Toward a Decolonial Cybersecurity: Interrogating the Racial-Epistemic Hierarchies That Constitute Cybersecurity Expertise

IF 2.2 2区社会学 Q1 INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS

Security Studies Pub Date : 2023-09-25 DOI:10.1080/09636412.2023.2230879

Densua Mumford, James Shires

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引用次数: 0

Abstract

Abstract Beginning with a startling pattern of racialized practices in cybersecurity expert communities in the Gulf States, and drawing on the decolonial insights of the modernity/coloniality school, this article argues that race operates as a marker of who is a legitimate knower of dominant Euro-American knowledges of cybersecurity and who is not, and therefore whose understandings, experiences, and practices of cybersecurity are privileged. In demonstrating that decolonial thought can be fruitfully applied to questions of cybersecurity, this article makes three contributions to security studies. The first is empirical, drawing on original interview data to identify racial hierarchies of rationality and authority in cybersecurity expert communities. The second contribution is theoretical, demonstrating how a decolonial perspective is especially well equipped to understand racialized practices in cybersecurity knowledge production. The third contribution is programmatic, outlining a decolonial research agenda for cybersecurity—or, as we put it in the title, a path toward a decolonial cybersecurity.

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走向非殖民化的网络安全:质问构成网络安全专业知识的种族-认知层次

本文从海湾国家网络安全专家社区中令人吃惊的种族化实践模式开始，并借鉴现代性/殖民主义学派的非殖民化见解，认为种族是谁是主导欧美网络安全知识的合法知识者，谁不是，因此谁对网络安全的理解、经验和实践享有特权的标志。为了证明非殖民思想可以有效地应用于网络安全问题，本文对安全研究做出了三个贡献。第一种是经验主义的，利用原始访谈数据来确定网络安全专家群体中理性和权威的种族等级。第二个贡献是理论上的，展示了非殖民化的视角如何特别适合理解网络安全知识生产中的种族化实践。第三个贡献是纲领性的，概述了网络安全的非殖民化研究议程——或者，正如我们在标题中所说，一条通往非殖民化网络安全的道路。

本文章由计算机程序翻译，如有差异，请以英文原文为准。

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来源期刊

Security Studies INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS-

CiteScore

2.70

自引率

16.70%

发文量

期刊介绍： Security Studies publishes innovative scholarly manuscripts that make a significant contribution – whether theoretical, empirical, or both – to our understanding of international security. Studies that do not emphasize the causes and consequences of war or the sources and conditions of peace fall outside the journal’s domain. Security Studies features articles that develop, test, and debate theories of international security – that is, articles that address an important research question, display innovation in research, contribute in a novel way to a body of knowledge, and (as appropriate) demonstrate theoretical development with state-of-the art use of appropriate methodological tools. While we encourage authors to discuss the policy implications of their work, articles that are primarily policy-oriented do not fit the journal’s mission. The journal publishes articles that challenge the conventional wisdom in the area of international security studies. Security Studies includes a wide range of topics ranging from nuclear proliferation and deterrence, civil-military relations, strategic culture, ethnic conflicts and their resolution, epidemics and national security, democracy and foreign-policy decision making, developments in qualitative and multi-method research, and the future of security studies.