Description
Security, as one of the central themes in International Relations (IR), has long been framed by territorial sovereignty, high politics, and state discourses. This study, based on my doctoral dissertation, adopts a radically different perspective by engaging with how (in)security is lived, felt, and negotiated in everyday life. Drawing on fieldwork in Gaziantep, Turkey, this study uses data from semi-structured interviews with displaced Syrians and various stakeholders. It demonstrates how (in)security is produced not only through speeches or legal texts but through mundane practices such as mobile checkpoints, ID controls, and constant threat of deportation. Conceptualizing the border not as a fixed geographical line but as something internalized, mobile, and experienced through bureaucracy and uncertainty, the study argues for a methodological reorientation in IR. It contends that the discipline must more fully embrace fieldwork, non-elite interviews, first-hand experience, and practice-oriented approaches. If IR is to be ready for the future, its analytical lens must better incorporate the realities of lived experience and everyday governance.
