[The version of record of this manuscript has been published in Journal of

International Relations and Development (2015), 18, 52-74]

IDENTITY AND DESECURITISATION: THE PITFALLS OF

CONFLATING ONTOLOGICAL AND PHYSICAL SECURITY

Bahar Rumelili, Koc University

ABSTRACT: How can Self move from a securitised to a non-

securitised relation with the Other while its very identity

depends on its relation to the Other? Within the existing

critical approaches to security, this question, which

encapsulates the complex interrelationship between identity and

desecuritisation, has not been explored in a systematic manner.

This article builds on the emerging literature on ontological

security to develop a two-layered framework of security as both

ontological and physical, wherein the relationship between

identity and desecuritisation can be better analyzed. I argue

Earlier versions of this article have been presented at the ISA (2008), Center for Advanced Security Theory in Copenhagen (2010), and at the Norwegian Institute of International Affairs (2011). I have benefitted extensively from the feedback of Pertti Joenniemi, Stefano Guzzini, PatrickT. Jackson, Iver Neumann, Ole Wæver, and the three anonymous reviewers and editors of JIRD. The usual disclaimer applies. I also gratefully acknowledge the support of Turkish Academy of Sciences’ Distinguished YoungScientist Program. The final revisions to the article were made during my sabbatical leave at the University of British Columbia (2011-12), which waspartially supported by an outgoing fellowship granted by the Scientific andTechnological Research Council of Turkey.

1

that the conflation of ontological and physical security within

the existing critical approaches to security has generated an

insufficient appreciation of how identity expands the

possibilities for desecuritisation while imposing new limits.

In particular, the framework offered in this article highlights

the possibilities for achieving ontological security in the

absence of securitisation and limits to desecuritisation that

stem from ontological insecurity.

Keywords: Desecuritisation, Ontological Security, Identity,

Self/Other Relations

I. INTRODUCTION

Questions of identity and security remain inextricably

intertwined in many contemporary political issues, including

migration, minority rights, and protracted conflicts, such as

in Cyprus, Israel-Palestine, and Bosnia. In relation to such

issues and conflicts, critical approaches to international

relations have emphasized the contingent and socially

constructed nature of dominant conceptions of identity and

security. A driving agenda of critical theories of security has

been that security, threat, danger, and risk are not objective

2

conditions, but social constructs that are shaped by dominant

discourses. We inhabit a securitised world of our own making,

where issues and concerns are approached as threats to our

survival that merit emergency and exceptional measures (Buzan

et al 1998; Wæver 1995; Williams 2003). Hence, issues such as

migration and minority rights come to threaten majority groups

because they are framed and acted toward as security issues.

And conflicts in Bosnia, Cyprus, and Palestine become

intractable not because they are inherently so, but because the

respective issues of constitution, territoriality, and status

of Jerusalem are politically elevated into matters of survival.

Similarly, critical theories of identity have underscored the

significance of identity as a constitutive basis for social

action, but at the same time drawn our attention to the

discursive production of difference (Campbell 1992; Weldes et

al 1999). Thus, the differences between Greek and Turkish

Cypriots, Bosnian Muslims and Serbs, majority and minority

identities do not stem from pre-given incompatibilities, but

‘exist’ only because they are continuously re-produced through

dominant discourses.

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No critical theorist would ever claim that securitisations

and difference producing discourses are easily reversible.

However, to stress that this is a world of our own making

invites reflexivity, and at least for some scholars it also

opens up the possibility that securitised issues can be brought

back to normal politics, redefined as not threatening to our

survival, through a process of desecuritisation (Wæver 1995;

Aradau 2004; Huysmans 1995, 1998; Roe 2004; Jutila 2006). Yet,

apart from the identification of this possibility, questions

such as how desecuritisation takes place, under what conditions

and through which underlying processes have not been

sufficiently addressed (Aradau 2004; Hansen 2012).

While critical approaches to security (CAS) have

developed to encompass diverse bodies of literature, which

makes general critiques difficult, in this article, I highlight

a widespread limitation of this literature1 in theorizing the

1 Critical approaches to security is a vast literature, divided

into various approaches and ‘schools’ (C.A.S.E. Collective,

2006; see also Gad and Petersen 2011), but sharing a common

critique of traditional approaches and concern with the

politics and ethics of security (Browning and Mcdonald, 2011).

This article does not engage in a comprehensive analysis, but

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identity/security nexus in the processes of

securitisation/desecuritisation. How does Self move from a

securitised to a non-securitised relation with the Other while

its very identity depends on its relation to the Other? As

Wæver (2009) notes, reminding existentially threatened conflict

parties, such as the Israelis and Palestinians, of the socially

constructed and contingent nature of their identities is not

likely to work as a desecuritisation strategy. At the same

time, however, the continued reproduction of antithetical

identity positions undermines political attempts to remove the

perception of existential threat. Thus, proper theorization of

the identity/security nexus necessitates making assumptions

about how processes of securitisation/desecuritisation and

identity construction impinge on one another and

conceptualizing the ways in which different identity

constructions enable and limit the processes of securitisation/

desecuritisation.

My claim is that the extant literature on critical

approaches to security is presently unequipped to properly

focuses in particular on the contributions of Michael Dillon,

Maria Stern, Ole Wæver, Michael Williams, Paul Roe, Matti Jutila,

Claudia Aradau, and Jef Huysmans.

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theorize this identity/security nexus because it fails to

distinguish between the ontological security to constitute a

distinct Self (security-as-being) and physical security defined

as the freedom of a pre-constituted Self from harm, threat, or

danger (security-as-survival). This conflation obscures the

ways in which identity constructions both enable and limit

desecuritisation. As recently underlined by Lene Hansen, the

process of desecuritisation is ultimately ‘one of shifting

interrelatedness’, which, in order to be possible, ‘must

instantiate the non-threatening identity of the Other’ (Hansen

2012: 533). Yet, given this condition of possibility, the

critical security literature has not explored how the shifting

of issues out of the security realm may be both enabled and

limited by alternative identity constructions. Instead, most

security theorists (e.g. Stern 2006; Wæver 1998; Williams 2003;

Roe 2004) have chosen to focus so exclusively on how discourses

and practices of security-as-survival condition and constrain

processes of identity formation that they have left no

theoretical space for the emergence of alternative identity

constructions that would enable desecuritisation. On the other

hand, some others (e.g. Huysmans 1995, 1998; Aradau 2004) have

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based their strategies of desecuritisation on the transcendence

and the blurring of Self/Other distinctions, but while doing

so, neglected how the pursuit of the freedom to constitute a

distinct Self (i.e. ontological security) may limit

desecuritisation.

