The ground shifts but the storyline remains the same: injustice perpetuates, crises intensify, power skews more toward the top tier, and people gather in the search for a more humane, sustainable world. This has become the baseline posture for deconstructing nearly every issue in our midst, including those addressed in this issue of the journal, from crime and drugs to patriarchy and privacy. Still, as these articles demonstrate, the capacity to critically engage these issues and propose viable alternatives remains intact, with a sense of possibilities for restorative and transformative praxis always at hand.
A recent discussion with colleagues helped me to think about all of these issues through a different lens, one that I generally avoid due to its ostensible political baggage and the ways in which it operates in the world. I’m speaking here about the framework of ‘security,’ which of course has many connotations but, in the post 9–11 and (now the Trump) era, has taken on a more ominous tone. Still, if we consider the range of concerns expressed under the ‘justice and peace’ mantle, many of them do come back to a set of basic notions about how safe, content, functional, meaningful, and sustainable our lives really are.
One of the challenges of working in our field(s) is that basic concepts can be highly malleable. Those who perpetuate injustice will oftentimes invoke the mantle of justice; those who would make war will frequently couch their intentions in terms of peace. The seemingly open-ended and aspirational nature of these pursuits invites myriad users to adopt them for a wide range of purposes. Lacking a rigid disciplinary framework in which to impose methodological boundaries upon would-be users, advocates of justice and peace are often left with discursive means and values-oriented argumentation to maintain a veneer of consistency in the application of these fundamental terms.
While this can promote uncertainty and potential cooptation, it also sets in motion a series of processes that are consistent with our efforts, namely a penchant for dialogue, understanding, restoration, and transformation. As such, we may note that the concept of security occupies a non-controversial space in the discourse, in the sense that there generally is no oppositional sentiment in the popular consciousness. Yet as with the conundrum of justice and peace, invocations of security are increasingly coupled with practices that are antithetical to its realization. The pliability and universality of the term presents a tempting political target, and as resources for research and development tend to flow in the same direction, the notion draws even greater salience over time.
But paradoxes resound. It is redundant by now to point out that US society is mired in a ‘criminal justice’ system that devolves upon injustice at nearly every level, or to note that the nation is preoccupied with a military machine that is neither designed for nor desirous of making peace. Similarly, the ever-expanding security apparatus is steadily rendering us individually more insecure through incessant incursions into privacy, and promoting domestic insecurity by over-policing precisely those populations who are most vulnerable to the ravages of precarity and victimization. It also yields greater international insecurities through policies of destabilization and exacerbation, and likewise generates global insecurities by heightening patterns of environmental degradation.
The problem does not lie inherently with the concept so much as it does with its application. In this sense, we might view the use (and even the misuse) of the term ‘security’ as an invitation to a discussion about its meaning, even as we may vociferously debate the means for attaining it. For obvious reasons, it is appealing to define one’s own trajectory as morally righteous and practically efficacious. We want to believe that we are on the side of good, even if this desire sometimes is operationalized in more mundane terms as merely being on the right side of an issue or conflict. I would submit, however, that there can be no ‘good’ (nor security, peace, or justice) if attaining it in one realm is predicated on its absence in another. In other words: peace is not piecemeal; justice is only for just-us; and security is not a zero-sum game. Accordingly, we observe that those who lack security will inevitably seek it, rendering those who possess it as being eternally insecure. Likewise, when conflict persists in one sphere of life, it will impinge upon whatever peace is found in another.
Our destinies are connected in this manner. Let us take care, then, not to craft versions of justice, peace, and security that have the effect of producing the opposite. The structures and systems put in place to achieve these ends must reflect the essence of these concepts all the way through, or they are likely to only further exacerbate the problems. If we have a crime control system that merely produces more ‘criminals’ and perpetuates historically induced patterns of racism and disenfranchisement, then it cannot rightly be called a justice system. If we wage war on others for purposes of acquisition, dominance, or eradication, it will only create more ‘enemy combatants’ in the process. If we build walls (literally and figuratively, in real space and in cyberspace) to contain threats, we are also walling ourselves in and thus compartmentalizing the needs of others. None of these practices makes us secure; they simply render us compliant in a temporary illusion of security.
To move beyond such facades, we might consult those deemed ‘security experts.’ But I would like to enlarge the circle of who qualifies for this designation. To wit: people without stable homes are security experts. They are able to survive not only the ravages of extreme poverty, but also without many of the emotive bases and social affirmations that provide a sense of belonging and purpose. They literally can find shelter in a storm and locate sustenance in a food desert, asserting by their very presence the fundamental necessity of universal human rights. Likewise, a working parent is a security expert, finding innovative ways on a daily basis to keep their children safe, clothed, fed, homed, and loved. Those in movements like #BlackLivesMatter are security experts, manifesting the essential notion (from MLK) that ‘injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.’ Native water protectors and environmental activists are security experts in sustaining our sense of place.
So when we speak of security, let’s not only talk about national security, cybersecurity, and military security. Let’s also talk about food and water security, community security, human security, environmental security, and intergenerational security. Let’s talk about security as a function of solidarity, mobilization, resistance, and co-creation. Let’s talk about factors such as gross inequality, endemic discrimination, pervasive dehumanization, and climate destabilization. Let’s talk not only about how ‘we’ can be secure, but how ‘they’ can be secure as well – which is the only way that anyone (indeed, all of ‘us’) can be truly secure in this world. Let’s talk, finally, about security in terms of justice and peace, which are pragmatic and aspirational values all at once. This integrative approach holds promise as a means toward achieving its own end. We can all be experts in this.
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