securitisation theory produces for women’s insecurity, the process fails to give a
voice to marginalised sectors of society who cannot speak an existential threat
into existence. This is due to how attempts at doing so could pose a threat to
their survival, or they simply do not poses an audience; both are evident with Aradau’s case studies of trafficked women, prostitutes and asylum seekers. 42 43
In addition, the CS analytical framework of referent objects also silences any
ontological security issues, especially gender based ones, which highlights how
someone can feel great ontological insecurity whilst having physical security .
However, seeing how securitisation, according to Cox, is a problem-solving
theory it does not offer a solution to the silent voices because; at its core, the
model tries to make sense of security working within the existing social reality,
it is not a normative approach trying to change that social reality. To cement this,
the CS suggest they take an objective perspective in the securitisation process.
This is criticised immensely by the Welsh School, a critical theory pioneered by
the work of Booth and Jones; and influenced by the Frankfurt School. It is a
productivist paradigm that resembles Marxist ideology by focusing on
emancipatory discourses aimed at transforming the socially constructed world.
Through this lens, advocates of the Welsh School see the role of the political analyst to speak on behalf of the victims of human insecurity who are voiceless. 44
This line of critique is convincing, as paradoxically, the CS notion that they adopt
an objective securitisation perspective that removes themselves from being a
security actor is problematic; they seem to forget their responsibility for the
widening of security studies in the first place. In doing so, ‘by objectifying
42 See Hansen, L. ‘The Little Mermaid’s Silent Security Dilemma and the Absence of Gender in the Copenhagen School’, Millennium: Journal of International Studies, 29 (2000) pp. 285 -306. 43 Claudia Aradau, "Security And The Democratic Scene: Desecuritization And Emancipation", Journal Of International Relations And Development , 7.4 (2004), 398. 44 Wyn Jones, R. ‘Introduction: Locating Critical International Relations Theory’, in Critical Theory and World Politics, edited by Richard Wyn Jones (London, Lynne Rienner, 2001), pp. 5-10.
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