gender violence. The argument is made that an individualised, human-rights based approach is inadequate as a frame to find sustainable solutions to intractable gendered human insecurity. Looking at human insecurity and violence against women in South Africa, this article offers three arguments in favour of ubuntu feminism for renewed efforts to analyse the issue and locate adequate responses.

Keywords: South Africa, African feminism, violence

Topics: Development, Feminisms, Gender, Women, Gender-Based Violence, Rights, Human Rights, Security, Human Security, Violence Regions: Africa, Southern Africa Countries: South Africa

Year: 2019

Gender Justice and Rights in Climate Change Adaptation: Opportunities and Pitfalls

Citation:

Tschakert, Petra, and Mario Machado. 2012. “Gender Justice and Rights in Climate Change Adaptation: Opportunities and Pitfalls.” Ethics and Social Welfare 6 (3): 275–89.

Authors: Petra Tschakert, Mario Machado

Abstract:

We present three rights-based approaches to research and policies on gender justice and equity in the context of climate change adaptation. After a short introduction, we describe the dominant discourse that frames climate change and provide an overview of the literature that has depicted women both as vulnerable victims of climatic change and as active agents in adaptive responses. Discussion follows on the shift from gendered impacts to gendered adaptive capacities and embodied experiences, highlighting the continuing impact of social biases and institutional practices that shape unequal access to and control over household and community decision-making processes undermining timely, fair, and successful adaptive responses. Assessment of rights-based frameworks considers the space they provide in addressing persistent gender and other inequalities, at different political and operational scales. We argue that a human security framework is useful to fill the gap in current gender and climate justice work, particularly when implemented through the entry point of adaptive social protection. Gender justice in climate change adaptation is an obligation for transformational social change, not just rights. The time is ripe to replace narrow-minded vulnerability studies with a contextualized understanding of our mutual fragility and a commitment to enhanced livelihood resilience, worldwide.

Keywords: human security, adaptive social protection, gendered adaptive capacity, embodied experiences, interconnectedness, mutual fragility, connectedness, Inequalities

Topics: Environment, Climate Change, Gender, Gendered Discourses, Women, Gendered Power Relations, Gender Equality/Inequality, Justice, Rights, Security, Human Security

Year: 2012

Whose Recovery? IFI Prescriptions for Postwar States

Citation:

Cohn, Carol, and Claire Duncanson. 2020. “Whose Recovery? IFI Prescriptions for Postwar States.” Review of International Political Economy. 27 (6): 1214-34.

Authors: Carol Cohn, Claire Duncanson

Abstract:

In this article we argue that a feminist political economy (FPE) approach is critical in understanding why standard policy prescriptions for postwar economic recovery fail to support the building of sustainably peaceful countries and secure lives for their citizens. Whilst many scholars criticize the IFIs’ policies in war-affected countries, our FPE approach provides two overlooked but crucial insights. First, it reveals the disjunction (indeed, chasm) between a country’s economic recovery from war and the IFIs’ focus on the recovery of the economic system. Second, it locates the conceptual underpinnings of this chasm in the profoundly gendered assumptions of neoclassical economics. That is, we find the IFIs’ failure to prioritize financing the social infrastructure that could repair war’s damages, enhance human security, and support the ecosystems on which human security depends has its roots in the fundamental misconception of human reproductive, caring and subsistence labor, and of nature, as external to the economy rather than as central to the ability of the formal economy to function. We illustrate these points with a focus on one pervasive example of the IFIs’ approach to postwar recovery, their encouragement of the large-scale extraction and export of natural resources. Finally, we show how adopting the work of feminist economists who emphasize care, social reproduction and the value of nature, though not without its challenges, can offer radically new visions for postwar economies.

Keywords: feminist economics, feminist political economy, IFIs, peacebuilding, postwar economic recovery, security, sustaining peace, women, natural resources, extractivism, gender, World Bank, IMF

Topics: Economies, Feminist Economics, Extractive Industries, Feminisms, Feminist Political Economy, Gender, Women, International Financial Institutions, Peacebuilding, Post-Conflict, Post-Conflict Reconstruction, Security, Human Security

Year: 2020

The Smokescreen Effect: Rethinking the Gender Dimension of Climate, Migration and Security

Citation:

Resurrección, Bernadette P., and Edsel E. Sajor. 2012. “The Smokescreen Effect: Rethinking the Gender Dimension of Climate, Migration and Security.” In Climate Change, Migration and Human Security in Southeast Asia, edited by Lorraine Elliott, 60-73. Singapore: S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies.