Therefore, the theorization of desecuritisation needs to

incorporate processes of identity reconstruction and

transformation, and I argue that the literature on ontological

security provides a promising point of departure in advancing

critical theories of security in this respect. The notion of

ontological security highlights the intimate relation between

identity and security, while underscoring that the pursuits of

ontological and physical security in international relations

are characterized by different dynamics, processes, acts, and

discourses. Ontological security is intimately connected with

identity, and as such its pursuit requires differentiation and

in that sense presupposes an Other. It stems from having a

stable relationship with the Other; yet, it does not

necessitate the securitisation of an Other in the sense of

defining it as a threat. The pursuit of physical security, on

the other hand, from a critical perspective, entails both the

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naming and identification of threats to survival, which often

involve the securitisation of an Other, and the development of

measures to defend the Self against those threats. In this

article, I develop a two-layered conception of security as both

physical and ontological. Through this two-layered conception

of security, I theorize the ways in which the pursuit of a

stable identity in relation to the Other both enables and

limits desecuritisation, and suggest ways in which

desecuritisation processes may overcome these limits.

The following section of the article critically defines

the concepts of ontological and physical security in relation

to one another, and to other concepts of security, and develops

the two-layered framework of security, where ontological and

physical security constitute two distinct but interrelated

layers. Their distinction gives rise to a greater set of

possible states of security than previously accounted in the

literature, and by developing a 2x2 analytical matrix, I

discuss how ontological and physical security relate to one

another across different states of security. Then, the third

section of the article underscores how the failure to

distinguish between the two layers of security has constrained

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the existing literature in its analysis of processes of

securitisation and desecuritisation, and situates these

processes within the analytical matrix in a way that highlights

the possibilities for achieving ontological security in the

absence of securitisation and the ways in which ontological

insecurity may limit desecuritisation. These possibilities and

limits are then briefly illustrated by references to protracted

conflicts and minority rights debates.

Taking note of the ways in which ontological insecurity

limits desecuritisation, the fourth section of the article

draws on the post-structuralist IR literature on Self/Other

relations to explore the possibilities and conditions for

attaining and maintaining ontological security in the process

of desecuritisation. The various typologies of Self/Other

relations put forward by this literature present us with

alternative forms of securitised and non-securitised Otherness

and therefore suggest that the maintenance of a stable identity

in relation to the Other does not necessitate the

securitisation of the Other. I further infer from this

literature that the reinstitution of ontological security in

the process of desecuritisation necessitates a transition from

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securitised to non-securitised distinctions on temporal,

ethical, spatial dimensions, and not the transcendence of

differences between Self and Other. I develop a number of

heuristic examples on how such non-securitised distinctions may

be instituted in processes of desecuritisation of minority

rights, protracted conflicts, and migration. The conclusion

summarizes the contributions of the conceptual framework of

security introduced in the article and identifies some avenues

for further research.

II. STATES OF SECURITY AS BOTH PHYSICAL AND ONTOLOGICAL

The concept of ontological security has given birth to a

burgeoning literature in IR (Kinnvall 2004; Steele 2005, 2008;

Mitzen 2006a, 2006b; Roe 2008; Krolikowski 2008; Berenskoetter

and Giegerich 2010; Zarakol 2010; Lupovici 2012; Croft 2012),

mainly drawing on Giddens (1991). Giddens (1991: 38-9)

emphasizes how the maintenance of habits and routines helps “to

constitute ‘a formed framework’ for existence by cultivating a

sense of being and its separation from non-being.” This

framework of ontological security enables individuals to answer

existential questions about “basic parameters of human life”,

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such as the nature of existence, the distinction between human

life and the external world, the existence of other persons,

and self-identity (ibid: 48-55), and to take for granted

existential parameters of activity (ibid: 37). Applying this

concept to the study of IR, Mitzen (2006a: 341) has argued

that, in addition to physical security, states also seek

ontological security, which is the ‘security not of the body

but of the self, the subjective sense of who one is, which

enables and motivates action and choice.’ (Mitzen 2006a: 344).

According to Steele (2005: 526), ontological security entails

‘knowing both what one is doing and why one is doing it’.

Certainty, which gives rise to stability and continuity of

being, is its pre-condition. According to Roe (2008: 783), ‘it

is a security of social relationship, that is to say a sense of

being safely in control of a cognitive situation’. Zarakol

(2010: 6) stresses that ‘it entails having a consistent sense

of self and having that sense affirmed by others.’

While this is a relatively new literature in IR, it is

already characterized by different approaches, in particular

regarding the relationality and the constitution of identity.2 2 There is also a vibrant debate on the applicability of the concept of ontological security to states. For critical appraisals, see Krolikowski (2008) and Croft (2012).

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On the former, Steele stresses that identities emerge

endogenously, not just ‘in the dialectic between self and other

but within the internal dialectic that arises from the

ontological security-seeking process’ (2008: 32). On the other

hand, Mitzen (2006a) and Roe (2008) underscore the relational

nature of identity by placing emphasis on routinized practices

with significant others, which can be cooperative or

conflictual and entail positive or negative identification with

others (on this point, see also Zarakol (2010)). Adopting a

relationist and a post-structuralist approach to ontological

security, I emphasize firstly that identity is constituted not

through any routine, but specifically those that articulate

difference and distinctiveness. Precisely because identity

lacks a pre-given, objectively identifiable essence (Connolly

1991; Campbell 1992), we secure ourselves as beings mainly by

discourses and practices that differentiate ourselves from

Others. Secondly, I underline that ontological security rests

on the reproduction of a rich set of identity markers that

distinguish Self from Other on the basis of multiple dimensions

and not only of more basic type (i.e. friend/enemy)

distinctions (cf. Mitzen 2006).

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The literature stresses that the pursuit of ontological

security constitutes an additional basis and motivation for

state behavior and that the pursuits of ontological and

physical security in international relations are characterized

by different dynamics, processes, acts, and discourses. The

pursuit of ontological security leads actors to ‘routinize

relationships with significant others’ (Mitzen 2006a: 341) and

choose ‘courses of action comfortable with their sense of

identity’ (Steele 2005:526). In contrast, the pursuit of

physical security entails both the naming and identification of

threats, and the development of measures to defend the Self

against those threats. The distinction between the two layers

of security locates the us/them distinction in the realm of

security-as-being and the friend/enemy dichotomy in the realm

of security-as-survival. Ontological security requires

differentiation and in that sense presupposes an Other. Yet it

does not necessitate the securitisation of the Other in the

sense of defining it as a physical threat (security-as-

survival). While the pursuit of ontological security entails

practices that reproduce the stability of a Self/Other

relation, the pursuit of physical security is productive of a

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particular form of Self/Other relation where the Self and Other

view each other as physical threats.

