Relations internationales

C21(a) - IR Theory 4: Security & Securitization

Date: Jun 5 | Heure: 03:30pm to 05:00pm | Salle:

Chair/Président/Présidente : Nicolas-Francois Perron (UQÀM)

Discussant/Commentateur/Commentatrice : J. Andrew Grant (Queen's University)

The Securitization of Threats to Research in Canada Veronica Kitchen, University of Waterloo Family, Country, and Conditional Humanity: The Imagined Childhood of Canada’s Child Soldier Naireen Khan, Wilfrid Laurier University Kathryn Reeves, Mount Saint Vincent University Catherine Baillie Abidi, Mount Saint Vincent University Security Instincts: Urban Security Mechanism and Historic Cities Nicole McGowan, University of Waterloo Children, Cyberwarfare and Agency Laszlo Sarkany, King's University College

The securitization of threats to research in Canada: Veronica Kitchen (University of Waterloo)
Abstract: ‘Research security’ is an emerging concept in national security, with the federal government tasking universities to review research projects to ensure that research is protected from “harm, theft, and interference”. In policy and practice, research security currently seems to have a narrow scope focused on hard sciences and on threats to intellectual property from malicious state actors. In this paper, I undertake a thematic analysis of discourses of policy and practice surrounding research security to confirm my hypothesis about the securitization of this particular issue. Further, I compare the securitization threats to broader policy conceptualizations of national security in Canada, and also to what researchers in various disciplines actually report as threats to their research. In doing so, I contribute to an expanded debate about the content, value, and importance of research security in Canada, as well as the potential unintended consequences of particular securitizations.

Security Instincts: Urban Security Mechanism and Historic Cities: Nico Saunders (University of Waterloo)
Abstract: Previous research has argued that since 9/11, there has been a proliferation in urban militarization and a normalization of urban security mechanisms within urban centres (Coaffee 2009, 2020, 2021; Graham, 2006, 2010). This has resulted in urban policies focused on embedding resilience in the urban landscape, and signals the need to be protected from everything that may never happen (Beck, 1992; Coaffee 2021; De Goede, 2008; Graham, 2010). Historic cities however, face unique urban security challenges due to being considered living monuments that must be protected and preserved by the international community, while also experiencing contemporary global security risks such as terrorism and intentional destruction (Coward, 2009, UNESCO, 2024). Further, historic cities that are captured within UNESCO’s World Heritage List, have overlapping governance jurisdiction with respect to protecting and preserving the historic environment, heightening the importance of how UNESCO impacts the security agendas, and as a ‘standard setting organization’ the ability to mainstreams these security imaginations across an international network (De Goede, 2008; UNESCO, 2024). Highlighting the findings from field work conducted in Fall 2024, this study examines the aesthetic / visual security approaches within three Italian historic cities (Roma, Napoli, and Firenze) captured within UNESCO’s World Heritage List that have experienced human-related security threats. Specifically, this study puts forth an idea of ‘security instincts’ and ‘security anxiety’ as intentional experiences elicited from the specific city ‘zones’, and argues that policy professionals and city planners examine everyday instincts to enhance security and wellbeing of those that occupy these public spaces.

Family, Country, and Conditional Humanity: The Imagined Childhood of Canada’s Child Soldier: Naireen Khan (Wilfrid Laurier University), Izabela Steflja (Wilfrid Laurier University), Kathryn Reeves (Mount Saint Vincent University), Catherine Baillie Abidi (Mount Saint Vincent University)
Abstract: The politicization of children who engage in armed violence is a central feature of contemporary political discourse and security policy. The tension and contradictions between representations of victimhood and of threat manifest intensely in relation to child soldiers, and these tensions influence the trajectory of foreign and security policies. This paper examines a case of representation and labeling of a Canadian child who was recruited and used in armed violence. In this paper, we look at the conditional humanization and victimization of Omar Khadr and how the conditionalities are interpellated through the lens of citizenship, family, and essentialized gender norms. Against this context, the paper looks at the hierarchies of victimhood and asks: Who is the ideal child victim? How are they humanized or not? What role do familial associations play in the perception of child soldiers as victims? The paper is based on an analysis of six hundred and sixty-six articles published by three of the most widely read Canadian newspapers, between 2012-2017, the period covering Khadr’s transfer to Canada and the formal apology and financial settlement he received from the Canadian government for failing to protect his Charter rights. Our findings reveal how Khadr’s intersecting social positions and identities are intentionally chosen to construct his victimhood in a manner that emphasizes his secularism and Canadianism while downplaying his religious identity and monstrocizing his family. This paper prods security scholarship to engage in critical questions about the persistence of biased, unidimensional understandings of children engaged in armed violence constructed for the purpose of advancing strategic political aims.

Children, Cyberwarfare and Agency: Laszlo Sarkany (Huron University College)
Abstract: The phenomenon of attempting to understand agency of children actively and directly partaking in war has received substantial attention from scholars ascribing to positivist ontological convictions, as well as those in the critical studies orbit as well. Those in the positivist orbit would, referred to as ‘liberal humanitarians’, argue that children are subjects to be protected, that they are used as tools in a conflict, with the consequent understanding that children’s agency is minimized when it comes to deciding to partake in a war as combatants, as ‘entertainers of troops’, as cooks, and in many other roles. Within critical scholarship however the notion of this passivity in a child’s understanding of their role in a conflict, and their conceptualization of their agency in war – including choices to go to war – has been problematized. These conceptualizations tend to afford – by pointing to real-life phenomena – that children have much grater agency during the decision-making process. One clear and obvious commonality between these two broad conceptualizations is that the space within which children actively taking part in war are considered is kinetic war, or the notion that war is taking place in physical space. However, as it is quite clear by now, another realm where war has been waged is in cyberspace. The involvement of children and teens in cyberspace and cyberwarfare in particular, has not only been restricted to hacking and even ethical hacking, but they have been used by criminal groups and warring sides as well. Motivations to engage in these types of activities range from boredom to an ‘interests gone beyond playing ‘Mario Cart’ of ‘Call of Duty’ for obscene amounts of time. This phenomenon further provides credence to the notion that with the evolving nature of war – evolving with regards to the role of combatants, the space it is fought in, and the tools used in combat – not only the terminology but the conceptualization of children’s role in war, and their agency in particular should be problematized as well. This paper then seeks to uncover what the notion of child cyberwarriors adds to the contemporary understanding of agency of children taking active role in war.