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Critical Security History: (De)securitisation, ontological security, and insecure memories

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  15 May 2019

Faye Donnelly  and
Brent J. Steele
Faye Donnelly*
Affiliation:
Lecturer in International Relations, School of International Relations, University of St Andrews
Brent J. Steele
Affiliation:
Professor and Francis D. Wormuth Presidential Chair, Political Science, Department of Political Science, University of Utah
*
*Corresponding author. Email: fd47@st-andrews.ac.uk
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Abstract

This article makes a case for incorporating the concept of ‘Critical Security History’ (CSH) into security studies. While history plays a powerful role in a cornucopia of security stories, we contend that it often goes unnoticed in scholarly research and teaching. Against this backdrop, we present a detailed guide to study how history is told and enacted in non-linear ways. To do this, the article outlines how CSH can contribute to securitisation and ontological security studies. As shown, this lens casts a new light on the legacies of (de)securitisation processes and how they are commemorated. It also illustrates that ontological security studies have only begun to call into question the concept of historicity. Working through these observations, the article marshals insights from Halvard Leira's notion of ‘engaged historical amateurism’ to entice scholars interested in ‘doing’ CSH. While acknowledging that this research agenda is hard to achieve, our study of the 2012 Sarajevo Red Line project helps to illustrate the added value of trying to ‘do’ CSH in theory and in practice. We end with some reflections for future research and continued conversations.

Keywords

Critical Security HistorySecuritisationOntological SecurityMemoriesEngaged Amateurism
Type
Research Article
Information
European Journal of International Security , Volume 4 , Issue 2 , June 2019 , pp. 209 - 226
Copyright
Copyright © British International Studies Association 2019 

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References

1 Several other empirical case studies and postconflict sites could obviously have been chosen to make this point. We selected Valentin Inzko's report as a way to create empirical consistency with our discussion of Sarajevo Red Line project later on in the article.

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22 We would like to thank the reviewers for asking us to elaborate on our selection process.

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93 Steele, ‘Critical Security History and Hiroshima’, p. 306.

94 Ibid., p. 305.

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101 Ibid., p. 40.

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105 Leira, International Relations Pluralism and History, pp. 23–31.

106 Ibid., p. 54.

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110 Giddens, The Constitution of Society, p. 54.

111 See Bassanelli, Michela, Gravano, Viviana, Grechi, Giulia, and Postiglione, Gennaro, Beyond Memorialization: Design for Conflict Heritage (Politecnico di Milano, Department of Architecture and Urban Studies; REcall Book, 2014), p. 14Google Scholar, available at: {https://re.public.polimi.it/retrieve/handle/11311/961621/40484/6_Recall_Book_Bassanelli.pdf} accessed 30 September 2018.

112 Alan Taylor, ‘20 years since the Bosnian War’, The Atlantic (2012), available at: {https://www.theatlantic.com/photo/2012/04/20-years-since-the-bosnian-war/100278/} accessed 10 February 2017.

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130 Marianne Hirsch, ‘Postmemory’, available at: {www.postmemory.net} accessed 29 September 2018.

131 McGrattan, Cillian and Hopkins, Stephen, ‘Memory in post-conflict societies: From contention to integration’, Ethnopolitics, 15:5 (2017), p. 491Google Scholar.