Me, Myself, and I; My Personal Experiences with Locating the Self in Security

By Anonymous -





What I hold today to mean security, has not always been so that way. My initial conceptions of security I have to admit, a few years ago, would have painted pictures of violent wars and destruction. Today, I would like to say I’ve considerably expanded my canvas. Cognition after all, is not some simple process. It is neither linear nor static. Compared to the self of my past, the self of today, would consciously choose to talk about security by firstly identifying avenues of ‘insecurity’ and growth. It is a testimony to my experiences over time; of intellectual and academic insights, and everyday realities, all of which add to my identity. 

 From my brushes with sociology and psychology and contemporarily with international relations, it only becomes obvious that an individual is socialised- to meet the conventional requirements, that their societies except them to fulfil. One of the more curious lessons I took away from psychology was distinguishing  between ‘I’ and ‘me’, which is far more socially constructed [1]. Now these understandings complicate and influence the way each of us look at ourselves and the world; regardless of whether we stick to the conventional framework or break away, to hold ‘unorthodox’ opinions. 



  Talking Insecurity; Sexual Violence, Gender and other Experiences 

The matter of sexual violence, accordingly, is an avenue of insecurity. And I would explain it as something that shies away from the dominant patriarchal set-up’s understanding how things should function. Structurally speaking women and girls are at an added risk, but it does not mean that it’s dangers do not exist to men and boys; something which hegemonic masculinity would have never acknowledged sensitively. If we were to revert to the theme of my earlier post [2], marital rape, these structural biases become glaringly obvious in our legal and everyday frameworks. David R. Roberts and Cynthia Enloe’s questions of “what is violence?” [3] and “where are the women?” [4] respectively, become quite crucial interventions. 

 There thankfully exists ways to rework it (albeit embedded in masculine politics and pitted against socio-cultural sentiments). Regardless this risk is well embedded into my reality, and this in turn shapes my identity; the kind of statements I choose to make and the decisions I make. Locating this risk in the intellectual and academic domain, means that I actively choose to posit gendered experiences and other intersectional concepts, as avenues for insecurity. 



  The Pandemonium of Theories 

I must admit that initially, thinking about theories and different schools of thought, made me uncomfortable with framing issues or for a lack of a better indicator, the experience of thinking itself. It would not be incorrect to say that some of the uncomfortableness, still lingers. Now I’ve got nothing against the content or the defining features of these theories itself; for one I strongly identify with the use of the intersectional lens [5] in feminist analysis, as well as the very structured formulations of Marxist thought. The uncomfortableness rather stemmed from the boundaries of these heuristic devices- is it always possible to demarcate where one school of thought ended and where another started. And the fear that in academia, one could so easily be constrained by an ascribed theoretical identity. A question I’d been grappling with since beginning this tumultuous yet exciting journey of an undergraduate-academic-in-the-making is, “Do I necessarily have to commit to one or more theoretical traditions, and if I do, will I ever be allowed to take it back?” 

 My self fears that possibility. 

 I like many others, believe in the many benefits that theorising provides in the domain of social sciences; when examining diverse and widely dispersed subject matters, it helps to pick out defining features, to generalise, and create conceptual frameworks- to theorise is almost like bread-and-butter. Regardless, the worries continued to linger. I’d like to think that as a what is hopefully an indicator of my progress in this intellectual journey, my exposures to post-positivist traditions and intersectionality, have helped to break the fear of the mould. This is precisely the reason why reading Ken Booth’s ‘Reflections of a Fallen Realist’ was reassuring. It was the worry, that it wouldn’t accommodate changes in my identity; acknowledge growth in my perceptions, and instead simply, remain static. Booth’s re-emphasis on the self [6] as well as his own unconscious ontological transitioning; to recalibrate thoughts about security as more embedded and personal, allowed me to ponder on this fear a little more. 


  Taking Choices, Making Decisions 

I would thus, identify my ‘self’ in two dimensions. One being this largely intellectual but very much personal fear of being restrained by ‘staticity’, and the other being my awareness of hierarchical power structures. I think I’ve made my peace with balancing the two by at least developing a sense of affinity for the more critical frameworks (the intersectional lens, I’d like to confess here, is my first true conceptual love). After all Laura Sjoberg suggests, Feminist Security Studies, is capable of interacting with both the feminist strand of IR as well as the more traditional schools [7].

 Booth’s prescription of security as emancipation, is one I can largely get on board with too. It makes space for both subjectivities and temporalities, both of which my ‘self’ needs. Its quite encompassing. The idea that it is not just the international climate that influences thinking in theory, but also the me/I self, means that we must treat security as a very personal phenomenon; and to not abstract it to the typical workings of high power politics.




  Bibliography 

 Booth, Ken. 1994. Security and Self: Reflections of a Fallen Realist. N.p.: YCISS Occasional Paper Number 26. 

Enloe, C. 1983. Does Khaki Become You? The Militarization of Women’s Lives. London: Pluto Press.

 Mead, George H. 1934. Mind, Self & Society. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. 

Sjoberg, Laura. 2018. “Feminist Security and Security Studies,” in The Oxford Handbook of International Security, Apr 2018 DOI: 10.1093/oxfordhb/9780198777854.013.4 

Shephard, Laura J. 2009. “Gender,Violence and Global Politics: Contemporary Debates in Feminist       Security Studies.” Political Studies Review 7 (2): 208-219. 

Roberts, D. 2008. Human Insecurity: Global Structures of Violence. London: Zed Books.

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