Security in ambiguity

Abstract

In this article we offer a reconceptualization of security that attempts to reconcile a post-critical and normative agenda. The article proceeds by unpacking features of the dominant security discourse and then resituating the question in a radical politics. We contend that moving forward on this question requires a rejection of the association between security, certainty and authority. Rather than following the classical realist view that security requires exceptions from politics, we choose to see security as dependent on political uncertainty. Borrowing from Häanninen’s idea that politics is ‘living with ambiguity’ and taking from post-Foucauldian thought against the violence of tyranny, we advocate the ongoing repoliticization of the security field informed by harm reduction. We offer ‘security in ambiguity’ as a conceptualization of this synthesis.