Report on the c.a.s.e. III (Odense) conference, nov-dec. 2007
Critical Approaches to Security in Europe III: Emancipation, Resistance and Violence
Joint seminar organized by COST Action A24 in collaboration with the University of Southern Denmark.
30 November – 1 December 2007, Odense, Denmark.Within critical approaches to security, the social construction of threats has been the topic of much debate since the 1990s. For some in the field, security enters the picture as a way of preserving the status quo, as the negative limit of political imagination where communities gel around an imaginary of enemies or of unease. For others, security (national, collective, human, environmental or societal) might still be one of the political stakes worth struggling for. Increasingly, however, agreement exists that practices of security structure societies and politics in a particular way, creating excluded identities, marginalisation and inequality. It is no surprise therefore that questions of resistance, emancipation and violence have become topics of fierce intellectual debate within security studies. In this context questions such as ‘Security for whom?’, ‘Who are the securitising actors, how do they sustain insecurities and what are the consequences for social, economic and political relations?’ and ‘How are insecurities and its agencies constructed?’ are pertinent questions.
To further our thinking on these issues, COST action A24 on ‘The Evolving Social Construction of Threats’, together with the Department of Political Science at the University of Southern Denmark, organised a three day research seminar from 29 November-1 December, 2007. The seminar took place in U99, Odense campus.
This seminar was the third that COST Action A24 organized to support the c.a.s.e. collective, a network that since its inception in June 2005 has very effectively produced research synergies between younger and senior scholars working on the social and political construction of insecurities in Europe. As the previous seminars, this one was highly successful in simultaneously expanding and consolidating this European network.
The intellectual purpose of the research seminar was to reflect on the question of what the concepts of ‘resistance’ and ‘emancipation’ could mean in the context of an expanding administration of political and societal questions in terms of security. How, and in which ways, is it possible to resist to or emancipate from securitised social structures and relations? To a large degree, it was concluded in the workshop, the answer depends on our understanding of politics and the public stakes. Which principles are worth fighting for? The seminar papers explored this question in relation to the normative ideals of ‘liberal democracy’, ‘multiculturalism’, ‘cosmopolitanism’ and ‘equality’. As the papers showed, resistance to dominant security practices comes in many guises and the aim of the seminar was therefore to make us think about the ways in which we want to go beyond the securitised status quo, thinking about positive projects of defining ‘normal politics’.
At the same time, questions of security, resistance and emancipation are also intimately related to the issue of violence. The seminar therefore also dealt with the pertinent and complex question on how to analyse violence that is securitised and framed as criminally, religiously or culturally motivated. Besides speaking to a range of highly relevant empirical issues such as anti-globalisation protests, urban riots, hooliganism, looting, terrorism and asymmetrical violence, the question of violence also helped us to think through questions of political agency (who are securitising actors and which are the agencies seen as threatening), emancipation (security for whom?) and resistance from novel directions.
These questions were taken up explicitly by the three keynote speakers. In his key-note address ‘Return the Gift: Violence, Emancipation, Critique’, Mark Neocleous argued that emancipation needs to be thought of outside of security, which involves exploring the question of exception, because security is always the grounds on which the exception is articulated and exercised. Tracing the politics of exception in liberalism and the process of liberal order-building Neocleous unpacked some of the issues surrounding violence, resistance and emancipation. Lene Hansen, in turn, considered the ways in which visual images play a role in the social construction of threats. Using the cartoon crisis in Denmark as illustration, she argued that visual images can become contested practices of securitisation and desecuritisation. Finally, Tarak Barkawi explored questions of security, resistance and violence from a postcolonial perpective, looking at the impact of the Korean war upon the self-understanding of the United States and its role in the Cold War.
Furthermore, 19 papers, spread out over 6 panels, were presented and discussed by the participants. These papers discussed various aspects of the conference theme, considering the social construction of threats in both a European and non-European context. This gave important insights into how the social construction of threats works in different contexts as well as what it means to move away from security thinking, leading to contextualised understandings of what resistance and emancipation may mean.
Finally, a round table on feminism and security was held. The round table discussed a central debate in security studies concerning the role of gender in the social construction of security, arguing that often gender roles are constructed and distributed unevenly between men and women.
Apart from its academic merits, the conference also contributed greatly to building a more integrated network between the different scholars working on the social construction of threats. It further consolidated the c.a.s.e. collective as a vibrant and expanding network of younger and more senior researchers in the field of constructivist security studies in Europe. It brought junior scholars and PhD-students in contact with more senior researchers, across disciplines (international relations, political theory, criminology, resistance studies) and across national borders.
