#ontological security

my ocd is this yassified Wormtongue obnoxiously sitting on the armrest of my chair and shoving her phone full of horrifying images in my face until I break -- unless I shove her off my chair knowing she was sent by assholes that want me scared

Why Russia Invaded Ukraine, Really? The Ontological Insecurity of the Fragile Identity

Ontological security drives home the distinction between peace and various forms of outside intervention that succeed in addressing, to a certain extent, concerns of physical security. In other words, even when peace-building interventions succeed in providing physical security, they often fail miserably in the provision of ontological security because they are premised on the imposition of a particular, Western, ontology of peace and security...[O]ntological security in peace-building contexts can only emerge through an ontological pluralism, which rejects the Northern mono-ontological conceptions of peace and security in favour of local dynamics of 'peace-formation'. Only when outside efforts to diminish fears are in harmony with local and everyday approaches, narratives, habits and practices, we can arrive at a stable state of low anxiety and low fear.

Ontological security is not an additional need that can be subsumed within the framework of social-psychological approaches to conflict resolution. Rather, it is the fundamental need through which the needs that may be addressed through dialogue and bargaining arise. Extant approaches generally begin with the assumption of a pre-given set of disputed goods and biases, and overlook how it is the quest for ontological security that drives the political and social processes through which the parties determine the set of disputed goods and construct their identities in relation to one another. Addressing the issues and biases at stake through bargaining and dialogue only deals with the tip of the iceberg, whereas ontological security directs our attention to the production of conflict through the political processes of securitization and social processes of identity construction. Conflict resolution within an ontological security framework therefore necessitates the reconstruction of the political and social processes that are implicated in the production of ontological security.

I just finished my first draft of my “Cynicism and Ontological Security” paper for the ISA-NE.

A critical ontological security account might focus on both the social construction of self-identity and also how that self-identity can be problematized, and even deconstructed, as it 'is the very deconstructability of the state that provides some possible avenues for alternative action'.... As agents we wish to avoid that which might produce shame; we cover it up, we obfuscate, we rewrite texts, we discipline with talking points. But adept actors can uncover those processes as if they are artifacts. This is the benefit of a post-structural archaeology for ontological security. We need to uncover the processes to experience shame — we need to know who ordered which policy an why, who willfully ignored what and why, for whom and for what purposes. This will not always be possible...because that which makes routines so vital — their ability to defend us from external identity threats — also makes them the key obstacle to recognizing the dire consequences our past and current actions have had for our eventual Selves. In short, routines discipline and punish the self, obscuring alternative paths for action.

[T]he legitimacy of the state as a political unit does not rest solely on how it 'manages' enemies but also, and in a sense primarily, on how it deals with the question of ontological security. It can also be argued that much of IR has neglected the question of ontological security. It has concentrated on the mediation of relations between enemies rather than the mediation of relations with strangers. Among the central questions of the discipline are — What kind of threat mediating strategies have been historically formulated? How and why do these strategies work or not work? What strategies can be proposed to handle successfully problems of enmity in International Relations? The vast literature on balance of power, collective security, world government, arms control, security communities, etc. deals with these questions in the world of interstate relations.