The banalization of race in international security studies: From absolution to abolition

Abstract

Introduction International relations in general, and international security studies in particular, has recently and very publicly been grappling with race and racism. We might even be tempted to claim international security studies was, for once, ahead of the curve, as this grappling predated the murder of George Floyd on 25 May 2020, an event that jolted race into the consciousness of people and enterprises that had hitherto practised what Charles Mills (2007: 13) has referred to as an ‘epistemology of ignorance’. Unfortunately, only the ‘timing’ of this ‘debate’ may be deemed ‘progressive’, with most of international security studies clinging to its racialized worldview and some even threatening revanchism. Rather than rehash the arguments following the vituperative reaction to an academic journal article that critiqued securitization theory for being premised on racist political thought (Howell and Richter-Montpetit, 2020), this article reflects on why the grammars of race are still so prevalent in international security studies, whether an anti-racist (sub)discipline is possible, and what strategies might tackle, and ultimately overturn, the racialized logics at the core of security studies. It concludes that in lieu of narratives of redemption, and indeed absolution, security studies must agitate for reparations and the abolition of empire. I start by adumbrating a short disciplinary history of international relations, and of the privileged location of international security studies within it, arguing that, as Alan Collins avers, ‘Security Studies is the sub-discipline of International Relations. It is the study of security that lies at the heart of International Relations. It was the carnage of World War I and the desire to avoid its horrors that gave birth to the discipline of International Relations in 1919 at Aberystwyth, United Kingdom’ (Collins, 2016: 1, emphasis in original). This is echoed by James Der Derian (1993: 95) when he claims that ‘no other concept in international relations packs the metaphysical punch, nor commands the disciplinary power of “security”’. I then analyse what Denise Ferreira da Silva (2017) has referred to as the ‘banalization of racial events’ in order to underscore and parse the normative whiteness of security studies,1 before concluding with a call to defund the contemporary (Western) imperial enterprise – a demand that I submit those working with and through notions of security are in a unique position to make, not least because they (we) have thus far aided and abetted its cause.