Authors: Bernadette P. Resurrección, Edsel E. Sajor

Annotation:

Summary:
“The starting point for this chapter, as with others in the volume, is that people may adapt to the negative effects of climate change by migrating. Their choice may be constrained, and at the same time influenced, by gender-related vulnerabilities embedded in norms and relations of power. Yet, one of the big silences in the discourse on the securitization of climate change-induced migration is the gender dimensions of such migration. At the same time, the rapidly growing literature on gender and climate change has largely ignored migration issues. It appears that scholars who work on issues related to gender and the environment do not also work on gender and migration issues. In general terms, gender-blind research neglects the fundamental ways in which climate change-induced migration and its impacts will differ for women and men. The focus of this chapter then is to shed light on the complex workings of gender in climate change-induced migration. It takes the view that there is much to learn from the literature on gender and disaster, where displacement and resettlement figure as responses to hazards and extreme events. First, the chapter argues that there should be more sustained focus on the gender-related vulnerabilities that may influence and constrain migration as an adaptation option. These vulnerabilities may lead to adverse ways and outcomes of migration, with attendant implications for the human security of women migrants. Second, it is emphasised that vulnerability is not intrinsic to, nor does it derive from, any one factor such as “being a woman” or “being a migrant”. Instead, some groups and persons are more vulnerable than others because of the specific configuration of practices, processes and power relations embedded in particular societies. Finally, the chapter signposts possible pathways for enhancing people’s human security by addressing gender-related vulnerabilities when migration is employed as an option for climate change adaptation” (Resurreccion & Edsel 2012, 60-1).

Topics: Displacement & Migration, Climate Displacement, Migration, Environment, Climate Change, Gender, Women, Gendered Power Relations, Security, Human Security

Year: 2012

Canada’s Feminist Foreign Policy and Human Security Compared

Citation:

Smith, Heather, and Tari Ajadi. 2020. “Canada’s Feminist Foreign Policy and Human Security Compared.” International Journal: Canada’s Journal of Global Policy Analysis 75 (3): 367–82.

Authors: Heather Smith, Tari Ajadi

Abstract:

Canadian federal governments regularly try to craft a unique image of Canada in the world; however, the Trudeau government’s embrace of feminist foreign policy feels strikingly similar to the late 1990s when human security was embraced. There seems to be a “sameness” in the promotion of a progressive values-based discourse that has transformative potential for Canadian foreign policy. The question is, does this sense of sameness bear out when we dig into the comparison? Drawing on speeches given by government ministers; policy documents, such as the Feminist International Assistance Policy (FIAP); media; and scholarship, we compare and contrast analyses of the sources of the human security and feminist foreign policy discourses and then identify common critiques. We also examine two significant differences. We find there is consistent Liberal articulation of values-based discourses and policies that have unmet transformative potential. In both cases, style and rhetoric are privileged over transformative change.

Keywords: human security, feminist, Canadian foreign policy, feminist foreign policy, gender

Topics: Feminist Foreign Policy, Gender, Security, Human Security Regions: Americas, North America Countries: Canada

Year: 2020

Pathways among Human Security, Gender, and HIV/AIDS in Sub-Saharan Africa

Citation:

O'Manique, Colleen, and Sandra J. MacLean. 2010. “Pathways among Human Security, Gender, and HIV/AIDS in Sub-Saharan Africa.” Canadian Journal of African Studies / Revue Canadienne Des Études Africaines 44 (3): 457-78.

