Gender, Resistance and Human Security

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.

(S)he shall not be moved: Gender, bodies and travel rights in the post-9/11 era

“…Feminist scholars like Hudson (2005) have suggested that 'an emphasis on identity politics may […] help to clarify the ambivalence of human security as a political project of emancipation and an analytical framework' (p. 155). Hoogensen and Stuvoy (2006) suggest that it is important to pay attention to the gendered nature of human insecurity (p. 207). I suggest that this need applies, not just to bodies recognized as women and as men, but to trans-and/or genderqueer bodies as well.…”

“…6 See discussion inKrause and Williams (1996). 7 Some critics of human security theory (for example,Hoogensen and Stuvoy, 2006) suggest that it remains a topdown approach wherein the state has to provide security to all of its people. This is problematic given feminists' (for example,Peterson, 1992) valid concern that the state is a security threat to some of its (most vulnerable) citizens.…”

En-Gendering Insecurities: The Case of the Migration Policy Regime in Thailand

“…Th e gender focus here should be clear, although it is not often highlighted in this literature: since women have fewer resources, fewer opportunities, and, in many cases, less freedom, they are also more vulnerable to risks such as HIV infection (Toyota 2006;Hayes 2010), disasters (Oswald-Spring 2008, and both direct and indirect forms of violence, whether there is armed confl ict or not (Summerfi eld 2007;Hoogensen and Stuvøy 2006).…”

Cold CASE: a manifesto for Canadian critical security studies

“…From this context we then see gradually develop a number of works around of various aspects and issues of human security using a broad array of critical approaches (de Larrinaga and Turenne Sjolander 1998;Krause 2002;Beier 2003;Grayson 2004) including various contributions in the edited volume by MacLean, Black, and Shaw A Decade of Human Security: Global Governance and New Multilateralism (MacLean, Black, and Shaw 2006). Of particular note, are critical examinations from feminist perspectives of various dimensions of Canada's human security foreign policy agenda (Keeble and Smith 2001;Whitworth 2003;various contributions to Turenne Sjolander, Smith and Stienstra 2003;Turenne Sjolander and Smith 2005) as well as more specific feminist critiques around the concept itself Crosby 2003;Hoogensen 2005;Hoogensen and Stuvoy 2006).…”