Description
Ontological security studies as an approach to identity in International Relations, has long examined the ways in which insecurity is generated through the disruption of ontological security drives. A number of works have effectively characterized challenging situations and events through insecurity-understanding-concepts such as ruptures, critical situations, trauma, shame, embarrassment, and especially anxiety. In so doing, the more creative practices and processes for generating ontological security have been less of a focus. This is puzzling considering the ways in which ‘healthy’ modes of being were part of the first wave of ontological security studies in IR, and were always a goal for psychological and psychoanalytical approaches that introduced the concept. This Panel revisits and examines the creative processes through which ontological security can be regained or refashioned in global politics. To this end, it examines the following lines of inquiry: What uplifts agents and groups beyond or through challenging conditions and modes of being? What inspires, mobilizes, or transforms agents from being insecure to secure beings? Acknowledging that even creative processes may be unequally beneficial for groups, this Panel focuses on the creative ways in which agents, groups, and collectives rediscover ontological security in global politics.
