Of Risk, Uncertainty, Safety, and Trust: (Re)Locating Human Insecurities
This overview considers four concepts: uncertainty, risk, safety, and trust. In addressing issues of insecurity and uncertainty we tend to think immediately of such processes and events as climate change and its social and economic impact; transnational c
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Of Risk, Uncertainty, Safety, and Trust: (Re)Locating Human Insecurities Victor T. King
Abstract This overview considers four concepts: uncertainty, risk, safety, and trust. In addressing issues of insecurity and uncertainty we tend to think immediately of such processes and events as climate change and its social and economic impact; transnational crimes and the consequences for local communities; regional security and conflict; access to clean and drinkable water, food, shelter, health care, education, and a sustainable livelihood; sexual, ethnic, and youth violence; and forced migration, land-grabbing and population displacement. A range of causes of increasing human insecurity can also be identified: social changes arising from national, regional, and global events and processes with reference to processes of economic integration, but also the more directly apprehended occurrences of the scramble for natural resources, armed conflicts, accelerated urbanization and industrialization, and the large-scale commercialization of everyday life. But these issues have to be located within a conceptual discussion of the complex relationships between safety and risk and between uncertainty and trust derived from the work of Zygmunt Bauman, Anthony Giddens, Mary Douglas, Olivia Harris, James C. Scott, and E.P. Thompson. Keywords Insecurities
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Uncertainty Risk Safety Trust Southeast Asia
Introduction
This chapter emerged out of an introductory address prepared for a seminar on “Human Insecurities in Southeast Asia” organized at Universiti Brunei Darussalam. A disparate range of examples of human insecurities was indicated in preparation for the seminar and some of the causes of these insecurities were identified for discussion, especially in the context of processes of regionalization, globalization, V.T. King (&) Institute of Asian Studies, Universiti Brunei Darussalam, Bandar Seri Begawan, Brunei Darussalam e-mail: [email protected] © Springer Science+Business Media Singapore 2016 P.J. Carnegie et al. (eds.), Human Insecurities in Southeast Asia, Asia in Transition 5, DOI 10.1007/978-981-10-2245-6_2
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urbanization, and commercialization. The potential problem in the seminar was that “insecurities” would be conceptualized not so much in human terms but in terms of international relations and politics at the national and regional level, in other words security and insecurity would be seen as a preoccupation of national governments, and regional and international organizations and not in terms of local level, community, and individual insecurities. Furthermore, the use of the plural “insecurities” is important, in that it was decided that there should be engagement with different levels and kinds of insecurity, and not simply a preoccupation with the concerns of political elites to devise policies and seek institutional and other arrangements in order to overcome perceived problems of national and international insecurity. It seemed to me therefore that our seminar should not be confined to
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