106年6月19日演講資訊:Human Security as Ontological Security: A Post-Western Approach?
Human Security as Ontological Security: A Post-Western Approach?
摘要
This paper will critically interrogate the emergence of Human Security as a response to the ontological insecurity wrought by the globalization of neo-liberalism. For Anthony Giddens to be ‘ontologically secure is to possess, on the level of the unconscious and practical consciousness, “answers” to fundamental existential questions which all human life in some way addresses.’ Religion and nationalism provide ‘answers’ to these questions in times of rapid socio-economic and cultural change. The dislocation engendered by successive waves of neo-liberal globalization has resulted in the deracination of many of the world’s inhabitants resulting in a state of collective ‘existential anxiety.’ Under such conditions of existential anxiety, the search for identity and community becomes paramount. However, secular conceptions- including ‘critical’ accounts- of Human Security as ‘freedom from fear and want’ fail to take into account the importance of identity for security. It will be suggested that a ‘post-secular’ understanding of Human Security may be better able to provide ontological security in times of rapid global transformation but only if it accounts for the centrality of religion to post-colonial subjectivity as a legacy of colonialism. The paper will then examine the implications for Post-Western IR theory.