Re-Imagining Security

The Re-Imagining Security minor has been designed to provide an interdisciplinary and 360˚ study of security. Every course module is meant to provide you with knowledge and understanding of the academic debates and the analytical vocabulary on security and to apply this knowledge to analyse real-life case-studies. By being exposed to different disciplines, you will learn to distinguish between, think critically about, evaluate, and reflect on different forms of knowledge. You will assess how societal issues pertaining to security can best be understood through working in an interdisciplinary team. The course modules include lectures, readings, documentary screenings, individual, and group assignments. The courses will be interactive, and you are encouraged to raise questions and develop a critical approach perspective to the course contents.

Students having completed the minor will be able to:

• Identify and evaluate which information is important for understanding how the concept of security connects to different society issues.
• Trace the concept of security, and security culture, in a genealogical and conceptual way through modern history (1800 until the present).
• Distinguish between different disciplinary perspectives on security and methodological foundations of disciplines, and synthesise insights from various points of view.
• Reflect on the process of learning, and the ethical, ideological, and emotional dimensions pertaining to ‘security’.

The lecturers

The minor is taught by an interdisciplinary staff team, comprising of scholars who are actively involved in multi- and interdisciplinary teaching, educational leadership, and interdisciplinary research. They will each bring their expertise to the classroom, both in terms of innovative conceptual discussions, as well as real-life experiences as fieldwork-researchers and policy-practitioners in diverse settings.

The students

This minor is explicitly meant for students who are interested in interdisciplinary education and who want to gain more experience with perspective taking, collaboration, critical thinking, and reflection. You will become acquainted with different disciplinary approaches, perspectives, frameworks, and methodologies on security. The course models will be collaborative and discussion rich, so you will be learning along with students from different faculties.

The minor offers an excellent preparation for students interested in some of the many Master’s degree programmes offered at UU, including the Public International Law (Conflict and Security and/ or Human Rights) LLM, Conflict & Human Rights, International Relations in Historical Perspective, Cultural Anthropology: Sociocultural Transformation, and Master of Arts in History of Politics and Society.

The interdisciplinary orientation of the minor will be particularly interesting if you have not yet made up your mind about which discipline you want to specialise in at Master’s level. It allows you to get a ‘taste’ of different disciplines and acquaint yourself with the building blocks of academic fields that are relevant to your interests, but you have not yet found the chance to study. Furthermore, the minor will prepare you for the professional world by showing how theoretical debates on security connect to case studies, policy debates, and practices.

The minor consists of four compulsory course modules (30 EC) and starts in period 1. You are advised to take all four courses in one academic year, in the order that they are offered. The courses offered by Cultural Anthropology, namely ‘Politicising Security in Anthropology’ (202300021), and that by UCU, namely ‘Decolonising Security: The Global Cold War’ (UCHUMHIS28) are only open for students following the minor. For the other two courses from Law and History, namely ‘Contesting Security in International Law’ (RGBUIER023) and ‘Historicising Security – in Europe and Beyond’ (GE2V23003), it is possible to also enrol for them separately.

Courses

Politicising Security in Anthropology (202300021), period 1

This course focuses on key anthropological debates on the topic of security. Anthropology has highlighted the diverse forms in which security is enacted, performed, and experienced, and how people across diverse localities define and experience security. Students will also become acquainted with ethnographic fieldwork.
Note: This name and content of this course provided by the anthropology department will change for academic year 2024-2025.

Contesting Security in International Law (RGBUIER023), period 2

The aim of the course is to introduce students to how issues like : (i) war (ii) counter terrorism (iii) climate change (iv) protest (v) nationality (vi) disease/ pandemic and (vii) racial injustice are addressed and analysed in international law lens (e.g., human rights, use of force). Students will be encouraged to reflect on how the concept of ‘security’ operates as both a permissive and limiting force in the framework of international law.

Decolonising Security: The Global Cold War (UCHUMHIS28), period 2-3

This course will examine how the ideological struggle between the United States and the Soviet Union shaped not only domestic ideas of security (citizenship, minority rights, counter-culture movements, etc.), but especially international security frameworks, alliances, and conflicts. It will therefore adopt a global perspective to examine how the Cold War rivalry impacted the 'Third World' - the space where the 'cold' standoff between the superpowers often manifested in 'hot' conflicts.

Note: UCU has a different schedule and this course will be running from January 29 until May 17.

Historicising security – in Europe and beyond (GE2V23003), period 4

This course applies a conceptual history approach, unpacking genealogies of security and its ramifications through time. It does so in combination with notions from public administration, law, cultural studies, and sociology (for example by also working with adjacent concepts as sovereignty, legitimacy, state of emergency, defence, and intelligence). The course provides a brief inquiry into the meaning of the concept ‘security’ as a travelling concept through time, both in its tandem with ‘the national’ and ‘the international’.