New Openings at the Dawn of the Interregnum of Critical Security Studies: The Promises of Visual and Vernacular Turns

Abstract

Critical Security Studies literature has witnessed numerous theoretical debates, particularly in the last decade. These debates stemmed from the need to go beyond the two main axes of deepening and broadening. Ultimately, the hypothesis, which asserts that the Critical Security Studies literature has reached a deadlock, has gained general acceptance. This hypothesis illustrates the interregnum of Critical Security Studies in a Gramscian sense, describing a situation where “the old is dying and the new is not yet born”. Under the shadow of this deadlock in the dominant theoretical approaches of the field, alternative theories have begun to develop and attract attention. Thus, the primary objective of this article is to introduce these approaches to the Turkish literature. These approaches are Visual and Vernacular Security Studies. The article is designed as a descriptive study and depends on an integrative literature review of the field. Firstly, the article will provide a brief mapping of the development of Critical Security Studies and evaluate how these studies have reached a deadlock today. Then, the article will concentrate on two new alternative security studies approaches. In conclusion, the article posits that both alternative approaches can provide original contributions to the study of security.

Keywords

• vernacular security
• visual security
• opening
• broadening
• deepening
• critical security studies