It needs to be emphasized at this point that the

separation between the two layers of security treats neither

identity nor security as prior to and independent of the other

(McSweeney 1999). Rather, it highlights the intimate linkage

between identity and the particular layer of ontological

security, while undermining the unproblematic association often

made in the literature between identity and the construction of

an Other as a threat to physical security.

The notion of ontological security challenges the

exclusive association that conventional theories of IR make

between security and survival, physical threat and defense.

Despite their contributions in expanding and deepening the

notion of security, CAS have maintained this association albeit

in a more qualified form. Ontological security differs from

other related non-traditional security concepts such as

positive security, human security, and societal security. It is

associated with the adjectival use of security, which, as

McSweeney (1999: 14-5) underlines, carries a positive

connotation and performs an enabling function as a ‘property of

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a relationship, a quality making each secure in the other.’

Yet, ontological security also usurps the value distinction

between positive and negative security; it stresses that what

makes the Self secure in the Other could be a negative

relationship of enmity as well as a positive one of friendship

and amity (Roe 2008: 779).

Unlike human security, ontological security applies both

to individual and collective actors (Roe 2008). It stresses

that states, just like individuals, are social actors that seek

security in each other as well as from one another. Moreover,

unlike human security, ontological security is not associated

with an emancipatory normative agenda that seeks to empower the

individual in relation to the state (Bilgin 2003; Booth 1991).

While ontological security focuses on the socio-psychological

needs of stability and recognition, even at its broadest

conception, human security concerns itself primarily with

physical human needs (freedom from violence, poverty, and

disease, etc.).

Ontological security also differs from societal security,

which focuses on threats to national and societal identities,

in at least two ways. First of all, concerns of ontological

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security are not limited to a specific referent or sector of

security. Certainty and stability of identity remain a concern

of states as well as of societies and individuals regardless of

whether the threats are located in the cultural or non-cultural

(military, economic, environmental) realms. Secondly, societal

security remains very much wedded a survivalist and threat-

based conception of security (Wæver, 1993: 25). Defined by

Wæver (1993: 23) as “the ability of a society to persist in its

essential character under changing conditions and possible or

actual threats”, societal security refers to the security of a

pre-constituted society/ identity from harm, threat, and

danger. Ontological security does not presuppose a threat to

identity but underlines an ongoing concern with its stability.

Physical security or security-as-survival also remains

imprecisely defined, despite its prominence in the mainstream

IR literature. The survival motive is broadly used to denote

concerns about the physical survival of citizens of a state,

the preservation of its government apparatus and the

maintenance of authority over its territory. However, states,

under usual circumstances, do not face an imminent threat of

death, and sometimes even ‘choose to die’ (Howes 2003; Paul

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1999). The distinction between ontological and physical

security does not necessitate that I establish certain threats

as purely physical and serious enough to put survival at stake.

As a critical theorist of security, I focus on how concerns

about survival are produced and their effects on political

debate and policy and underscore that concerns about survival

and being motivate different politics (see also Wæver 1993:

26).

While mainstream theories of IR have omitted ontological

security, in CAS, ontological and physical security remains

very much conflated. On the one hand, CAS have been able to

incorporate non-physical security concerns, as in the case of

societal security. On the other hand, by defining security

issues by reference to the criterion of whether it is presented

as an existential threat (Buzan et al 1998:24), they have

associated security exclusively with the dynamics, processes,

acts, and politics of security-as-survival, including the

naming of threats, legitimization of emergency defense

measures, and empowerment of security actors. In contrast,

ontological security is associated with different dynamics,

processes, acts, and politics, that center around the

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reproduction of narratives, habits and routines and the

maintenance of a system of certitude.

This article not only highlights ontological security as a

distinct concern that motivates behavior, but also develops a

two-layered framework of security within which we can explore

how ontological and physical security are interlinked. Their

distinction highlights the possibility of attaining ontological

security in the absence of the construction of and mobilization

against a threat to survival. At the same time, their

relatedness intimately connects the question of whether we

securitize, i.e. perceive and construct certain actors and

issues as physical threats, with how we secure ourselves as

beings and whether we feel secure as beings, thus underscoring

how ontological insecurity may limit desecuritisation.

In exploring how ontological and physical security are

interlinked, I start from the assumption that actors in

international relations seek both ontological and physical

security, and from that I deduce that at a single point in

time, they will be in a state of security, which has both an

ontological and a physical dimension. Following Wæver (1998:

81), I define three states of security, namely asecurity,

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insecurity, and security, but disaggregate the ontological and

physical dimensions. I define a state of physical security as

one where Self experiences concern about imminent harm, threat,

and danger, but considers itself adequately protected against

these threats. This state is produced when ‘a threat is

articulated but sufficient counter-measures are also

[presented] to be available’ (ibid). In a state of physical

insecurity, on the other hand, the security discourse is framed

so that Self experiences concern about imminent harm, threat,

and danger, but also regards itself as inadequately protected.

Because security itself is a practice, security/ insecurity are

not exhaustive states. When the situation is taken out of the

security discourse and practice, the realm of emergency

politics and exceptional measures, we arrive at a state of

physical asecurity, where Self does not experience concern

about imminent harm, threat, or danger. Like Wæver, this

article emphasizes the commonalities between states of physical

insecurity/security, i.e. physical (in)security, and

concentrates on their distinction from a state of physical

asecurity.

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In case of ontological security, the distinction between

security and insecurity is the more critical one. In a state of

ontological insecurity, Self experiences instability and

uncertainty of being. Ontological insecurity refers to a state

of disruption where the Self has lost its anchor for the

definition of its identity and, consequently, its ability to

sustain a narrative and answer questions about doing, acting,

and being (Kinnvall 2004). It may arise from deep uncertainty

(Mitzen 2006a) and/or from the failure to have its sense of

Self affirmed by others (Zarakol 2010). Conversely, in a state

of ontological security, Self experiences a stable, certain,

and consistent social existence, where it remains in control

about its identity and capacity for action. While I do not rule

out the possibility of a state of ontological asecurity, where

Self is simply not concerned with the stability and certainty

of its identity, I do not explore this possibility and how it

varies across different states of physical security in this

article.

