reconciling the geographies of human security karen o’brien department of sociology and human...

Reconciling the Geographies of Human Security

Karen O’Brien

Department of Sociology and Human Geography

University of Oslo, Norway

WUN SEMINAR

NOVEMBER 14, 2006

Lecture Outline

• Definitions of human security;• Human security and the geography of

inequalities;• Human security and the geography of

interconnections;• Individual and ”collective/connective” human

security – a case of cognitive dissonance;• Examples from climate change research;• Reconciling the two geographies of human

security.

Human Security – the concept

• Freedom from fear, freedom from want (1945);• Safety from chronic threats, protection from disruptions. Seven

dimension of human security: personal, environmental, economic, political, community, health, and food security (UNDP 1994);

• ”The objective of human security is to safeguard the vital core of all human lives from critical pervasive threats, in a way that is consistent with long-term fulfillment (Human Security Commission, 2003);

• Human Security is achieved when and where individuals and communities have the options necessary to end, mitigate or adapt to threats to their human, environmental and social rights; have the capacity and freedom to exercise these options; and actively participate in pursuing these options (GECHS 1999).

Human Security – the discourse

• Includes normative claims: equity, justice and fairness;

• Disaggregates to the level of individuals;• Recognizes that threats and risks will affect

individuals differentially.

Human Security – strengths and weaknesses

+ an integrative concept that “directs us to examine major connections, across the disciplinary and national boundaries...” (Gasper 2005, p. 238).

+ a policy-based discourse

+ has both protective and enabling dimensions

+ a political and theoretical concept

- too much attention to the unit of analysis, not enough attention to the interplay between levels of analysis

- notion of security has been ”militarized”

Human security and the geography of inequalities

• Recognizes deep social and economic inequalities;

• Emphasizes the role of context;• Focuses on structures that create insecurities

based on race, class, caste, gender, age, or simply place;

• Relational aspects: one individual’s security is often another’s insecurity.

Human security and the geography of interconnection

• Takes a broader view of human security, as not only collective, but ”connective”;

• Sees humans as part of a larger ”global system”, where processes and outcomes are linked over space and time.

Cognitive dissonance?

• Tensions in distinguishing between individual human security and collective/connective human security;

• Exemplified by climate change, where the uneven outcomes are superimposed on a geography of inequalities and inequities; Climate change is likely to transform the context for human security, creating new and potentially unexpected outcomes;

• Difficulties relating individual dimensions of human security to collective-connective dimensions.

Climate change as an equity issue

• Not everyone contributes equally;• Not everyone has an equal voice in deciding

what to do about it;• Not everyone will be equally affected – some

will benefit, others are highly vulnerable;• Vulnerability analyses can be used to identify

where, how and why human security may be affected by climate change.

Climate change as a global issue

• Individuals and communities exist as part of a larger context, and changing the larger context (warmer temperatures, extreme climate events, sea level rise, melting of glaciers, etc.) is likely to affect both the secure and the insecure;

• Examples: Melting of Arctic sea ice, Changing variability and extreme events.

The Northern Sea Route

• New opportunities: for shipping, trade, consumption; for northern communities; for countries/companies who have oil and mineral rights;

• Equity dimensions: may negatively influence resource-based livelihoods, and individuals and communities who cannot adapt to rapid change;

• Collective/connective dimensions: sea level rise, coastal storms, accelerated warming.

Changing variability and extreme events

• The magnitude and frequency of extreme events will change with the climate;

• Many small-scale farmers are already vulnerable to current variability;

• The capacity to adapt to changing conditions is unequal.

Source: Smit and Pilisofova 2003

Adaptive capacities differ, whether we are talking about Norway or India.

Cognitive dissonance & climate change• Results when beliefs in the individual dimension of

human security are held firm, in the face of growing evidence of the interconnected dimension;

• E.g.,a belief in benefits from the Northern Sea Route does not resonate with the possibility of losses that can result from climate change (temporal dissonance);

• E.g., a belief in the struggle for livelihoods and the need to cope with normal variability and everyday insecurities does not resonate with the possibility of creating a different future climate;

• The individual dimension of human security dominates over the collective/connective dimension of human security.

Reducing the dissonance?

• ”The theory of cognitive dissonance states that contradicting cognitions serve as a driving force that compels the mind to acquire or invent new thoughts or beliefs, or to modify existing beliefs, so as to reduce the amount of dissonance (conflict) between cognitions”*

• Climate change strategies: emphasize adaptation, invoke fear, make moral and ethical appeals, promote indifference… redefine human security??

*(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cognitive_dissonance)

Human security: A useful discourse?

• Can give meaning and relevance to global issues;

• But does not capture the collective/connective dimension of human security;

• Focuses on human development and the North-South divide, reinforcing an ”us and them” perspective, rather than an ”I and we” perspective.

Redefining human security in the context of global change

• ”Human security as a collective and connective state of well-being that is continually negotiated by and for individuals and communities who recognize that processes and outcomes are linked to one another across both space and time.”

© Seppo Leinonen, www.seppo.net

Thank you!