World of Insecurity

Human security is a key element in the measure of well-being, and a hot topic in anthropology and development studies. A World of Insecurity outlines a new approach to the subject.

The contributors expose a contradiction at the heart of conventional accounts of what constitutes human security, namely that without taking non-material considerations such as religion, ethnicity and gender into account, discussions of human security, academically and in practical terms, are incomplete, inconclusive and deeply flawed. A variety of compelling case studies indicate that, in fact, material security alone cannot adequately explain or fully account for human activity in a range of different settings, and exposed to a variety of different threats.