Fit for purpose? Fitting ontological security studies ‘into’ the discipline of International Relations: Towards a vernacular turn

Abstract

The performance of International Relations (IR) scholarship -as in all scholarship -acts to close and police the boundaries of the discipline in ways that reflect power-knowledge relations. This has led to the development of two strands of work in ontological security studies in IR, which divide on questions of ontological choice and the nature of the deployment of the concept of dread. Neither strand is intellectually superior to the other and both are internally heterogeneous. That there are two strands, however, is the product of the performance of IR scholarship, and the two strands themselves perform distinct roles. One allows ontological security studies to engage with the 'mainstream' in IR; the other allows 'international' elements of ontological security to engage with the social sciences more generally. Ironically, both can be read as symptoms of the discipline's issues with its own ontological (in)security. We reflect on these intellectual dynamics and their implications and prompt a new departure by connecting ontological security studies in IR with the emerging interdisciplinary fields of the 'vernacular' and 'everyday' via the mutual interest in biographical narratives of the self and the work that they do politically.

Thick Europe, ontological security and parochial Europe: the re-emergence of far-right extremism and terrorism after the refugee crisis of 2015

“…Within the sphere of international relations, the use of ontological security over the course of the last decade, has supported a greater understanding of the emotional reasons behind the apprehensions and fears of the EU's citizens (Croft & Vaughan-Williams, 2017;Della Sala, 2017Kinnvall, 2004;Laing, 2010;Manners, 2002;Mälksoo, 2018;Rumelili, 2014Rumelili, , 2015Rumelili, , 2018. The cornerstone of ontological security is the analysis of autobiographical narratives and routines and how they are used as vehicles to exhale one's anxiety.…”

In a New Land

“…The sense of being secure is founded on basic trust within relationships [23] and is fostered by routines and regular patterns of practice. Croft and Vaughan-Williams [11] citing Croft [10] describe the key elements of ontological security as "a biographical continuity, a cocoon of trust relations, self-integrity and dread […] all of which are constructed intersubjectively. "…”

The market for ontological security

“…It adds to the preceding literature in three ways. Firstly, this article responds to calls that ontological security studies would "benefit from analysing how subjects become connected to particular identities" (Browning andJoenniemi 2017, p. 32, also Croft andVaughan-Williams 2017). Instead of conflating the self with identity, this requires an empirical investigation of the diverse actors, strategies and environments in which actors construct their multiple identities.…”