Human Security and Spiritual Insecurity

In 1994, to much fanfare, the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) introduced the concept of “human security,” proclaiming that this idea, “though simple, is likely to revolutionize society in the twenty-first century.” Human security, the UNDP noted in its Human Development Report, was a way of moving beyond the emphasis on the territorial security of national states and the insecurity arising from the threat of violence by other states. Previous thinking about security, the report suggested, neglected the “legitimate concerns of people who sought security in their daily lives.” The revolutionary new concept of human security was to be “people-centered.” The 1994 Report outlined seven basic components of human security: economic, health, food, environmental, personal, community, and political security. The concept of human security has emerged as a staple of international development policymaking and analysis, embodied in, among other things, the UN Millennium Development Goals. Opening the study of security to encompass issues beyond the traditional domain of relations among states has allowed global actors to do important work on global poverty, health, and violence that would not have Adam Ashforth teaches in the Center for Afroamerican and African Studies at the University of Michigan. He is the author of Witchcraft, Violence, and Democracy in South Africa (2005), which was awarded the African Studies Association’s Herskovits Prize.