Humans of Security

In this podcast our guest, an academic at Amsterdam University, makes us think about how people view security from their own perspective and what it really means to be secure or to have human security. Martijn also discusses different actors who provide security to the populations, including organised crime groups. Listen to this episode to find out about human security for whom and by whom.

Martijn Dekker is a political anthropologist who specializes in ‘human security from below’: how people confronted with an armed conflict try to improve their own security.

In this episode we speak to Prof. Daniel Bar-Tal, an academic, social psychologist, author, and laureate of the Morton Deutsch Conflict Resolution Award of the Society for the Study of Peace, Conflict, and Violence. We discuss what it means for someone to feel secure, the subjectivity of individual and societal insecurity, and the importance of putting psychology and security under the same spotlight.

In this episode we speak to Prof. Gyöngyi Kovács, a Professor in Humanitarian Logistics, about managing humanitarian logistics in conflicts and crisis. We discuss how those parts of the world that are most affected by human insecurities are often those that are the hardest to reach, or to operate in as a humanitarian organisation, or to access infrastructure to communicate and coordinate relief efforts and programmes. Consequently, humanitarian logistics is crucial to ensuring human security. We also touch on programmes such as cash-based assistance and discuss the pandemic as a human-security concern that is close to home. Mentioned in the podcast are the following links:

HUMLOG Institute: www.hanken.fi/humloginstitute

MOOC: https://www.futurelearn.com/courses/humanitarian-logistics/2

In this episode, we speak with Fred Koolhof about the power of dialogue in facilitating communication between groups and understanding and resolving conflict. This conversation is especially relevant to the people-centric concept of human security, which compels us to think more deeply about understanding how different groups and populations develop their own sense of safety and security.

Fred is a reserve officer in the Dutch military. He has worked as a civil-military cooperation (CIMIC) specialist in the Dutch Civil-Military Integration Command (CMIC) and at NATO’s Civil-Military Cooperation Centre of Excellence. He is also a lecturer, writer, and speaker.

Coming to us directly from the field, in this podcast Rachel Agelou talks to us about her human security work at the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), including its work in military communication. From Rachel we learn how different crisis actors – military and humanitarian sector – operate in the same space in order to facilitate human security. Rachel, like our guest in episode 4, emphasises the importance of using a common language to enable effective conversation around human security, and the importance of paying attention to words. She also explains how to achieve effective human security.

Rachel Agelou is a former UK senior military officer with a background in Influence, Intelligence Operations (IO), CIMIC and Civil Affairs, and has military time served in the UK, Middle East and North Africa. As a Gender Advisor for UK military, she also worked on Women, Peace and Security (WPS) and contributed to gender and human security capacity building. She transitioned to the humanitarian community in 2010 and has worked for WHO, WFP and OCHA.