Having identified different states of physical and

ontological security, I make the further assumption that since

ontological and physical security are distinct. States of

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security do not vary uniformly across the ontological and

physical layers of security; one can be at a state of physical

insecurity while being at a state of ontological security and

vice versa. Consequently, the table below charts out the four

possible states of security based on the conception of security

as both ontological and physical:

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Table 1: States of Ontological/ Physical Security

Physical asecurity Physical (In)security

Ontologic

al

insecurit

y

Self experiences

instability and

uncertainty of being/

does not experience

concern about physical

harm

Self experiences

instability and

uncertainty of being/

experiences concern about

physical harm

Ontologic

al

security

Self experiences

stability and certainty

of being/ does not

experience concern about

physical harm

Self experiences stability

and certainty of being/

experiences concern about

physical harm

The state of ontological insecurity/physical (in)security

is one where Self experiences concern about physical harm and

the instability and uncertainty of its being. Ontological

insecurity tempts actors to engage in practices that mark

Others as not only different, but also as morally inferior and

threatening (Campbell 1992). Ontological insecurity and

physical (in)security reproduce one another. As actors seek

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ontological security through constructing Others as threats to

their security-as-survival, they mobilize their physical

defenses in the pursuit of physical security through

representing the sources of threat as different and morally

inferior.

Similarly, in a state of ontological security/ physical

(in)security, actors experience stability and certainty of

being in a relationship where the Other is constructed as

threat to their security-as-survival. Consequently, they remain

locked into conflict-producing routines to maintain their

certainty of being (Mitzen 2006a). In protracted conflicts such

as in Cyprus and Israel/Palestine, this state of security

sustains a stable Self/Other relationship based on enemy roles.

When in such a state of security, minority and majority groups,

migrants and host societies perceive and represent each other’s

identities as radically different and inherently incompatible,

and reproduce these perceptions and representations through

acts of securitisation in order to ensure their ontological

security. The states of ontological insecurity/ physical

(in)security and ontological security/ physical (in)security

are both securitised states; however, whereas the former

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compels actors to construct new narratives of difference and

threat and engage in the securitisation of new issues to regain

their certainty and stability of being, the latter compels

actors to reproduce the existing narratives and continue the

securitisation of existing differences and conflicts to

maintain it.

The state of ontological security/ physical asecurity is

certainly the most attractive state of security from a

normative point of view. Security communities in international

relations, and in particular, the European non-war community

(Wæver, 1998) and the Nordic community (Browning and Joenniemi

2012) constitute the best examples of such a state of security

in international relations. A collective identity discourse

makes it possible for states in security communities to

maintain the us/them distinctions, which are necessary for the

certainty and stability of being while remaining at a state of

physical asecurity vis-à-vis one another (Browning and

Joenniemi 2012; Mitzen 2006b). In this state of security,

conflicts are sustainably resolved, issues that have propelled

conflict in the past are either settled or have shed away their

physical security-ness, and are negotiated in normal political

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channels. Yet, identity differences maintain their ontological

security-ness as groups reproduce their distinct identities

through various social and cultural practices.

Finally, a state of ontologically insecurity/ physically

asecurity is one where Self does not construct the Other as a

threat to its security-as-survival, but experiences instability

and uncertainty of being in its relationship with the Other.

The Other destabilizes and challenges Self’s identity and sense

of being. Such a state of security may arise in many ways; for

example, during the first encounter with previously unknown

difference (as in the encounter with the New World or when an

isolated community encounters new migrant groups) or following

the resolution of protracted conflicts which challenge the

previously ingrained conflictual identities. As will be later

discussed, a state of ontological insecurity/ physical

asecurity is likely to quickly transmorph into a state of

ontological insecurity/ physical insecurity because concerns

about instability and uncertainty of being can easily be

politically mobilized and manipulated into concerns about

survival. As the renowned psychiatrist R. D. Laing, who

pioneered the term, stressed, in the context of ontological

25

insecurity, ‘the ordinary circumstances of everyday life

constitute a continual and deadly threat.’ (1990: 43)

Similarly, Mitzen (2006a: 345) underlines that ontological

insecurity is an ‘incapacitating state of not knowing which

dangers to confront and which to ignore’.

Thus, the distinction between ontological and physical

security gives rise to an expanded set of security states than

previously acknowledged in the literature. For the purposes of

the article at hand, the table highlights two critical

possibilities. First, that it is possible to attain ontological

security in a state of physical (in)security as well as in a

state of physical asecurity. Secondly, the desirable state of

physical asecurity can be coupled with a state of ontological

security as well as with the less stable state of ontological

insecurity. The next section of the article will situate the

processes of securitisation and desecuritisation within this

expanded set of security states and discuss how these

possibilities have been overlooked within the existing critical

literature on security as a result of the conflation of

ontological and physical security.

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III. SECURITISATION/DESECURITISATION: PROCESSES OF MOVING FROM

ONE STATE OF SECURITY TO THE OTHER

Securitisation and desecuritisation are conceptual twins.

The former refers to political processes, discourses, and

practices entailed in the production of certain issues as

security issues, as posing imminent threats to survival,

meriting urgent and extraordinary responses, and justifying

exceptional politics. The latter, accordingly, refers to

shifting issues ‘out of the emergency mode and into the normal

bargaining process of the political sphere’(Buzan et al 1998:

4). By virtue of being defined as a derivative of

securitisation, the concept of desecuritisation, and its

underlying processes and conditions, have remained relatively

undertheorized. A number of strategies (Roe 2004) and forms

(Hansen 2012) of desecuritisation have been identified.

The two-layered framework of security highlights that

processes of securitisation and desecuritisation not only move

actors to different states of physical security, but also

impact their ontological security. Securitisation involves a

movement toward a state of physical (in)security. This may take

the form of a direct movement to a state of ontological

27

security/ physical (in)security, where the pursuit of physical

security through the identification of and mobilization against

a particular threat maintains a consistent identity.