PROGRAM:
Thursday 29 November 2007 (Room U99)
15.30-16.00 Welcome with coffee
16.00-16.15 Welcome words from the organiser
Niels Ejersbo (SDU, Head of Political Science Department)
Rens van Munster (SDU, local organiser)
Jef Huysmans (COST/CASE)
16.15-17.15 Keynote lecture by Mark Neocleous (Brunel University):
Return the Gift: Violence, Emancipation, Critique
17.15-17.30 Coffee break
17.30-19.00 Panel 1: Security, Emancipation and Resistance
Chair: Rens van Munster (University of Southern Denmark)
• Vinthagen, Stellan (Gothenburg University): Understanding ‘Resistance’
• Peoples Columba (Swansea University): After Emancipation: Critical Theory, Violence, and Resistance
• Claudia Aradau (Open University): Forget Equality? Security, Liberty and the War on Terror
Discussant: Andrew Neal (University of Edinburgh)
20.30 Dinner at Restaurant Olivia, Vintapperstræde 37
Friday 30 November 2007 (Room U99)
9.15-10.45 Panel 2: Processes of Securitisation and Desecuritisation in World Politics
Chair: Andrew Neal (University of Edinburgh)
• Briceno, Gerardo (University of Freiburg), The Changing Nature of Security in the Dynamics of World Politics
• Cebeci, Munevver (Marmara University, Istanbul), Desecuritization in Turkey: Fragile, Reversible but Afoot
• Bartolucci, Valentina (University of Pisa & University of Bradford), Analysing Radicalism and Terrorism in Morocco
• Snetkov, Aglaya (University of Birmingham), A Return to Normality? - The Desecuritisation of Chechnya in Russian Official Politics
Discussant: Xavier Guillaume (University of Geneva)
10.45-11.00 Coffee break
11.00-12.00 Keynote lecture by Lene Hansen (University of Copenhagen):
Visual Securitization: Taking the Copenhagen School from the Word to the Image
12.00-13.00 Lunch at Restaurant Campustorvet
13.05-14.30 Roundtable on Feminism and Security Studies: Living Apart Together?
Chair: Vicki Squire (Open University)
Jef Huysmans (Open University)
Lene Hansen (Copenhagen University)
Claudia Aradau (Open University)
Cristina Masters (University of Manchester)
Maria Stern (University of Gothenburg)
14.30-14.45 Coffee break
14.45-16.15 Panel 3: Contesting Security
Chair: Stellan Vinthagen (University of Gothenburg)
• Xavier Guillaume (University of Geneva): Citizenship, Identity and Securitization
• Trombetta, Maria Julia (TU Delft): Emancipatory Securitization? Lessons from the Environmental Sector
• Jutila, Matti (University of Helsinki): Societal Securitization: Constructing Ethno-National Identities and Their (In)Security
Discussant: Columba Peoples (University of Swansea)
16.15-16.30 Coffee break
16.30-17.45 Panel 4: Security and Exceptionalism
Chair: Xavier Guillaume (University of Geneva)
• Böhm, Maria Laura (University of Hamburg): Security and its 'Enemies': Searching for Answers Beyond the Rule of Law
• Neal, Andrew (University of Edinburgh): Exceptionalism and Colonial Law
• Huysmans, Jef (Open University): Taking Exception to the Exception: On Schmitt, Agamben and the Absence of Political Society
Discussant: Claudia Aradau (Open University)
17.45-19.00 Panel 5: International Political Sociology: Security, Crime and Policing
Chair: Matti Jutila (University of Tampere)
• Fuchs, Walter & Andrea Kretschmann (University of Hamburg): Techniques of Legitimation, Practices of Security: The 'Normality' of State Crime
• Vuori, Juha A. (University of Turku): Freedom, Security, and the Politics of Insecurity in Chinese Practices of Internet Control
• Ostermeier, Lars (University of Hamburg): Transnational Policing: The Transformation of Statehood in Europe and Afghanistan
Discussant: Vicki Squire (Open University)
20.30 Dinner at Restaurant Marco Polo, Jernbanegade 14
Saturday 1 December 2007 (Room U99)
9.30-10.45 General discussion: C.A.S.E. collective and manifesto
10.45-11.00 Coffee break
11.00-12.00 Keynote lecture by Tarak Barkawi (Cambridge University)
Orientalism at War in Korea
12.00-13.15 Panel 6: Security, Peace and the Defence Industry
Chair: Juha Vuori (University of Turku)
• Kurowska, Xymena (EUI): Framing the European Security and Defence Policy: How Security Breeds Politics
• Sabiote, Maria A. (University of Barcelona): European Peace Operations from a Critical Approach
• Vandemoortele, Antoine (EUI): After the War: Security Sector Reforms and Resistance from Below
Discussant: Maria Stern (University of Gothenburg)
13.15 Closing.
Joint seminar organized by COST Action A24 in collaboration with the University of Southern Denmark.
