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.

This paper examines the activities of non-state actors in war in Somalia and Angola. Arguing that prolonged wars are characterised by the emergence of social orders of violence beyond the state, our analytical focus is on how actors establish and sustain these orders. A core influence is the insight from research on war economies that war is not equal to the breakdown of societal order, but represents an alternative form of social order. We therefore examine the economic activities of insurgents in regard to their embeddedness in social and political spheres. The central question in this paper is how economic, political and symbolic aspects interact and determine as well as transform social orders of violence. With the examples of Somalia and Angola, two rather distinct cases of non-state orders of violence are examined. It is argued that these orders represent forms of authority with fundamental structural aspects in common. We suggest that these orders can be systematised on a continuum between two poles of institutionalisation of authority beyond the state: a warlord system and a quasi-state system of violence.

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Embodying a state vision of how civil society ought to function and be designed by the authorities, Public Chambers in Russia have been criticized as means of state control. This state dominance is the starting point in this article, which asks what room to manoeuvre a regional Public Chamber has. Drawing upon fieldwork this article examines how members and local observers of the Public Chamber give meaning to this activity. The analysis assesses the role of state dominance, discussion of routines and responses to local demands, and concludes that these incremental developments form civil society in Russia.

In ongoing discussions surrounding the issue of human security, the security of individuals has become entangled in conceptual debates that are preoccupied with notions of appropriate variables, measurements and issue areas. This article suggests and illustrates a basis for human security research that is distinct from such objectivist empiricism. A case study of crisis centres in northwest Russia is used to demonstrate that human security is not only a matter for objectified generalizations, but also a question of practices. Feminist security theory and the work of Pierre Bourdieu are used to address methodological concerns raised during fieldwork on crisis centres in northwest Russia. Three dimensions are discussed: the conceptualization of security for the specific-actor approach of crisis centres, the ways in which relevant empirical data are established, and the subsequent interpretation of such data. The discussion shows, first, that rethinking security for crisis centres reveals contingencies in the research process that are relevant to the establishment of human security knowledge; second, the practice of human security research reflects the fragility in the understanding and production of security in everyday contexts. Accordingly, when we examine human security, our analysis ought to be directed at security as an ambiguous practice.