This dissertation argues that the Human Security paradigm is an essential peacebuilding assessment tool as it allows holistic, feminist insights into informants’ agency and lived realities which are definers of peace and people’s perceptions thereof. Peacebuilding, in this context, includes not only United Nations and local peacebuilding initiatives but also perceptions and everyday actions of peace and reactions to conflict. Peace is, therefore, understood as an ideal lived reality that we continuously advance towards and retreat from. Human Security allows us to examine lived realities from a variety of conditions; namely, personal, economic, political, community, food, health, and environmental (in)securities and their respective underlying indicators and the freedom to live life in dignity without wants or fears (Tadjbakhsh & Chenoy, 2007). In this sense, human security is in itself another word for positive peace; a term coined by Johan Galtung (1969); where not only direct, physical violence comes to an end but also structural and cultural violence, which respectively denote the systemic discrimination of certain societal groups and symbolical legitimisation of violence in general (1990). This exploration of individual and collective experiences of security in peri-urban Liberia touches on several topics: a victim-agency mesh, insecurities brought upon by Ebola, comparisons of insecurities caused by Ebola and the war, and people’s definitions of security. In doing so, this project seeks to provide a symbiosis of Human Security and Critical Feminist Security Studies. Discussants will be our very own Michael Eilenberg and Robin May Schott, feminist philosopher and Senior Researcher at DIIS.

This dissertation argues that the Human Security paradigm is an essential peacebuilding assessment tool as it allows holistic, feminist insights into informants’ agency and lived realities which are definers of peace and people’s perceptions thereof. Peacebuilding, in this context, includes not only United Nations and local peacebuilding initiatives but also perceptions and everyday actions of peace and reactions to conflict. Peace is, therefore, understood as an ideal lived reality that we continuously advance towards and retreat from. Human Security allows us to examine lived realities from a variety of conditions; namely, personal, economic, political, community, food, health, and environmental (in)securities and their respective underlying indicators and the freedom to live life in dignity without wants or fears (Tadjbakhsh & Chenoy, 2007). In this sense, human security is in itself another word for positive peace; a term coined by Johan Galtung (1969); where not only direct, physical violence comes to an end but also structural and cultural violence, which respectively denote the systemic discrimination of certain societal groups and symbolical legitimisation of violence in general (1990). This exploration of individual and collective experiences of security in peri-urban Liberia touches on several topics: a victim-agency mesh, insecurities brought upon by Ebola, comparisons of insecurities caused by Ebola and the war, and people’s definitions of security. In doing so, this project seeks to provide a symbiosis of Human Security and Critical Feminist Security Studies.

Discussants will be our very own Michael Eilenberg and Robin May Schott, feminist philosopher and Senior Researcher at DIIS.

Time: December 12, 13:15-15:00

Venue: 4206-117 (Aud. 1, Campus Moesgaard)