Holland, J. orcid.org/0000-0003-4883-332X and Jarvis, L. (2024) COVID-19 and the limits of critical security theory: Securitization, Cosmopolitanism, and pandemic politics. Journal of Global Security Studies, 9 (4). ogae031. ISSN 2057-3189
Abstract
Recent years have witnessed a growing and important series of efforts to make sense of the post-2019 coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic through diverse lenses within the field of critical security studies (css). In this article, we set out to reverse this analytical gaze, asking not “what can css tell us about COVID-19?” but rather, “what can COVID-19 tell us about css?” In order to do this, we pair two important moments in the UK pandemic response with two prominent, yet very different, strands of critical security research: (i) “covid-secure spaces” with securitization theory and (ii) “self-isolation” imperatives with security cosmopolitanism. COVID-secure spaces, we argue, pose a significant challenge to securitization theory’s framing of security’s spaces and times. Self-isolation practices, meanwhile, raise profound ethical questions for the universalizing aspirations of security cosmopolitanism. By analyzing a ubiquitous, if heterogeneous, security challenge to everyday lived experiences within as well as beyond the Global North, the article develops a novel theoretical contribution to recent work rendering visible the Eurocentric foundations and limitations of critical security theory.
Metadata
Item Type: | Article |
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Authors/Creators: |
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Copyright, Publisher and Additional Information: | © The Author(s) (2024). Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the International Studies Association. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted reuse, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. |
Keywords: | COVID-19, critical security studies, securitization theory, security cosmopolitanism, security politics, health security |
Dates: |
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Institution: | The University of Leeds |
Academic Units: | The University of Leeds > Faculty of Education, Social Sciences and Law (Leeds) > School of Politics & International Studies (POLIS) (Leeds) |
Depositing User: | Symplectic Publications |
Date Deposited: | 05 Sep 2024 10:04 |
Last Modified: | 10 Oct 2024 14:08 |
Published Version: | https://academic.oup.com/jogss/article/9/4/ogae031... |
Status: | Published |
Publisher: | Oxford University Press |
Identification Number: | 10.1093/jogss/ogae031 |
Open Archives Initiative ID (OAI ID): | oai:eprints.whiterose.ac.uk:216660 |
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