Transforming Security

 This co-authored article reflects on the use of action-oriented participatory research to rethink violence and security in Latin America. Drawing on 12 years of research in Colombia, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Jamaica and Mexico, working with communities living in the midst of chronic violence and criminality we argue that in order to challenge punitive approaches to security and to address the interconnected social and economic drivers of insecurity, communities need to develop their own understanding of ‘security’. We demonstrate that community participation can contribute to making public security equitable, accessible and capable of protecting them. Read article

Building on lessons learnt through more than a decade of research on security, this document presents an innovative measurement tool that allows us to quantify human security in a comprehensive way which captures people's multidimensional, context-specific and differentiated experiences of insecurity. 

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This project brought together an international research team to co-develop action plans with residents of communities affected by violence in  Acapulco (Guerrero), Apatzingán (Michoacán), Guadalupe (Nuevo León) and Tijuana (Baja California). Building on a methodology I developed with the Observatory of Human Security in Medellin and Prof. Jenny Pearce, the project contributed to the local and national debate on how to address the alarming increase in levels of violence and insecurity in Mexico. Explore the documentary and the Human Security Agendas we co-produced here

This co-edited book is the result of two years of participatory and action-oriented research in Mexico. The  chapters offer a reflection co-produced with residents from some of the most affected communities on security challenges and their impacts on people's wellbeing . The book also presents policy proposals that aim to curtail the reproduction of violence in its multiple manifestations. The methodological tools and original policy proposals presented can help to enable a radical rethink of responses to the crisis of insecurity in Mexico and the wider Latin American region. English version / Version en Español.

 In this seminal article Jenny Pearce and I suggested that the notion of ‘security from below’ could help analytically and in practice to humanise security provision by focusing attention on the lived experiences of insecurity, by encouraging participation in debates about the local and universal values that should inform state responses and by enabling people to demand a people-centred but publicly delivered form of security. Rethinking security from below was not a suggestion for replacing the state; it was instead an attempt to increase the capacity of communities and local level actors to articulate their demands for better security provision based on agreed norms and under democratic principles.  Read article.