Centre for Security Research

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The 2023 CeSeR (Centre for Security Research) conference focused on the edges of security studies. In a set of four panels, our speakers challenged both how security is conceptualized in everyday life and how security discourses impact that which must be secured. Whether that means understanding the web of narratives in which we all exist, challenging our own relationship with media or hegemonic security discourses, or interrogating the role of the self, our panelists shed new light on strange times and spaces.

 

The first panel was chaired and discussed by Dr. Andy Hom (University of Edinburgh) and dealt with how international politics reflect ontological security concerns in the everyday. The papers delved into the hyper-local experience of ontological security. Marcus Nicolson (Glasgow Caledonian University) spoke about the mismatch between strategic narratives of a welcoming, open Scotland and the everyday experience of migrants in Glasgow. He uses creative-based methods to show how migrants cope with the anxiety and ontological insecurity in an increasingly politicized environment. In her work, Anne-Marie Houde (University of Warwick) explores how international politics impacts ontological security at the individual level. Using focus groups conducted in Belgium, Italy, and France, Houde demonstrates how Kleinian phantasies serve as coping mechanisms for individuals experiencing anxiety from international politics. Finally, Nicollai Gellwitzki’s (University of Warwick) work examines the relationship between the individual emotional world and public mood. He argues that affective experiences, and especially anxiety, are not reducible to the individual, but are a pervasive part of everyday political experience.  

 

Our second panel leveled the conversation up to national security questions. Dr. Elif Kalaycioglu (University of Alabama) acted as discussant for three papers which covered a wide range of national security considerations. Alexander Schotthöfer (University of Edinburgh) discussed the neglect of the individual in securitization literature and spoke about the dynamic role US presidents play in securitizing North Korea. He uses Leadership Trait Analysis to interrogate how leaders’ beliefs make (de)securitizing moves more likely. The next panelist, M. Gowhar Farooq, looked at national security from an internal perspective by presenting the devastating impact of India’s policies on Jammu and Kashmir. He uses the concept of enclosure – natural, man-made, legal – to discuss how internet shutdowns limit circulation of knowledge and news in Jammu and Kashmir. Finally Adith Srinivasan’s (University of Edinburgh)work traces the binary of certainty and uncertainty in realist thought and argues that hegemonic realism in policy circles can have ethical and political consequences for national security questions. Each of these papers explore the ways in which notions of security are constructed in national contexts.

 

The third panel, discussed by Dr. Annika Bergman Rosamund (University of Edinburgh), continued to explore national experiences of security, this time with a focus on how narratives, memory, and monuments are defended or weaponized. Dr. Mirko Palestrino’s (Queen Mary University London) work theorizes the international as webs of interlocking narratives and narrative enterprises. He applies the notion of multiplicity in both the temporal and narrative senses to the case of the Bronze Soldier of Tallinn and in doing so demonstrates how one symbol activates different and perhaps competing international narrative threads. Dr. Elif Kalaycioglu’s work also speaks to the retroactive reordering of memories and narratives to recast the new as familiar. In her work she explores how China’s exhibitions on the Belt and Road Initiative, especially in developing countries, mobilize artifacts for political purpose. Finally, Sarah Gharib Seif’s (University of St Andrews) work turns toward politically consequential narratives of the present and the role of the media in co-producing our understanding of terrorism. Her work focuses on the stories of UK women who join ISIS, and the complicity of British media in branding them as terrorists.

 

Our final panel was chaired and discussed by Dr. Ole Wæver (University of Copenhagen) and dealt with the emerging and marginalized places of security. Bruno de Seixas Carvalho (University of Birmingham) began by characterizing the ocean as a desiring machine using the works of Guatarri and Deleuze. His work describes how the repression and perversion of the circulation of desire serves to constitute subjects in international space. Dr. Nick Brooke (University of St Andrews) also shifted the space of security to marginalized and remote communities in the Scottish Highlands and Islands. His work engages with the UK-wide PREVENT strategy and shows how distance from expected nodes of radicalization impacts how and when individuals are referred to the PREVENT system. Finally, Dr. Benjamin Martill(University of Edinburgh) and Lauren Rogers (University of Edinburgh) shifted to one of the emerging fields of security studies: the war in Ukraine. Their paper argues that ontological security concerns play a role in the way the UK has approached the war, especially with regards to cooperation with the EU.

 

Each of the twelve papers considered at this conference approach the definition, space, and subjects of security in different ways. Theoretically, our panelists focused on new and emerging concepts in IR, including ontological security, circulation, multiplicity, mnemonic security, and critical narrative studies, using a diverse set of methodological tools. In his closing remarks, conference Chair Dr. Andy Hom called for a continued effort to broaden and deepen the field of security studies. 

 

To sign up to CeSeR’s mailing list to receive information about our future events, please email: Ceser@ed.ac.uk

 

Summary written by conference co-organiser, Lauren Rogers.