Alternatively, especially if it involves the naming of new

threats that unsettles established definitions of identity,

securitisation may initially generate a state of ontological

insecurity/ physical (in)security. However, this remains a

transient state especially when followed by continued

reproduction of the same threat perceptions, which consolidate

the new friend/enemy distinctions. As continued securitisation

reifies the new identity definitions (Williams 2003),

ontological security comes to depend on their stability and

maintenance, and securitisation becomes a source of ontological

security. The state of ontological insecurity/physical

(in)security consequently evolves into one of ontological

security/physical (in)security. For example, the securitisation

of the events of 9/11 have initially generated a state of

ontological insecurity/ physical (in)security, as it has

challenged the Americans’ post-Cold War self-perceptions as a

nation with no enemies. The confusion was very evident in the

popular reaction: ‘Why do they hate us?’ However, the continued

28

securitisation of the global terrorist threat subsequently

consolidated new definitions of Self and Other and became a

source of ontological security.

Figure 1: Processes of Securitisation/ Desecuritisation

securitisation

desecuritisation

Desecuritisation, on the other hand, is a process that

leads to a transition from a state of physical (in)security to

one of physical asecurity. However, as Figure 1 indicates, the

two-layered framework of security underlines that

desecuritisation may alternatively culminate in a state of

ontological security/ physical security or a state of

ontological insecurity/physical asecurity. As previously

discussed, the former embodies the possibility of attaining

ontological security in the absence of securitisation, and

corresponds to the stable state of security realized within

Ontological securityPhysical asecurity

Ontological securityPhysical (in)security

Ontological insecurity

Ontological insecurity

29

security communities and/or after the definitive resolution of

conflicts. Desecuritisation processes that culminate in a state

of ontological insecurity/physical asecurity; however, are

unstable and easily reversible because concerns about

instability and uncertainty of being can easily be politically

mobilized and manipulated into concerns of survival.

The conflation of ontological and physical security in the

extant literature has constrained the theorization of the ways

in which processes of securitisation/ desecuritisation and

identity construction impinge on one another in a number of

ways. First, the process of desecuritisation is dependent on

the very possibility of achieving stability and certainty of

being in the absence of discourses of fear and danger, and the

identification of and mobilization against threats. Yet, much

of the critical literature on security has avoided this

question of possibility, by reducing identity either to a

subject position constituted by discourses of physical security

or to a sector of physical security. Those who have focused on

discourses of security have emphasized ‘how representations of

danger make us what we are’ and how ‘politics of security,

constituting and mobilizing difference… specifies who we are

30

and what we are allowed to be’ (Dillon 1996: 34-5). For

example, Maria Stern (2006:192) has traced how identity emerges

in the context of discourses of security, and is essential to

their functioning: ‘In order for the subject of security to be

secured, it must be named, represented, and given an identity.’

In her conceptualization, the definition of an Other has

followed the naming of danger and the identification of threat

and thus necessarily becoming a radical, dangerous Other.

Similarly, in securitisation theory, identity is only one among

the many issues that can be framed as security issues, and it

enters the picture only if and when it is explicitly discussed

as a security issue. According to Wæver (1998: 69), identity

remains an ‘external factor’ when other issues are being

securitised or desecuritised. Similarly, Williams (2003) has

neglected the question of whether and how identity allows for

desecuritisation, and focused instead on how securitisation

reifies identities and challenges their negotiability and

flexibility.

Thus, critical security theorists have predominantly

focused on the state of ontological security/ physical

(in)security, and on how discourses and practices of physical

31

(in)security condition and constrain processes of identity

formation and the pursuit of ontological security. As a result,

the security of the capacity to constitute a distinct Self,

i.e. ontological security, has been conflated with discourses

of physical (in) security and acts of securitisation. The

possibility for attaining ontological security in alternative

states of physical security, and in particular, the question of

whether and how the pursuit of a stable identity allows for a

move to a state of ontological security/ physical asecurity

have remained unexplored.

In fact, the conflation of physical and ontological

security forms the very basis of Roe’s (2004) controversial

argument that ‘securitisation is an inherent condition of

minority rights.’ According to Roe (2004: 290), for a minority

group, the maintenance of a distinct identity is necessarily

imbued with security-ness, which if taken out, may mean the

very death of the minority. Thus, desecuritisation of issues,

such as minority rights, may be logically impossible. Here,

Roe is referring to the concern for ontological security on

part of an ethnic group and its freedom to maintain its

distinctiveness, yet he is positing securitisation, which is an

32

act associated with the pursuit of physical security, as its

inherent condition. As a result, according to Roe (2006: 433),

even an us/them dichotomy becomes a securitised relation.

In contrast, the two-layered conception of security leads

me to argue that desecuritisation (of minority rights and other

issues) is possible, and that it is only possible because

ontological security is distinct from and not reducible to

physical security. Desecuritisation of minority rights and

identities does not necessarily undermine group distinctiveness

(ontological security), but it ends the reproduction of this

distinctiveness through the representation of the majority as a

threat (physical (in)security). While securitisation does

generate ontological security, the latter is not dependent on

the former. The distinction between ontological and physical

security also opens up the possibility of attaining ontological

security in a state of physical asecurity. In this case, as

noted before, the Self maintains the stability and certainty of

its being by differentiating itself from significant Others,

without identifying a particular Other as a source of imminent

harm and danger. This state of security does not bring the

‘death’ of identities, but maintains the us/them distinctions,

33

which are necessary for the certainty and stability of being,

without constructing the Other as an imminent threat to the

group’s survival (see also Browning and Joenniemi 2012).

Secondly, the conflation of ontological and physical

security in the existing literature has also led scholars to

overlook how desecuritisation may generate a state of

ontological insecurity/physical asecurity. This neglect has

manifested itself in different ways. The prevailing tendency in

securitisation theory has been to treat identity as an external

and derivative factor, and predicate desecuritisation

strategies on desecuritizing speech acts, i.e. not talking

about issues in terms of security, avoiding the generation of

security dilemmas and moving security issues back into normal

politics (Wæver 2000 as discussed in Roe 2004: 284). Similarly,

identity is not accorded a key role in Huysmans’ (1995)

objectivist and constructivist desecuritisation strategies,

which are based respectively on invalidating perceptions of

threat through information and on promoting reflexivity about

the social construction of insecurity, in contrast to his

third, deconstructivist strategy, which is discussed below.

