Local Actor Strategies for Achieving Human Security Functionings

Abstract

This article explores the experiences of community-level actors in the pursuit of greater human security in their communities. Utilizing a conceptual framework based on the capability approach, human security, and securitization theory it considers local actor perceptions of security and the strategies used to achieve their goals. It presents and discusses strategies employed by two distinct actors-a local non-governmental organization and an independent group of community dwellers-in their attempts to achieve security functionings. The results of this qualitative study suggest that while community-level actors view themselves as being empowered as agents in achieving certain human security functionings, the ability of local actors to achieve higher-level functionings is dependent on their recognition as legitimate securitizing agents by more powerful actors and potential partner groups.

Making the Cut: Exploring Application Evaluation and Programme Accessibility in Embassy-based Small Grant Schemes

“…This article uses qualitative approaches informed by the results of the two previous studies by the author on local actors and embassy-based SGSs. The first study, Holm (2017) provided a detailed comparative case study of local development actors who worked to secure grant funding for local projects, detailing the challenges and strategies they face in doing so. The second study by Holm (2018) presents an inversion of the 2017 case study, examining not the SGS applicants, but instead the formal programme-level frameworks, and constructs a typology of barriers inherent in SGSs that applicants must overcome.…”

“…Normally, securitizing actors make their claims from a position of political or institutional power, leveraging their social and cultural capital behind the securitizing act. Bottom-up securitization, by contrast, is when actors with less conventional forms of powerlike grassroots or community actorsare able to use speech acts to leverage their own security values onto a broader or more powerful audience (for examples, see: Adamides, 2012;Hammerstad, 2012;Holm, 2017). Through successful bottom-up securitization, smaller actors can access tools or motivate action that would not have otherwise occurred.…”

Responding to the Humanitarian Crisis of the Rohingya in Myanmar: A Comparison between the Role of State and NGOs

“…This phenomenon follows the arguments put forward by Nikolai Holm that state that to increase the security level of a community, local actors are key. That is, local actors can become effective agents to improve human security by developing their abilities from external support [16]. The humanitarian crisis in Myanmar has become an international concern.…”