Palestinian Insecurity: Integration and Emancipation Logics
Dr Joni Aasi
In this seminar, Dr Aasi will discuss the new perspectives raised by the
immigration of certain concepts dominant in the security studies of the
post Cold War to Palestine. In other words, what is the epistemic
position of Palestine in these studies? Dr Aasi will argue that the
broader concept of security adopted by critical security studies in the
post-Cold War draws our attention to economic and ecological dimensions of
the Palestinian insecurity, but that as an issue of human insecurity,
Palestinian insecurity is also essentially characterized by the ?fear of
violent death? in the traditional sense.
The seminar will further consider the points of convergence of several
theoretical currents under the umbrella of critical security studies,
including utopian realism. Utopian thinking associates the thinkable and
the possible and reflects a desire of transformation simultaneously of the
reality and of the self. The utopian (critical) approach is useful to
raise question about the reality and its knowledge; about the ?structural
bias? of the discourse on security in general and on security sector
reform in particular (external legitimacy\internal legitimacy); and about
the risk of ?reification? (the risk that an emancipator discourse become a
new structure of domination).
Dr Joni Aasi is a visiting scholar at the York Centre for International
and Security Studies (YCISS) as from April ? September 2010. Dr Aasi is
an Assistant Professor at Bir Zeit University. Since September 2008, Dr
Aasi has been the Dean of Scientific Research at the Palestinian Academy
of Security Sciences, Jericho where he is involved in training Palestinian
military and civilian officials on issues of security sector reform, as
well as theories of security and international law. Dr Aasi is also the
author of several texts and papers in these areas.
Thursday 27 May
2 - 3.30pm
Room 519
Fifth Floor
York Research Tower (YRT)
To attend please pre-register here
http://www.yorku.ca/yciss/forms/view.php?id=19