34

Changes in security practices necessarily implicate

identity constructions, however. Desecuritisation, even in its

more conservative forms (i.e. change through stabilization, see

Hansen 2012), does not and cannot leave the existing identity

constructions intact. At the very least, moving security issues

into normal politics necessitates that parties recognize each

other as legitimate counterparts. Even this entails a critical

reconstruction of identities, especially in ethno-secessionist

conflicts, where securitizing practices are premised on the

‘illegitimacy’ of the Other. Similarly, Huysmans’ objectivist

and constructivist strategies both imply a ‘we’ that first

agrees X is not a threat and then agrees to stop speaking of X

in terms of security (Hansen 2012: 533). Yet, such agreements

cannot be reached independently of a rethinking of who ‘we’ are

in relation to X. Thus, the treatment of identity as an

external and derivative factor does not render identity

irrelevant, but it has led scholars to overlook the ways in

which desecuritisation processes impact ontological security.

On the other hand, some other scholars, both within and

outside of the CAS tradition, have accorded identity change a

central role in the transformation of security relations, but

35

have been inattentive to how the transcendence of differences

between Self and Other may generate ontological insecurity.

Wendt (1992: 421, 1994), for example, has drawn attention to

the strategy of altercasting, which entails inducing the Other

to take on a new identity by treating the Other as if it

already had that identity, and discussed how treating the Other

as part of an extended Self in this fashion may bring with it a

positive-sum conception of security as with the Other rather

than against the Other. Claudia Aradau (2004: 403-5) has

stressed that in order to disrupt the exclusionary logic

underlying security, ‘what is first needed is a process of

disidentification’, where those who are securitised disidentify

from their assigned identity and demand to be recognized within

more universal and encompassing identity categories, i.e. not

as migrants but as residents with rights. Jef Huysmans’s

deconstructive strategy, based on ‘identity fragmentation’

operates by underscoring the complexity of identities in order

to unmask the differences that are silenced by securitisation,

i.e. ‘the migrant is not simply a migrant, but a complex being

in whom many identities are invested: e.g. woman, black,

worker, mother, etc. – just like the natives are’ (1995: 67-8).

36

However, these suggested reconfigurations of identities

are all been based on a limited conceptualization of Self/Other

relations, as situated on a singular axis of sameness-

difference. Consequently, altercasting, disidentification and

identity fragmentation all predicate desecuritisation on the

transcendence and blurring of the differences between Self and

Other, such that Other is desecuritised through casting its

identity as similar to Self. Although some have expressed

concerns regarding the loss of distinct identities, the

question of how this loss matters in terms of impacting

desecuritisation processes has not been systematically

explored. Huysmans, for example, has noted that if carried to

the extreme, the process of identity fragmentation may create a

situation of no identity and no belonging, and because of that

‘an intermediate strategy that allows the potential for

identity creation as well as identity fragmentation’ may be

more appropriate (1995: 68). Roe (2006) has warned against

thinking of desecuritisation ‘solely … in terms of

deconstructing collective identities’. Instead, Jutila (2006:

167) has proposed the re-telling of the ‘stories of ethnically

37

defined collective identities in …a way that they do not

exclude other such identities from the territory of a state.’

The two layered conception of security underscores the

validity of such concerns and enables us to analyze their

implications in a more systematic manner. The framework, first

of all, alerts us to the possibility that desecuritisation

processes may lead actors to a state of ontological insecurity/

physical asecurity where the removal of physical security

concerns and threat perceptions has left actors’ identities in

a state of uncertainty and instability. Especially when

desecuritisation processes have been predicated on the

transcendence and blurring of differences, the Self may

experience anxiety and uncertainty regarding how it may

maintain its distinct identity vis-à-vis the Other in other

ways. Efforts to resolve protracted conflicts, where

antagonistic identities have solidified over the years, are

particularly prone to generating such ontological insecurity.

It may be argued, for example, that the 2004 UN Plan for

reunification in Cyprus generated such a state of ontological

insecurity/physical asecurity because it presupposed a shared

Cypriot identity and blurred the differences which constitute

38

the distinct Greek and Turkish-Cypriot identities. Similarly,

it may be argued that despite the strong international

guarantees and commitments on physical security, the Dayton

Agreement has left the different ethnic groups in Bosnia in a

state of ontological insecurity, which continues to undermine

their collective efforts in political reform and economic

development.

The two-layered framework of security also highlights how

concerns about the stability and consistency of identity may

limit and potentially reverse desecuritisation processes. The

state of ontological insecurity/physical asecurity compels the

actors to engage in practices that re-institute the identity

distinctions that would ensure the certainty and stability of

their beings. At the same time, as was noted before,

ontological insecurity triggers physical (in)security, by

undermining trust and accentuating the perception of general

threat from the outside world. It creates a setting conducive

to the manipulation of this distrust and uncertainty by

political actors and processes. Hence, when the freedom to

constitute a distinct Self is challenged, there is a high

possibility that insecurity at the layer of being will be

39

compensated by securitisation, by elevating any remaining

issues and differences to matters of survival. As indicated in

Figure 2, from a state of ontological insecurity/physical

asecurity, there is a high likelihood of a return to the state

of ontological security/physical (in)security. For example, it

may be argued that the internationally mediated plans for the

reunification of Cyprus are repeatedly failing because they

generate ontological insecurity, and parties seek to overcome

this ontological insecurity by securitizing any remaining

issues and differences, and thereby making a comprehensive

settlement ever impossible.

Figure 2: Ontological Insecurity and (Re)securitisation

Desecuritisation

(Re)Securitisation

Desecuritisation

Ontological securityPhysical (in)security

Ontological insecurityPhysical asecurity

Ontological securityPhysical (in)security

Ontological security

40

It emerges that the success and sustainability of

securitisation/ desecuritisation processes depend on whether

they are able to preserve the ontological security of the

actors concerned or construct an altered state of ontological

security. Consequently, sustainable desecuritisation needs to

be conceptualized as a two-fold process where the removal of

physical security concerns need to be accompanied by a

reconfiguration of the identity distinctions in such a way that

maintains and/or re-institutes the certainty and continuity of

being. The critical question thus becomes: If sustainable

desecuritisation depends on the preservation of ontological

security in the process of desecuritisation, how may Self/Other

relations be re-configured to remove the perception of threat

while maintaining the distinctions necessary for security-of-

being?

A full exploration of this question would require another

article. Having laid the groundwork for such an exploration

with the two-layered conception of security, the article-at-

hand will limit itself to presenting some preliminary insights.

In particular, the literature on Self/Other relations has

explored the multiple ways through which identities can be

41

reconstructed and re-negotiated vis-a-vis one another;

however, we find that its insights have not been sufficiently

incorporated in the study of desecuritisation. The next section

of the article will discuss some of these insights and

integrate them into the two-layered conception of security.

