Developing Critical Security Studies from Doha – A Roundtable
introduction by sami hermez
In this roundtable, participants in the Critical Security Studies Hub at The Institute for Advanced Study in the Global South at Northwestern University Qatar (#IAS_NUQ) – a partnership between IAS and the Arab Council for the Social Sciences (ACSS) that is also known as the Qatar Hub – reflect on the meanings of security and insecurity from a multiplicity of perspectives, thoughts, traditions, and disciplines. Drawing on critical approaches within border studies, migration studies, legal studies, youth studies, and feminist studies, the essays in this roundtable challenge the way we normally conceive of and understand security frames and questions. Together, as short thought pieces, they aim to open discussions on how we might pluralize discourses on security and securitization beyond normative frameworks by, for instance, foregrounding the importance of (in)security narratives and media representations, examining how ambiguities around experiences of insecurity shape practices of migration, international law, and protests, and understanding how security relates to other notions such as wellbeing. As the first publication of the Critical Security Studies Hub at #IAS_NUQ, this bilingual roundtable highlights the diversity of interests within the Hub as well as its members’ commitment to rethinking security and insecurity in ways that reflect the experiences, interests, and cultures of the region, and through it, of the Global South.