The task of envisioning security for the Anthropocene
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Date
2023Author
Morrissey, John
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Morrissey, John. (2023). The task of envisioning security for the Anthropocene. Irish Studies In International Affairs, 34(1), 17-26, https://doi.org/10.1353/isia.0.a904027
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Abstract
Our Anthropocene age is defined by a wide array of anthropogenic pressures on
planet Earth, which have produced multiple human and environmental insecuri ties. From climate change to population displacements, from ecosystem degra dation to global pandemics, we are faced with unprecedented human and
environmental emergencies. Safeguarding the future hinges on generating a
wider understanding of ‘security’ that sees the need for holistic strategy, global
solidarity and multilateral cooperation. We need a security imaginary trans formed by critical and responsible thinking on economic production and plane tary precarity, and we require such a vision to manifest in new governmentalities
that set us on the right path towards a shared future. This paper reflects on the
challenge of establishing holistic understandings of security which can be drawn
upon more effectively to respond to the intersecting crises unfolding on the
planet. In seeking to reframe global security strategy, the paper underscores an
interlinked sense of human-environmental security which extends the UN’s
human security concept to address the overlapping precarities of our human
and non-human worlds. It considers in particular the role of legal and regula tory mechanisms in curbing the ecological excesses of late modern capitalism;
and in seeking to transcend narrow statist formulations of security, the paper
illuminates our global interconnections, which require us to renew and support
networks of international solidarity and multilateral cooperation.