Understanding security in the vernacular in hybrid political contexts: a critical survey

Luckham, Robin; Kirk, Tom

doi:10.1080/14678802.2013.811053

Cited by 21 publications

(8 citation statements)

References 83 publications

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“…Although the drive for large-n data sets is arguably spurred by donors' need to make "business cases" for development interventions, the possibility of combining these with further, historically and contextually nuanced, methodologies presents an exciting prospect for future understandings of security provision and everyday life in HPOs. 22 However we argue in a companion piece on our literature searches (Luckham and Kirk 2013) that, in aggregate, existing studies still tend to be geographically scattered, thematically and methodologically diverse, and in many cases lacking in empirical rigour. One cannot extract firm empirical or policy conclusions without greater conceptual integration and sharper empirical focus on (a) who precisely end-users are, (b) to whom they look for protection, (c) how far they have capacity to influence or indeed frustrate formal policy structures and agendas and (d) when instead they turn to informal security and justice providers, protests or violent revolts.…”

Section: The First Challenge Is To Tap End-users Own Vernacular Undermentioning

confidence: 99%

The Two Faces of Security in Hybrid Political Orders: A Framework for Analysis and Research

Luckham

Kirk

2013

Stability: International Journal of Security &Amp; Development

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This paper reframes the security and development debate through fresh theoretical lenses, which view security as highly contested both in the realm of politics and in the realm of ideas. For some analysts security concerns political power, including the use of organised force to establish and maintain social orders and to protect them from external and internal threats. For others it is about how individuals and communities are protected (or protect themselves) from violence, abuse of power and other existential risks. We integrate both approaches whilst placing our focus on the deep tensions between them. Combining them is especially apposite in the hybrid political orders of conflict-torn regions in the developing world – where the state and its monopoly of violence are contested and diverse state and non-state security actors coexist, collaborate or compete. We ask what security in these hybrid contexts looks like from below, that is from the perspective of “end users”, be these citizens of states, members of local communities or those who are marginalised and insecure. What are their own vernacular understandings of security, and how do these understandings link to wider conceptions of citizen and of human security? Even when security and insecurity are experienced and decided locally, they are at the same time determined nationally and globally. It is at the interfaces between local agency, state power and global order that the most politically salient and analytically challenging issues tend to arise. To analyse these interfaces we focus on three interconnecting political spaces, each characterised by their own forms of hybridity, in which security is negotiated with end-users: (i) “unsecured borderlands” where state authority is suspended or violently challenged by alternative claimants to power or providers of security, including non-state armed groups; (ii) “contested Leviathans”, that is state security structures whose authority and capacity to deliver security are weak, disputed or compromised by special interests; and (iii) “securitised policy spaces” in which international actors collaborate to ensure peace and fulfil their responsibility to protect vulnerable end-users in unsecured regions. In making these distinctions we argue that similar analytical lenses can be turned upon international actors in securitised policy spaces as well as upon state and non-state security actors. The concluding section argues that such a reframing of the security and development debate demands not just new modes of analysis but also fresh approaches to research designed both to provide insights into the vernacular understandings, coping strategies and potential agency of end-users and to uncover the informal networks, alliances and covert strategies of the multiple actors determining their security in hybrid political orders. This paper builds upon a systematic literature search undertaken by the Justice and Security Research Programme (JSRP) at the London School of Economics (LSE) funded by the UK’s Department for In...

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Section: The First Challenge Is To Tap End-users Own Vernacular Undermentioning

confidence: 99%

The Two Faces of Security in Hybrid Political Orders: A Framework for Analysis and Research

Luckham

Kirk

2013

Stability: International Journal of Security &Amp; Development

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“…Drawing on Bubandt's (2004 and concept of vernacular security, this article explores the repertoire of strategies that participants at the 2015 Soweto Pride deployed to negotiate issues of safety and freedom in their appropriation of public space. Vernacular security encompasses not only the argument that security is discursively and socially constructed, but also the idea that solutions to (in)security lie in communal formations and responses (Jarvis and Lister 2013; Luckham and Kirk 2013). The 2015 Soweto Pride itself functioned as a practice of security in its effort to provide spaces of safety, freedom, acceptance, and affirmation for the performance and expression of black LGBT+ identities.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Securing Pride: Sexuality, Security and the Post-Apartheid State

Livermon

2018

Stability: International Journal of Security and Development

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This paper explores the contestation that emerges between state security providers and communities in hybrid security situations. Rather than focusing on the failures of the state, the article explores how communities use contested (in)securities to create forms of security for themselves. The article argues for Soweto Pride as an example of vernacular security for black LGBT+ populations in Johannesburg. Ultimately, what is enivisioned is an expansive concept of security that considers cultural practices, space making, and communal formations as central to its formation.

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“…The field of conflict studies has been increasingly criticized for focusing on the macro-level causes and effects of violence, while ignoring the micro-level dimensions of individuals and groups (Verwimp, Justino and Bruck 2009;Barter 2012;Luckham and Kirk 2013). The notion of everyday survival advances our knowledge by challenging standard boundaries and categorizations commonly applied in conflict studies.…”

Section: Transgressing Categorization and Boundariesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Surviving Violence: Transgressing Categories and Boundaries in Armed Conflicts

2014

Stability: International Journal of Security &Amp; Development

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Understanding security in the vernacular in hybrid political contexts: a critical survey

Cited by 21 publications

References 83 publications

The Two Faces of Security in Hybrid Political Orders: A Framework for Analysis and Research

The Two Faces of Security in Hybrid Political Orders: A Framework for Analysis and Research

Securing Pride: Sexuality, Security and the Post-Apartheid State

Surviving Violence: Transgressing Categories and Boundaries in Armed Conflicts

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