Security as translation: threats, discourse, and the politics of localisation

Abstract

This article aims at enhancing our understanding of how collective interpretations of threats, stabilised and temporarily fixed in names, travel across different local discourse communities. I contend that globally accepted names result from gradual cross-cultural processes of localisation. Specifically, I argue that the discursive dynamics of elusiveness, compatibility and adaptation suggest a framework of analysis for how collective interpretations or names travel.

Localising ‘radicalisation’: Risk assessment practices in Greece and the United Kingdom

“…Our analysis has highlighted the importance of context and agency in the localisation of a security threat (see also Capie, 2008;Stritzel, 2011aStritzel, , 2011bStritzel, , 2014. Similar to De Goede and Simon (2013), our case studies have also demonstrated that understanding and countering radicalisation do not materialise in the same ways across different national locales.…”

“…The actual process of localisation of a norm/idea/belief usually includes local actors employing various strategies of matching and/or addressing factual or political incompatibilities to enhance compatibility between content and context. These strategies include (re)framing, selection, grafting, and linking (see Acharya, 2004;Barnett, 1999;Stritzel, 2011aStritzel, , 2014, as well as 'strategies of stretching' and even altering of the new norm/idea/belief (see Farrell, 2005;Stritzel, 2011aStritzel, , 2014. The overarching goal of these strategies is to make a pre-existing but 'foreign' norm/idea/belief seem local and appealing to local audiences.…”

“…As initially conceptualised by Acharya, localisation involves ‘the active construction (through discourse, framing, grafting, and cultural selection) of foreign ideas by local actors, which results in the former developing significant congruence with local beliefs and practices’ (Acharya, 2004: 245). This framework has been used within Security Studies to understand the diffusion in national and regional contexts of small arms norms (Capie, 2008), as well as interpretations of organised crime and rogue states (Stritzel, 2011a, 2011b, 2014). Localisation may start with a reinterpretation and re-representation of the ‘foreign’ norm/idea/belief through framing and grafting, but may entail more complex processes of reconstitution to make the ‘foreign’ congruent with a pre-existing local normative order or belief structure (Acharya, 2004: 244).…”

“…of foreign ideas by local actors, which results in the former developing significant congruence with local beliefs and practices’ (Acharya, 2004: 245). Localisation theory has already proven useful to critical approaches to security (see Capie, 2008; Stritzel, 2011a, 2011b, 2014), but has so far not been applied to radicalisation.…”

Challenges of Central European Security: Critical Insights

“…To be able to overcome the static and rather succinct character of the original securitization theory in the analysis of the linguistic and normative aspects of security, Lupták decided to draw from Holger Stritzel's recent addition in the form of security as translation (Stritzel 2010(Stritzel , 2011. The final (at least at this time) addition to the conceptual toolbox was intertwined with the attempts to explore a particular part of the research field, that is, the communal celebrations of security experts (workshops, conferences, symposia, anniversary meetings etc.).…”