ABSTRACT

In this chapter, students will learn about some basic principles of poststructuralist critique as it relates to security studies. By asking what? where? and how? the chapter captures sights, sites and insights of poststructuralist interventions in security studies. The first section focuses on sights: on how security is ‘seen’ when we put poststructuralist ‘lenses’ on. This involves analysing discursive power and understanding security as a logic informing war as practice. The second section focuses on sites of security practices. Here, poststructuralist critique is situated within the broader ‘aesthetic turn’ associated with the production of knowledge in academic International Relations. The third section explores how poststructuralist insights demonstrate that security works as a logic informing war as practice, using illustrations from women’s visibility in war and drone warfare. The chapter demonstrates how poststructuralist security studies not only fundamentally challenges what security itself might mean but also opens up for questioning where and how security is practised.