 

Authors: Colleen O'Manique, Sandra J. MacLean

Abstract:

FRENCH ABSTRACT:
La théorie traditionnelle de la sécurité perçoit les préoccupations d'ordre sanitaire comme menaces isolées à l'intérêt national, séparés analytiquement de leurs causes et contextes sociaux et politico-économiques élargis. Si la notion de la sécurité humaine est limitée à ces mêmes paramètres, comme dans la définition étroite de la sécurité humaine comme "absence de la peur," et que la santé n'est perçue comme question de sécurité qu'une fois qu' apparaît la violence ouverte, en particulier la violence militaire, le potentiel tant explicatif qu'émancipateur de la notion est diminuée. Cependant, un vaste concept de la sécurité humaine qui englobe "l'absence du besoin" offre un espace conceptuel permettant d'identifier et d'analyser la nature des relations sociales, politiques et économiques qui caractérisent aujourd'hui les problèmes de santé mondiaux, tels que le VIH/sida. Dans le cadre conceptuel de la sécurité humaine, une analyse qui éclaire les dimensions sexospécifiques de la sécurité humaine — en termes de prédisposition individuelle à la maladie, d'accès au traitement et de d'impacts sur les moyens de subsistance — est essentielle afin de fournir des éclairements pouvant orienter des politiques efficaces contre le VIH/sida. En outre, les politiques doivent prendre en compte les multiples facteurs sociaux, culturels, économiques et politiques qui déterminent le cheminement de la maladie.
 
ENGLISH ABSTRACT:
Traditional security theory has treated health concerns as isolated threats to national interest, separated analytically from their broader social and political economy causes and contexts. If the concept of human-security is restricted to these same parameters, as in the narrow definition of human security as "freedom from fear," and health is considered to be an issue of security only when overt physical, especially military, violence is involved, the explanatory as well as emancipatory potential of the concept is diminished. However, a broad concept of human security that encompasses "freedom from want" offers a conceptual space for identifying and analyzing the relevant social, political and economic connections that characterize contemporary global health problems such as HIV/AIDS. Within the conceptual framework of human security, a gender analysis that illuminates the gender dimensions of human security — in terms of individual disease risk, access to treatment, and impacts on livelihood — is critical to providing insights to guide effective policy on HIV/AIDS. Also, policies need to take into account the multiple social, cultural, economic and political factors that determine the disease pathways.
 

Topics: Economies, Gender, Gender Analysis, Health, HIV/AIDS, Livelihoods, Security, Human Security

Year: 2010

Human Security, Gender-Based Violence and the Spread of HIV/AIDS in Africa: A Feminist Analysis

Citation:

Thomas, Lahoma, and Rebecca Tiessen. 2010. "Human Security, Gender-Based Violence and the Spread of HIV/AIDS in Africa: A Feminist Analysis." Canadian Journal of African Studies / Revue Canadienne Des Études Africaines 44 (3): 479-502.

Authors: Lahoma Thomas , Rebecca Tiessen

Abstract:

FRENCH ABSTRACT:
La santé et la sécurité des femmes de tous âges sont menacées en situations de conflit et d'après-conflit partout en Afrique. La violence sexuelle et sexiste et la propagation du virus de l'immunodéficience humaine/syndrome d'immunodéficience acquise (VIH/sida) sont autant d'armes utilisées en périodes de conflit, mais elles ont aussi des effets à long terme sur la santé et la sécurité postconflictuelles des femmes et des jeunes filles. Cet article s'appuie sur des recherches empiriques et pratiques menées en Ouganda entre 2007 et 2008 auprès de membres de collectivités du nord de l'Ouganda victimes de la violence sexuelle et sexiste et des intervenants auprès des victimes du viol et des personnes séropositives. Les résultats de ces recherches empiriques soulignent la persistance de la violence faite aux femmes en situation d'après-conflit et pourquoi l'expression de cette violence doit être placée dans le contexte de la sexospécificité et des masculinités. Nos résultats mettent en évidence la façon dont la violence faite aux femmes en situation d'après-conflit (en particulier, la violence domestique envers les femmes, l'inceste et la maltraitance sexuelle des enfants) sert à réaffirmer la masculinité et à récupérer le sens de la virilité mis en cause lors de conflits quand les membres masculins de la communauté ont été incapables de protéger leurs familles.
 