IV. ONTOLOGICAL SECURITY THROUGH RECONFIGURING SELF/OTHER

RELATIONS

Building on the seminal work of David Campbell on identity

and foreign policy (1992), a number of scholars have

investigated the implications of the Self/Other distinctions

that underpin the relations among states in international

politics (Neumann 1996, 1999; Weldes et al eds. 1999; Guillaume

2002; Hansen 2006; Rumelili 2004, 2007; Bukh 2009). The guiding

premise of this post-structuralist literature, which is

associated with critical theories of security to varying

degrees (Hansen 2011), has been that identity is constituted

through difference; state identities lack a stable, pre-given

essence, and hence states are in permanent need of reproducing

their identities by constructing Other(s) as different, morally

inferior, and physically threatening. Recent contributions to

42

the identity literature in IR have challenged the association

between the reproduction of identity and the construction of

threat in two directions: Some have focused on the endogenous

processes of constructing self-narratives, thereby attempting

to delink identity formation from practices of Othering (Steele

2008; Lebow 2012; Berenskoetter 2007, 2012). Others have

remained wedded to the role of external Others in identity

constitution, but through detailed empirical analyses of

representations of Self and Other in different encounters in

international relations, stressed the need to recognize

different forms and degrees of Otherness (Hansen 2006; Rumelili

2004, 2007; Diez 2005; Morozov and Rumelili 2012).

As Prozorov (2011) recently underlined, the internal

(through narratives, in time) and external (in relation to

Others, across space) processes of identity constitution cannot

be dissociated from one another (also see Rumelili 2007: 21-8).

The pursuit of ontological security vis-à-vis the Other

coexists with the endogenous pursuit of ontological security,

and they are jointly impacted by processes of

securitisation/desecuritisation. Whereas securitisation of the

Other shapes and disciplines the internal process by

43

suppressing alternative identities, desecuritisation threatens

to unleash the inherent instability and inconsistency of

internal self-narratives. Therefore, the maintenance and

reinstitution of ontological security in the process of

desecuritisation cannot solely or primarily rely on internal

processes of self-(re)definition, and necessitates the

reconfiguration of the constitutive Self/Other relationships.

The previously referred empirical analyses of Self/Other

encounters in international relations bear important relevance

for how the Self/Other relationship may be reconfigured in the

process of desecuritisation in ways that re-institute

ontological security. Through her analysis of the Western

discourses on the Balkans, Lene Hansen (2006: 46-51), for

example, has argued that constructions of identity and

difference have temporal, spatial, and ethical dimensions. In

other words, Self can constitute itself as distinct from the

Other by representing the Self as advanced and the Other as

backward along a historical path (temporal distinction), and/or

by excluding the Other from its territory (spatial

distinction), and/or by assuming a responsibility over the

Other (ethical dimension). According to Hansen (2006: 47),

44

Balkans have been constituted as a threat to the West in a

particular discursive context where the Balkans were also

constructed as ‘radically different, incapable of

transformation,’ and not under Western responsibility. However,

the Balkans were not securitised in alternative discourses

where the Balkans were constructed as ‘an object of

admiration’, endowed with ‘the capacity for liberal political

and economic transformation’, and when situated under Western

responsibility.

The two-layered conception of security as both physical

and ontological allows us to better integrate the insights of

this literature on Self/Other relations with the literature on

desecuritisation. First, it emerges that by analyzing the

different constructions of identity/difference in international

relations, the literature on Self/Other relations has explored

the different ways in which actors pursue and attain

ontological security in relation to one another. In addition,

by stressing the need to recognize different degrees and forms

of Otherness, it has highlighted that the pursuit and

attainment of ontological security does not necessitate the

securitisation of the Other; and that it does so only under

45

certain conditions. Unlike the previously discussed

desecuritisation strategies of altercasting, disidentification

and identity fragmentation, this literature does not collapse

Self/Other relations to the singular axis of similarity and

difference. It insists on the constitution of identity in

relation to difference, but emphasizes that constructions of

difference are situated on multiple dimensions and do not

necessarily entail the construction of an Other as a threat.

Moreover, by identifying different dimensions of identity-

difference, it has suggested –only by implication, without

making this an explicit purpose- ways in which the relation of

identity-difference may be reconfigured to remove the

perceptions of threats to physical security while maintaining

the distinctions necessary for ontological security.

For example, it emerges as a corollary from Hansen’s

analysis that strengthening and recasting the ethical and

temporal dimensions in the representation of the Balkans - by

promoting the ethical responsibility of the West, and/or by

underlining the capacity for transformation in the Balkans-

would undermine the securitisation of the Balkans in Western

discourse. While removing the perception of physical threat,

46

neither of these discursive moves would undermine the Western

ontological security, because they would be reaffirming of the

distinctiveness of the Western identity by underscoring its

superiority and benevolence. In contrast, if Balkans were

desecuritised through the previously discussed processes of

altercasting, disidentification, or identity fragmentation,

this would have generated a state of ontological insecurity in

the West. Altercasting may have entailed the casting of the

Balkan societies as equipped to deal with the challenges of

ethnic diversity, possibly citing the Yugoslav legacy.

Disidentification may have entailed the Balkan representations

of its identity as Western and European. Identity fragmentation

may have entailed the representation of the Balkans

simultaneously as Balkan/ European/ underdeveloped/ post-

socialist, also making reference to ethnic secessionist demands

within Western societies (the Other in Self). While such

reconstructions of the Balkan identity would have obviated the

immediate perception of the physical threat of conflict

spillover, they would have generated first ontological

insecurity by undermining the distinctiveness of the Western

identity, and then physical (in)security by underscoring the

47

West’s own vulnerability to similar ethnic crises.

Consequently, they would pave the way for discursive practices

that re-securitize the Balkans or construct another significant

threat.

The insights derived from this example may be extended

into the issues of minority rights, migration, and protracted

conflicts previously discussed in this article. For example, to

maintain ontological security in the process of desecuritizing

migration, the removal of survival concerns can be coupled with

a reconstruction of migrant community-host society relations

along the ethical and/or temporal dimensions through discursive

moves that, for example, promote the ethical responsibility of

host societies and endow the migrants’ with the capacity to

integrate. In contrast to disidentification and identity

fragmentation, such a reconstruction of identities would not

erase but reinstitute the constitutive differences between

migrant community and host society along different dimensions,

and enable a move toward a state of ontological

security/physical asecurity.

On the desecuritisation of minority issues, reconstructing

majority-minority identities along the spatial or social

48

distance dimensions could provide a solution, so that both

group identities would be validated and strengthened through

associating with the Other in the same territorial space.

