Global injustice and the production of ontological insecurity

Abstract

This article argues that a renewed focus on how dominant international practices produce ontological insecurity can help better orient ontological security studies (OSS) to injustice in world politics, particularly as it affects structurally marginalized political actors at multiple levels. It makes this case by bringing the work of Iris Marion Young to bear on OSS, particularly her theory of justice as the elimination of domination and oppression. Drawing on Young’s “Five Faces of Oppression,” this paper argues that multiple injustices endemic to the international system should be understood as key producers of ontological insecurity in the international system, both in their direct ability to destabilize identities and in their undermining of disadvantaged actors’ ontological security-seeking practices. On international scales, these processes transcend levels of analysis, affecting individuals, social groups, and even states in differing ways. Incorporating Young’s work into OSS not only helps build a vital bridge between the oft estranged sub-disciplines of political theory and IR, but also can provide scholars a means of better theorizing how ontological insecurity is so often a product of the international system’s injustices. The paper thus concludes by proposing a normative turn within OSS, asking whether global justice should be understood as a precondition for ontological security-seeking among multiple co-existing actors.