Creating ontological security: Introduction to special issue

Abstract This special issue focuses on the creative ways in which agents, groups, and collectives (re-)discover ontological security in global politics. Contributions ask and then seek to answer a series of related questions: what uplifts agents and groups beyond or through challenging conditions and modes of being? What inspires, mobilises, or transforms agents from being insecure to secure beings? It develops two overarching themes. First, it considers what a creatively focused thread of ontological security studies might entail, one that can identify and explicate routines and narratives, but also other forms of experience, such as flow, aesthetics, or expressivism, that actively work towards (re-)gaining ontological security. A second theme is ‘becoming’, which opens the way to acknowledging the importance of creativity, and creation, in the ontological security process. In this introduction, we assess two questions. First, why has a research community with the word ‘security’ in its title focused so much on its lack? Second, what benefits might a refocus on examples, processes, and dilemmas for ‘creating ontological security’ provide? We then introduce the two themes of, and contributions to, this special issue.