Geoscience Reference
In-Depth Information
Human security and
women's security reality
in Northwest Russia
Kirsti Stuvøy
Human security encapsulates a wide variety of security realities and experi-
ences. In the 1994 report of the United Nations Development Programme,
'Human Security Now' (UNDP 1994), the term was introduced to draw
attention to people's experiences of security, which were often ignored due
to the emphasis on state security. In the post-cold war context of the early
1990s, therefore, the traditional focus was supplemented with a concern for
humans and their experiences of insecurities. State-defined security, revolv-
ing around political and military sectors, was conceived as too narrow and
insufficient (Hoogensen 2004:8). Despite some current analyses that suggest
human security is a tool used to support practices for increased state security,
such as (Western) military interventions (in states of the global South, e.g.
Afghanistan) (Duffield and Waddell 2006; Chandler 2007; Duffield 2007),
human security entails a normative concern with people and security. It is
noted however that the people to whom human security matters are mostly
passive subjects in the policy discourse (Krause 2005:6). At the same time,
it is claimed that directing the focus of research towards people's experiences
can contribute to altering the understandings of security (Darby 2006:467).
To achieve that, a bottom-up and people-centred perspective of human secu-
rity research is called for (Krause and Jütersonke 2005; Ewan 2007:187).
Such a people-centred understanding of security has inspired my interest
in the work of non-state crisis centres in Northwest Russia. As a region free of
large-scale conflict, Northwest Russia has not attracted much attention from
human security researchers. In addition, women's groups that work on vio-
lence against women in Northwest Russia represent an agent of security that
is rarely paid attention to in international security studies. Within a narrow,
state-centred conceptualization of security, violence against women is not even
a security issue. Violence against women affects women around the world,
however, and this has spurred initiatives by the international community to
address this issue, visible in United Nations (UN) resolutions and documents.
For example, in 1993, the UN General Assembly adopted resolution 48/104,
'Declaration on the Elimination of Violence Against Women', and, in 2000,
UN Security Council resolution 1325 on women, peace and security also
 
 
 
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