30 November – 1 December 2007, Odense, Denmark.Within critical approaches to security, the social construction of threats has been the topic of much debate since the 1990s. For some in the field, security enters the picture as a way of preserving the status quo, as the negative limit of political imagination where communities gel around an imaginary of enemies or of unease. For others, security (national, collective, human, environmental or societal) might still be one of the political stakes worth struggling for. Increasingly, however, agreement exists that practices of security structure societies and politics in a particular way, creating excluded identities, marginalisation and inequality. It is no surprise therefore that questions of resistance, emancipation and violence have become topics of fierce intellectual debate within security studies. In this context questions such as ‘Security for whom?’, ‘Who are the securitising actors, how do they sustain insecurities and what are the consequences for social, economic and political relations?’ and ‘How are insecurities and its agencies constructed?’ are pertinent questions.
To further our thinking on these issues, COST action A24 on ‘The Evolving Social Construction of Threats’, together with the Department of Political Science at the University of Southern Denmark, organised a three day research seminar from 29 November-1 December, 2007. The seminar took place in U99, Odense campus.
This seminar was the third that COST Action A24 organized to support the c.a.s.e. collective, a network that since its inception in June 2005 has very effectively produced research synergies between younger and senior scholars working on the social and political construction of insecurities in Europe. As the previous seminars, this one was highly successful in simultaneously expanding and consolidating this European network.
The intellectual purpose of the research seminar was to reflect on the question of what the concepts of ‘resistance’ and ‘emancipation’ could mean in the context of an expanding administration of political and societal questions in terms of security. How, and in which ways, is it possible to resist to or emancipate from securitised social structures and relations? To a large degree, it was concluded in the workshop, the answer depends on our understanding of politics and the public stakes. Which principles are worth fighting for? The seminar papers explored this question in relation to the normative ideals of ‘liberal democracy’, ‘multiculturalism’, ‘cosmopolitanism’ and ‘equality’. As the papers showed, resistance to dominant security practices comes in many guises and the aim of the seminar was therefore to make us think about the ways in which we want to go beyond the securitised status quo, thinking about positive projects of defining ‘normal politics’.
At the same time, questions of security, resistance and emancipation are also intimately related to the issue of violence. The seminar therefore also dealt with the pertinent and complex question on how to analyse violence that is securitised and framed as criminally, religiously or culturally motivated. Besides speaking to a range of highly relevant empirical issues such as anti-globalisation protests, urban riots, hooliganism, looting, terrorism and asymmetrical violence, the question of violence also helped us to think through questions of political agency (who are securitising actors and which are the agencies seen as threatening), emancipation (security for whom?) and resistance from novel directions.
These questions were taken up explicitly by the three keynote speakers. In his key-note address ‘Return the Gift: Violence, Emancipation, Critique’, Mark Neocleous argued that emancipation needs to be thought of outside of security, which involves exploring the question of exception, because security is always the grounds on which the exception is articulated and exercised. Tracing the politics of exception in liberalism and the process of liberal order-building Neocleous unpacked some of the issues surrounding violence, resistance and emancipation. Lene Hansen, in turn, considered the ways in which visual images play a role in the social construction of threats. Using the cartoon crisis in Denmark as illustration, she argued that visual images can become contested practices of securitisation and desecuritisation. Finally, Tarak Barkawi explored questions of security, resistance and violence from a postcolonial perpective, looking at the impact of the Korean war upon the self-understanding of the United States and its role in the Cold War.
Furthermore, 19 papers, spread out over 6 panels, were presented and discussed by the participants. These papers discussed various aspects of the conference theme, considering the social construction of threats in both a European and non-European context. This gave important insights into how the social construction of threats works in different contexts as well as what it means to move away from security thinking, leading to contextualised understandings of what resistance and emancipation may mean.
Finally, a round table on feminism and security was held. The round table discussed a central debate in security studies concerning the role of gender in the social construction of security, arguing that often gender roles are constructed and distributed unevenly between men and women.
Apart from its academic merits, the conference also contributed greatly to building a more integrated network between the different scholars working on the social construction of threats. It further consolidated the c.a.s.e. collective as a vibrant and expanding network of younger and more senior researchers in the field of constructivist security studies in Europe. It brought junior scholars and PhD-students in contact with more senior researchers, across disciplines (international relations, political theory, criminology, resistance studies) and across national borders.
