Locating the ‘self’ in the Russian- Ukraine crisis/war

 

TITLE: Locating the ‘self’ in the Russian- Ukraine crisis/war

       Type of security- Geographical Security and Territorial Integrity.

                                                                        Credit: Getty Images/iStockphoto

 

As students of International Relations, I’ve noticed that while making policies around security, it becomes important for us to move away from the mainstream state-centric approach and look at security through various lenses in order to bring about a favorable solution that targets the ultimate referent object (which, according to Ken Booth’s view, becomes an embedded individual, women, and other gendered bodies in Cynthia’s view). While various theorists give us various reasons why it is necessary to focus on this ultimate referent object, I seem to be able to find common ground. To me, I believe that most theorists use the analysis of the ultimate referent in an attempt to question what is "real" in international relations and what this concept of "real" constitutes. This idea, however, tends to push us beyond the mainstream realist understanding of international relations. While this is one way, I tend to look at security or security studies. I do acknowledge that this understanding of security that I have is not always the same. To me, the more I read and learn various perspectives on security, the more influence I tend to have within my definition of security. My definition of security has surely evolved from being a state-centric approach to an understanding based on understanding what insecurities mean to now having a perspective that is an intermesh of various theories (such as essentialist theory, constructivist theory, post-constructivist theory etc.) and the answers to basic questions like: whose security are we looking at, from whom do we need the security, who’s the provider of security, by what means could this security be achieved etc.

Security, to me, then becomes a process and not the end goal. It became a concept whose meaning keeps evolving based on the lens we look at it through.

While I focus on the question of "real" within international security, I do stumble upon understanding what and how the self can be located within various security issues. Through Ken Booth’s paper titled "Reflections of a Fallen Realist," I seem to be able to formulate my understanding of self by using his analysis of self within the context of understanding security in his terms. I also believe that the more I read as an international relations student, the more influence I will have in developing my own understanding of "self."

In this blog post I will focus on the same issues as in my previous one (the Russian-Ukraine crisis) but will attempt to look at the crisis away from a state-centric or generic realist approach and rather look at it through broader lenses of understanding.

                                               Sexual violence: through the lens of positivism

Sexual violence has become the norm and is expected in war-torn areas and regions. And we have seen numerous media and news reports about sexual violence against women. But there have been only a handful of news outlets/reports that bring out and talk about sexual-based violence against gendered bodies that does not come from the mainstream discourse. This is something that is blatantly evident when we look at the reports of sexual violence in the Donbas region.

Something that I seemed to realize while looking at the news reports of sexual violence within this region was that most of the news outlets subconsciously focused on a very essentialist theory way of analyzing and creating their reports. That is, their focus tends to be on the main binaries (male and female). They tend to show men and the violence inflicted by men as the threat. But with this kind of view, news outlets make it seem as though there have not been any types of violent acts against gender minorities. My mind, in this case, subconsciously drove my understanding towards the idea of "seeing is believing" (positivism understanding).

Here I tend to believe that there have been fewer to no violent acts against gender minorities, as I’m fed by the kind of understanding provided by the reports emulating from these regions.

One way to combat such thinking, in my opinion, is that these news reports must shift their focus from the essentialist perspective to maybe a constructivist or post- constructivist perspective.

                                                                Self within the crisis:

While I look at the Russian-Ukraine crisis, I realize that it becomes important to locate the self and understand the embedded individual perspective on the crisis. This is because the moment we move away from looking at the Russian-Ukrainian war from a perspective that focuses on a state-centric approach or the military as the provider of security, we expose ourselves to understanding and figuring out various issues within the crisis that might be caused by the military or the state becoming the threat object and not the provider of security.

Locating the self also helps us answer the question of what is real in international relations. This is because individual human beings are primordial and the actual "real" subjects of politics before they organize themselves as nations or sovereign states.

I also believe that by focusing on the self within the Russian-Ukraine crisis would imply that the leaders of these countries would focus on their individual security and, thereby, could have avoided escalating the situation into war.

                                                  Theories as a tool to conceptualize identity:

Identity is usually referred to as a process that is dynamic and can be subjected to change. It is usually influenced by various contexts, such as social, political, cultural, etc. While theories, on the other hand, act as a tool that helps us make sense of or explain something.

Looking back at Ken Booth’s reading, I would say that theories play an important role in conceptualizing identity. But can the extent to which theories can accommodate the changing notions of identity be seen as limited? However, all said and done, we must not fail to acknowledge that theories do provide us with a base line perspective in understanding identity.

References:

Barkawi, Tarak. 2004. ‘On the Pedagogy of “Small Wars”’. International Affairs (Royal Institute of International Affairs 1944-) 80 (1): 19–37.

Booth, Ken. (26: October 1994). “Security and Self Reflections of a Fallen Realist,” YCISS Occasional Paper Paper. https://yorkspace.library.yorku.ca/xmlui/handle/10315/1414.

Бутко, З. (2017, December 5). One in three women and one in four men held captive by

militants fell victims to sexual violence in Donbas . . . Uacrisis.Org. https://uacrisis.org/en/62784-vijna-bez-pravyl