ENGLISH ABSTRACT:
Women and girls face specific health and human security threats in conflict and post-conflict situations throughout Africa. Gender and sexual-based violence (GSBV) and the spread of the human immunodeficiency virus/acquired immune deficiency syndrome (HIV/AIDS) are weapons used in conflict, but they also have long term effects on the human security and well-being of women and girls post-conflict. This article draws on empirical and field research carried out in Uganda between 2007 and 2008 with community members in northern Uganda who have experienced GSBV and those who are working to help survivors of rape and HIV infection. The findings from empirical research carried out in northern Uganda underscores the ongoing violence women face in a post-conflict environment and why the expression of violence against women must be understood in the context of gender relations and masculinities. Our findings highlight the ways in which violence against women in post-conflict situations (particularly domestic abuse against women, incest and child sexual assaults) is used to re-assert masculinities and to reclaim a sense of manhood that was challenged during the conflict when male community members were unable to protect their families.

Topics: Domestic Violence, Gender, Women, Girls, Masculinity/ies, Gender-Based Violence, Gendered Power Relations, Health, HIV/AIDS, Post-Conflict, Security, Human Security, Sexual Violence, Rape, SV against Women Regions: Africa, East Africa Countries: Uganda

Year: 2010

Women's Vulnerability to Climate Change: Gender-skewed Implications on Agro-based Livelihoods in Rural Zvishavane, Zimbabwe

Citation:

Chidakwa, Patience, Clifford Mabhena, Blessing Mucherera, Joyline Chikuni, and Chipo Mudavanhu. 2020. "Women's Vulnerability to Climate Change: Gender-skewed Implications on Agro-based Livelihoods in Rural Zvishavane, Zimbabwe." Indian Journal of Gender Studies 27 (2): 259-81.

Authors: Patience Chidakwa, Clifford Mabhena, Blessing Mucherera, Joyline Chikuni, Chipo Mudavanhu

Abstract:

Climate change presents a considerable threat to human security, with notable gender disproportions. Women's vulnerability to climate change has implications on agro-based livelihoods, especially the rural populace. The primary purpose of this study was to assess women's vulnerability to climate change and the gender-skewed implications on agro-based livelihoods in rural Zvishavane, Zimbabwe. A qualitative approach that used purposive sampling techniques was adopted. Data was collected through 20 in-depth interviews with 11 de jure and 9 de facto small-scale female-headed farmer households. Two focus group discussions with mixed de facto and de jure small-scale female-headed farmer households were also conducted. Five key informant interviews were held with departmental heads of the Ministry of Women's Affairs, Gender and Community Development; the Agriculture Technical Extension Service Department; the Livestock Production Department; the Runde Rural District Council and the Meteorological Services Department. Gendered effects were noted in terms of increased roles and responsibilities for women. Observations showed that there was an increase in distances travelled by women to fetch water owing to a depleted water table. Climate-induced migration of men due to depleted livelihoods in rural areas has also increased roles and responsibilities for women. The traditional male responsibilities assumed by women included cattle herding and ox-driven ploughing. This study concluded that adaptation strategies towards vulnerability to climate change have to be gender-sensitive and area-specific. This study also recommended that response programmes and policies meant to curb existing gendered vulnerabilities should be informed by evidence because climate-change effects are unique for different geographical areas. Moreover, adaptation activities should be mainstreamed in community processes so as to reduce the burden on women and increase sustainability opportunities.

Keywords: de facto household head, de jure household head, gender, smallholder farmers, vulnerability, climate change

Topics: Agriculture, Displacement & Migration, Climate Displacement, Environment, Climate Change, Gender, Gender Roles, Households, Livelihoods, Security, Human Security Regions: Africa, Southern Africa Countries: Zimbabwe

Year: 2020

Pages

© 2023 CONSORTIUM ON GENDER, SECURITY & HUMAN RIGHTSLEGAL STATEMENT All photographs used on this site, and any materials posted on it, are the property of their respective owners, and are used by permission. Photographs: The images used on the site may not be downloaded, used, or reproduced in any way without the permission of the owner of the image. Materials: Visitors to the site are welcome to peruse the materials posted for their own research or for educational purposes. These materials, whether the property of the Consortium or of another, may only be reproduced with the permission of the owner of the material. This website contains copyrighted materials. The Consortium believes that any use of copyrighted material on this site is both permissive and in accordance with the Fair Use doctrine of 17 U.S.C. § 107. If, however, you believe that your intellectual property rights have been violated, please contact the Consortium at info@genderandsecurity.org.

Subscribe to RSS - Human Security