PROGRAM:
Thursday 29 November 2007 (Room U99)
15.30-16.00 Welcome with coffee
16.00-16.15 Welcome words from the organiser
Niels Ejersbo (SDU, Head of Political Science Department)
Rens van Munster (SDU, local organiser)
Jef Huysmans (COST/CASE)
16.15-17.15 Keynote lecture by Mark Neocleous (Brunel University):
Return the Gift: Violence, Emancipation, Critique
17.15-17.30 Coffee break
17.30-19.00 Panel 1: Security, Emancipation and Resistance
Chair: Rens van Munster (University of Southern Denmark)
• Vinthagen, Stellan (Gothenburg University): Understanding ‘Resistance’
• Peoples Columba (Swansea University): After Emancipation: Critical Theory, Violence, and Resistance
• Claudia Aradau (Open University): Forget Equality? Security, Liberty and the War on Terror
Discussant: Andrew Neal (University of Edinburgh)
20.30 Dinner at Restaurant Olivia, Vintapperstræde 37
Friday 30 November 2007 (Room U99)
9.15-10.45 Panel 2: Processes of Securitisation and Desecuritisation in World Politics
Chair: Andrew Neal (University of Edinburgh)
• Briceno, Gerardo (University of Freiburg), The Changing Nature of Security in the Dynamics of World Politics
• Cebeci, Munevver (Marmara University, Istanbul), Desecuritization in Turkey: Fragile, Reversible but Afoot
• Bartolucci, Valentina (University of Pisa & University of Bradford), Analysing Radicalism and Terrorism in Morocco
• Snetkov, Aglaya (University of Birmingham), A Return to Normality? - The Desecuritisation of Chechnya in Russian Official Politics
Discussant: Xavier Guillaume (University of Geneva)
10.45-11.00 Coffee break
11.00-12.00 Keynote lecture by Lene Hansen (University of Copenhagen):
Visual Securitization: Taking the Copenhagen School from the Word to the Image
12.00-13.00 Lunch at Restaurant Campustorvet
13.05-14.30 Roundtable on Feminism and Security Studies: Living Apart Together?
Chair: Vicki Squire (Open University)
Jef Huysmans (Open University)
Lene Hansen (Copenhagen University)
Claudia Aradau (Open University)
Cristina Masters (University of Manchester)
Maria Stern (University of Gothenburg)
14.30-14.45 Coffee break
14.45-16.15 Panel 3: Contesting Security
Chair: Stellan Vinthagen (University of Gothenburg)
• Xavier Guillaume (University of Geneva): Citizenship, Identity and Securitization
• Trombetta, Maria Julia (TU Delft): Emancipatory Securitization? Lessons from the Environmental Sector
• Jutila, Matti (University of Helsinki): Societal Securitization: Constructing Ethno-National Identities and Their (In)Security
Discussant: Columba Peoples (University of Swansea)
16.15-16.30 Coffee break
16.30-17.45 Panel 4: Security and Exceptionalism
Chair: Xavier Guillaume (University of Geneva)
• Böhm, Maria Laura (University of Hamburg): Security and its 'Enemies': Searching for Answers Beyond the Rule of Law
• Neal, Andrew (University of Edinburgh): Exceptionalism and Colonial Law
• Huysmans, Jef (Open University): Taking Exception to the Exception: On Schmitt, Agamben and the Absence of Political Society
Discussant: Claudia Aradau (Open University)
17.45-19.00 Panel 5: International Political Sociology: Security, Crime and Policing
Chair: Matti Jutila (University of Tampere)
• Fuchs, Walter & Andrea Kretschmann (University of Hamburg): Techniques of Legitimation, Practices of Security: The 'Normality' of State Crime
• Vuori, Juha A. (University of Turku): Freedom, Security, and the Politics of Insecurity in Chinese Practices of Internet Control
• Ostermeier, Lars (University of Hamburg): Transnational Policing: The Transformation of Statehood in Europe and Afghanistan
Discussant: Vicki Squire (Open University)
20.30 Dinner at Restaurant Marco Polo, Jernbanegade 14
Saturday 1 December 2007 (Room U99)
9.30-10.45 General discussion: C.A.S.E. collective and manifesto
10.45-11.00 Coffee break
11.00-12.00 Keynote lecture by Tarak Barkawi (Cambridge University)
Orientalism at War in Korea
12.00-13.15 Panel 6: Security, Peace and the Defence Industry
Chair: Juha Vuori (University of Turku)
• Kurowska, Xymena (EUI): Framing the European Security and Defence Policy: How Security Breeds Politics
• Sabiote, Maria A. (University of Barcelona): European Peace Operations from a Critical Approach
• Vandemoortele, Antoine (EUI): After the War: Security Sector Reforms and Resistance from Below
Discussant: Maria Stern (University of Gothenburg)
13.15 Closing.
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