Research
CRSP houses a community of engaged researchers who work to examine and understand the co-existence of security with insecurity and their interconnected nature. CRSP research focuses on the intersections of the practices and experiences of security on technologies, populations, spaces and brokers to enhance scholarly research, policy debates and public understandings. The research produced within CRSP recognizes that asking questions regarding the effectiveness and impact of security practices requires an understanding of peoples’ perceptions and experiences of them.
Research conducted within CRSP uses rigorous methods that are sensitive to participants’ social location and circumstances in the pursuit of understanding the practice and experience of security. CRSP researchers pilot and evaluate cutting-edge, innovative methodologies (e.g., neighborhood walks, social GIS, and brokered dialogue) that draw from a range of data sources to provide robust analyses of security practices.
CRSP members are dedicated to contributing to scholarly knowledge and debate, while also informing policy, practice, and social change. CRSP emphasizes generating collaboratively-derived, evidence-informed applied knowledge that can be placed into the hands of policymakers, practitioners, and other change makers to address today’s most pressing challenges.
Activities
Centre for Research on Security Practices (CRSP) activities include:
- Hosting research collaborations and national and international guest speakers and visiting scholars.
- Developing and engaging in local, national, and international research networks and programs of research focused on studying human security in its various facets and contexts.
- Organizing and conducting relevant seminars, workshops and conferences.
- Training and mentoring students and postdoctoral fellows.
- Creating connections and research collaborations with members of international, national, and community organizations, governments, and business communities.
Research Themes
CRSP focuses on four research themes:
Research may focus element within a theme or flow across substantive research themes. Infused across all research themes is a commitment to student involvement, community engagement, and methodological and ethical rigour.
CRSP’s Global Approach
The start of the 21st century has been marked by attention to pressing socio-political issues such as poverty, war, climate change, coupled with ongoing structural inequality and everyday discrimination against some of the world’s most marginalized populations. As of June 2018, there were over 600 million people living in extreme poverty around the world, or 8% of the world’s population. Current war and related political crises—from Syria to South Sudan and Afghanistan to Venezuela—are causing a level of human suffering unseen in previous generations, with over 68 million people currently displaced from their homes. War and political crises tend to exponentially impact already marginalized groups. Furthermore, poverty, war, and general political instability have been interlinked with climate change, rising temperatures, and increased drought exacerbating the potential for conflict. The Lancet Commission on Health and Climate Change identified climate change as the biggest global security threat of the 21st century, which will “expose the global population to worsening health consequences”.
In these contexts, security is an ideal sought by many, but not often attainable. As a result, there is an increased need for an examination of the secure and insecure environments of human beings in order to inform more effective practice and policy that can ameliorate the negative consequences of insecurity and promote everyday security and wellbeing. Ongoing CRSP projects in countries such as Afghanistan, Lebanon, and Yemen are promoting interdisciplinary research on human security from a global perspective to learn what causes (in)security and how people experience (in)security.