Instead of an exclusive identity that is secured by spatially

dissociating from the majority and constructing it as a threat

to its survival, the minority identity could be re-constructed

as part of a broader, more inclusive identity that encompasses

but is not subsumed by the majority identity. For example, the

minority Kurdish identity in Turkey, Iran, Iraq and Syria could

be reconstructed as founding unit of a broader, more inclusive

Mesopotamian identity, which includes also the Turks, Arabs,

and the Persians.

In cases of protracted international conflicts, such as

Cyprus, it was previously suggested that internationally

negotiated reunification agreements that presuppose a shared

Cypriot identity may be repeatedly failing because this shared

identity generates ontological insecurity within the Greek and

Turkish-Cypriot communities. Ontological security could be

reinstituted if the removal of physical security concerns

through international agreements were coupled with a

reconstruction of Greek and Turkish-Cypriot identities along

49

the temporal dimension, so that both Greek and Turkish Cypriots

construct each other as different at present but recognize the

capacity of the Other to Cypriotize in the future. In contrast

to the existing reunification arrangements that presuppose the

existence of a shared Cypriot identity and consequently

destabilize the Greek and Turkish-Cypriot identities, such a

discursive move would maintain the existing identities, and

recognize the possibility of the emergence of a shared

identity, on which political reunification depends, but defer

it to the future.

Certainly, the above examples are intended only for

heuristic purposes. In each case, suggestions on how to

maintain and/or re-institute ontological security in the

process of desecuritisation would need to be fleshed out by

taking into account the specific political, historical, and

cultural contexts. The preceding discussion merely sought to

illustrate the wider range of possibilities identified by the

poststructuralist literature on Self/Other relations regarding

the ways in which actors may achieve ontological security vis-

à-vis one another. Unlike the strategies of altercasting,

disidentification, and identity fragmentation, which confine

50

the possibilities of reconstructing Self/Other relations to the

singular axis of sameness and difference, the post-

structuralist literature presents us with alternative forms of

securitised and non-securitised Otherness, which are based, not

on the transcendence but the reconfiguration of constitutive

differences. The two-layered conception of security as both

ontological and physical enables us to better integrate these

insights into the study of desecuritisation and paves the way

for future studies that build on these insights to more

systematically analyze the ways in which ontological security

may be maintained and reinstituted in the process of

desecuritisation.

It needs to be noted, however, that these non-securitised

forms of Otherness, while divorced from physical threat

perceptions, remain imbued with power, and often reproduce

constructions of moral superiority/ inferiority, paternalism,

and exoticism. While the reproduction of such social and

normative hierarchies help maintain and reinstitute ontological

security, it does raise important normative questions regarding

the emancipatory potential of desecuritisation. This further

validates Aradau’s point that questions about desecuritisation

51

raise fundamental ‘questions about what kinds of politics we

want’ (2004: 388). By contending that sustainable

desecuritisation necessitates the maintenance and

(re)institution of at least some of the constitutive

differences between Self and Other, this article has adopted a

political and normative stance that is fundamentally different

from that of collective identity formation and

disidentification. The article has further demonstrated that a

normative commitment to the realization of an ideal form of

Self/Other relations, by denying the limits posed by concerns

of ontological security, paves the way to the reintroduction

of concerns of physical (in)security, and further distantiation

from the ideal. Therefore, what is upheld as a normative

commitment in this article is not one ideal form of Self/Other

relations, but a desecuritised ‘normal politics’ of identity,

which is continuously up for negotiation while laden with

power.

V. CONCLUSION

52

This article put forth an analytical framework based on a two-

layered conception of security as both ontological and

physical. This framework has underlined that security-seeking

is a ‘social practice that implicates identity’ (Mitzen 2006a:

363) as well as being a political process that involves the

naming of threats, deciding on the exception, and the

mobilization of security actors. A major contention of this

article has been that the conflation of ontological and

physical security has led the relevant literature to overlook

certain possibilities for and limits to desecuritisation. By

locating processes of securitisation and desecuritisation

within the two-layered conception of security, the article has

underlined that both processes depend on and in turn impact the

layer of ontological security. In particular, desecuritisation

is only possible because ontological security is distinct from

and not reducible to physical security, as desecuritisation

depends on the very possibility of maintaining certainty and

stability of being in the absence of the identification of and

mobilization against threats. In addition, because of the way

in which desecuritisation impacts ontological security,

sustainable desecuritisation essentially entails a two-fold

53

process where the removal of physical concerns have to be

coupled with a reconfiguration of Self/Other relations that

(re)institutes ontological security. Having underlined these

possibilities and limits, and by drawing on the literature on

Self/Other relations, the preceding section of the article

identified possible ways in which Self/Other relations may be

reconfigured to (re)institute ontological security in the

process of desecuritisation.

The two-layered conception of security as both ontological

and physical paves the way for further interaction and

engagement between the literatures on ontological security,

critical theories of security and Self/Other relations. First

of all, the framework introduced in this article could be the

basis for a more comprehensive analysis of how ontological

security and physical security relate to one another across

different states of security, and the identification of

different forms of securitisation and desecuritisation. How is

a securitisation process that generates a state of ontological

security/ physical (in)security different from one that

generates a state of ontological insecurity/ physical (in)

security? Alternatively, is a desecuritisation process that

54

leads to a state of ontological asecurity possible, and how is

it different from one that leads to a state of ontological

security/ physical asecurity? Secondly, having established the

pursuit of ontological security as a distinct motivation, the

literature on ontological security would also be further

developed through investigating the relationship of ontological

security to political processes of physical security. Thirdly,

further engagement between the literatures on ontological

security and the literature on Self/Other relations would shed

light on the wider range of ways in which actors pursue

ontological security in relation to one another.

Finally, as the empirical illustrations provided

throughout the article indicate, the deeply intertwined nature

of identity and security poses key challenges for conflict

resolution. The article contributes to the broader IR

literature by providing a conceptual framework that bridges and

links the more specialist literatures on ontological security,

critical theories of security, and Self/Other relations. In the

absence of such an integrative framework, the interrelated

questions of ‘how to remove the security-ness of issues?’, ‘how

to transform the relationship with the Other?’, and ‘how to

55

maintain stability and consistency of Self-narratives?’ have

been addressed in distinction from one another. Thus, this

article has prepared the groundwork for the development of the

critical theories of security and identity into a more

integrated critical approach to conflict resolution.

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