Identity- A Social Barrier or A Bridge
Role theory or role-playing is a crucial aspect of sociological thinking about identity. A typified response to a typified expectation means role. In the formation of this society, the individuals are assigned the role, and the 'social play' proceeds as planned as long as everyone plays their parts. Role-playing consists of individuals adopting the behaviors to the expectations of others. According to Berger: each role has a certain identity, some of them are trivial and others are permanent. He also provides the significance of the role theory, according to him- 'identity is socially bestowed, socially sustained and socially transformed.'
The discovery of self is the process of creating and being created. It is simultaneous with the discovery of society. The children learn to play roles, both with respect to 'significant others' and the 'generalized others'. The 'significant others' means the role a person is playing with respect to a particular group of people or a particular person, for example, I can be a daughter for my parents, a sister for my brother. The 'generalized others' means the role a person is playing for everyone else, for example:' I can be a girl or a woman for the whole society.
According to Mead, the human self is a reflexive being who is made up of an "I" and a "me". "Me" is socially constructed and "I" is a product of subjective choices.
In the term of the development of the individuals as specialists in security studies, the "me" is an identity which is given by the profession to an individual, but on the other hand “I" is the inner self, which subjectively wants to play a different role in a different situation. Our identity as security specialists evolves through the interplay of I and me looking at various aspects such as psychological factors, cultural factors, individuals, and social structures.
There are many variables that affect the evolution of I or me, these variables include- race, gender, national identity, etc. These variables are really important and should be used while analyzing a particular event.
Security is an epiphenomenon that is created inter-subjectively. Different views of the world create different definitions of security.
In this article, I would be going over the relation between my understanding of self with the genocide of Uighur Muslim populations.
In this situation, my "self" would be the "generalized others" as I would have the same relations with the Uighur Muslim population as I would have with the other populations. At that time, I would have thought that exploitation of human rights is really bad and it is a repetition of what happened with the Jews. My understanding of “self” changed when I thought about the threats the Uighur Muslim people were facing and how suppressed they were and how I would feel if this would have happened to me without any reason, my understanding of “self” also changed after studying the critical security studies my point of view changed.
Critical security studies are fundamentally very different from other theories as it derives from a radically different political philosophy, theory, and methodology. It develops from the "global moral science" of international relations rather than the traditional science. Critical security studies as just described do not and should not disregard 'the state' and the military dimensions of world politics. What is being challenged through the critical security studies is not the material existence of the world of traditional realism, but of its moral and practical status as well. The strategic study fits within critical security studies through only one aspect, it can be crucial sometimes, a wide agenda and variety of security referents.
My point of view on the event changed after studying critical theory, this genocide wouldn't have happened if there were no supporters of this kind of inhumane activity, this means that many small countries were in favor of exploiting the human rights of the people of China and they thought if China had done that then it would also support other countries and then UNHRC would get weak and after some time there would be no UNHRC. Secondly, China never accepted that re-education camps were formed and because of that, this exploitation with the Uighur Muslim population continued till the time it got worse. China being a communist country doesn't give any rights to people for protesting against any wrong. Moreover, the United Nations Human Rights Council became weak in front of China as it didn't correct its mistakes.
As there are various definitions of security, there is no single definition that means lack of specificity which in turn would mean that the Chinese government can be really tight or strict with its' population for security and no one can question it.
It is really important for the people to have a specialty in a particular theory as every theory in security studies would provide a different definition of security and that definition would lead to the formation of a particular identity and that identity would lead to the change in perspective in seeing an event. The specialization in the theory should not only be restricted only to the country in which we are born and it should be done at an overall level which would thus, help in a broader perspective.
Citation
Finnegan,. (2020). The Uyghur Minority in China: A Case Study of Cultural Genocide, Minority Rights and the Insufficiency of the International Legal Framework in Preventing State-Imposed Extinction. Laws. 9. 1. 10.3390/laws9010001.
Booth, Ken. Security and Self: Reflections of a Fallen Realist. Routledge, 1997.
Hi Paavni!
ReplyDeleteYou have written an extensively insightful piece and I enjoyed reading it a lot. You have analyzed the crisis faced by the Uighur Muslim people through the lens of Critical theory and through the lens of self.
I completely agree with you when you said that you will feel really subdued if someone is tracking each and every move of yours and it's really great to see that your understanding of self changed with the progress in the course much like how Ken Booth had his idea of the ever-evolving definition of self and security.
The way you have explained how Uighur Muslims' human rights were exploited and how their every step was being tracked and how you have included critical theory in it and your perspective how this genocide wouldn't have happened if the other countries wouldn't have supported China as they didn't protest against inhumane treatment faced by the minority people.
Once again, your post was really thoughtful and a lot to take back from it!
Paavni, you rightly pointed out how our conception of self and security changed as we were introduced to Security as an Emancipation Approach and other critical theories. SAEA talks about the individual embedded in the power structure and embodied individual, who have some physical needs and some aspiration to fulfill. People’s position in the power hierarchy determines what impact a security issue will have on them. The most vulnerable people are women, tribals, and people of underdeveloped countries, who do not have enough resources and capital at their disposal. For example, during terror attacks, the violence faced by women is worse. They are subjected to physical violence in form of rape and other psychological traumas. The same is the case with tribals, who contribute very less to greenhouse gas emission (GHG) and are subjected to severe consequences of climate change-induced by human uncontrolled use of carbon and carbon products. Other most affected people are from underdeveloped countries and small island countries, which do not have enough resources and capital to bring their population out of poverty and any security threat even makes their situation worse and unwearable.
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