Contesting Hegemonic Understandings of Security: The Need for the Prioritization of Human Security
Social Sciences
Latin American and Latino Studies
The term ‘security’ has long been synonymous with the protection through
militaristic means of the state and its citizenry from those who pose a physical threat to
the state’s national territory or citizenry. This thesis makes evident the necessity to reconceptualize
the term ‘security’ to distinguish between the protection of the people
through militaristic means and the protection of the people through the securing of their
basic human needs. In this re-conceptualization of ‘security’, I argue that human security
should be placed as the top priority and treated as vitally important by policymakers,
international political actors, NGOs and academics. I demonstrate that in cases such as
Colombia where generations have endured one of the most violent and lengthy internal
armed conflicts in the world, the government’s focus on security threats by militarized
actors (i.e. guerrilla insurgencies and paramilitary groups) has largely failed to resolve the
conflict, and in many ways has worsened threats to human security. I demonstrate the
gravity of threats to Colombian livelihoods and social fabric among the country's most
vulnerable populations and argue that these are of more vital importance then traditional
security threats. I offer a new conceptualization of human security by disaggregating the
term into three analytical categories--embodied elements, structural elements and inter-personal
elements--that arose from original research conducted internally displaced, Afro-
Colombian women in the Caribbean coastal region of Colombia.
