Security, emotions, affect

Åhäll, Linda; Gregory, Thomas

doi:10.1080/21624887.2013.790217

Cited by 37 publications

(12 citation statements)

References 14 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…Important, and influential, contemporary critical security studies debates in this regard have focused on human enhancement (Howell, 2015), sound and the audialized body, and a 'worldly approach to security' that, inter alia, rejects 'anthropomorphism' and embraces a 'new materialist' ontology and ethics (Mitchell, 2014). Work on the performative and productive role of emotions and affect in the negotiation and practice of (in)security also represents an important route into the question of how far '(in)security' as constructed by states speaks to everyday experiences of the phenomenon (Åhäll & Gregory, 2013).…”

Section: (In)security Power and The Subalternmentioning

confidence: 99%

Insecurity and the invisible: The challenge of spiritual (in)security

Fisher

Leonardi

2020

Security Dialogue

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

The search for security has become an almost permanent feature of the contemporary lived experience and what Brian Massumi has called an ‘operative logic’ for states across the globe. The modern study – and practice – of security has, nonetheless, been largely concerned with the protection, preservation and sustaining of the material, the tangible and the visible. For many people around the world, however, feelings of security also derive from understandings of an individual or community’s relationships with invisible and spiritual forces. Religious devotion and divine protection represent a central plank of security for many, just as fears of divine retribution, demonic possession or witchcraft feature as a central dimension of insecurity for many others. This remains, however, a significant blindspot in much of security studies – and, indeed, often eludes and challenges state authority as much as it intersects with and enhances it. Drawing on fieldwork undertaken in northwestern Uganda, this study reflects critically on the provenance and implications of this blindspot and argues for an expanded understanding of what ‘counts’ as (in)security. In doing so, the article emphasizes the global character of spiritual (in)security and the challenges an understanding of (in)security that encompasses this pose to longstanding scholarly and practitioner associations of (in)security with state authority.

show abstract

Section: (In)security Power and The Subalternmentioning

confidence: 99%

Insecurity and the invisible: The challenge of spiritual (in)security

Fisher

Leonardi

2020

Security Dialogue

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…Another group of scholars have adopted a different perspective arguing that the self/other dichotomy is not necessarily violent and exclusionary (Hansen, ); the dichotomy can be socially deconstructed (McSweeney, ), and even a common identity can be constructed (Adler, Barnett, & Smith, ). With the “affective turn” in IR, the role of emotions in (de)constructions of self/other relations has increasingly been under investigation (Åhäll & Gregory, ; Hutchison, , ). It has been argued that positive and negative emotions can be collective; they are represented in discourses and performances of various political actors, and through their representations, collective identities are (de)constructed.…”

Section: Conceptualizing Particularized Distrust As An “Emotional Belmentioning

confidence: 99%

Trust, Distrust, and Security: An Untrustworthy Immigrant in a Trusting Community

Bilgiç

Gjørv

Wilcock

2019

Political Psychology

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

In security studies, there is an unquestioned assumption of a linear link between trust and security. However, such an assumption neglects complex identity dynamics that can be involved in trust-building discourses for engendering security. There needs to be greater examination into what is meant by trust, and upon what, and whom, and how the politics of identity works in social trust building and how states can influence this process. This article contributes to the literature on trust, security, and identity in International Relations (IR) by making a case for a conceptual focus on the formation of particularized distrust towards "the other" as a corollary to trust and security of "the self." It is argued that in the construction of a political community where security is associated with trust, particularized distrust can also be promoted through institutional discourses-strengthening the "trusting we" by constructing "the other" who can challenge social trust and feelings of security associated with it. The argument is illustrated through critically examining a state-level narrative in Norway in relation to "the other," that is, the immigrant. Through this illustrative example, mutual constitutiveness of trust and distrust in a self/other discursive construction will be shown.

show abstract

“…Given this silence, it is difficult to assess the actual threat to women’s safety. Hence, this dilemma redirected our attention to the power of ordinary speech acts and emotions: to the possibility of voicing, acting and identifying a threat as existential/real in order to justify severe popular action; and to the way social anxieties and emotions (fear, anger, hostility) are expressed in this context (Åhäll and Gregory, 2013). Consequently, this study takes a narrative approach to security (Wibben, 2010) that does not seek to determine whether or not immigrant men are actually threatening women’s wellbeing, but to better understand how fraternal organizations frame public forms of gender-based harassment as an excuse for action.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

National populism and gendered vigilantism: The case of the Soldiers of Odin in Finland

Aharoni¹,

Féron²

2019

Cooperation and Conflict

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

IntroductionThis article explores a particular gendered manifestation of anti-migration politics and activism following the rise in numbers of asylum seekers entering the EU by focusing on a Finnish right-wing street patrolling organization called the Soldiers of Odin (SOO), founded in October 2015. The group has been organizing street patrols meant to protect Finnish women from different forms of public gender-based violence by migrants. The appearance of SOO reflects the way debates around migration to Finland have been increasingly polarized with "advocates of tolerance" and "immigration critics" clashing in TV shows and Internet forums, but also in the streets through demonstrations and counter-demonstrations.Based on a discursive analysis of publically available sources written by and about the SOO in Finland, we offer a gendered reading of anti-immigrant sentiments and reactions. We argue that these were not just triggered by an ongoing fear of loss of economic privileges under neoliberal and austerity politics (Mäkinen, 2016), but also by anxieties from the diminishing status of white heterosexual masculinities. Concurrently, we identify four recurring themes that appear in the SOO's self-presentation which are used by members to portray themselves as part of a legitimate social movement: protective masculinity, militarized masculinity, supplement of the state, and indigenous masculinity. One concept that is of particular relevance for explaining the overall logic of these different themes is that of "white border guard masculinities", developed by Suvi Keskinen. White border-guards are characterized by "a fixation on borders, border-control, cultural boundary work and exclusions that are treated as necessities in the changing setting" (2013: 227).By focusing on the practice of street patrolling which is organized as a response to sexual harassment, we seek to add another perspective to the growing literature in feminist security studies on everyday peace and urban conflict in contemporary Europe (Björkdahl and Buckley-Zistel, 2016). We find that street patrolling is a practice of vigilantism that is justified by using representations of the cityspace as a place of friction between locals and newcomers; and of the street as a locus for projecting and enacting gendered and racial/ethnic identities. As such, we develop the concept of gendered vigilantism by exploring the way practices and discourses about sexual harassment, particularly street harassment, reinscribe geographical boundaries between Europeans and asylum seekers. We conclude This is the accepted manuscript of the article, which has been published in Cooperation and Conflict. First

show abstract

Security, emotions, affect

Cited by 37 publications

References 14 publications

Insecurity and the invisible: The challenge of spiritual (in)security

Insecurity and the invisible: The challenge of spiritual (in)security

Trust, Distrust, and Security: An Untrustworthy Immigrant in a Trusting Community

National populism and gendered vigilantism: The case of the Soldiers of Odin in Finland

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About