ABSTRACT
Chapter 1 introduces a conceptual framework within which the research is situated. On a meta-theoretical plane, the framework attempts to integrate the work of Michel Foucault with that of Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari. The integration of the two bodies of work on the conceptual level and the consequent application of this converged framework follow Foucault and Deleuze/Guattari’s belief in ‘theorisation as conceptual practice’ and the need for scholarly experimentation. Chapter 1 discusses and links key concepts of these authors. These concepts are used to interpret the Canadian and Japanese human-security assemblages in the following chapters. As for the conceptual contribution of Deleuze and Guattari, they developed the most intriguing conceptualisation of assemblages in social science and philosophy to date. Their discussion of two types of assemblages – arborescent and rhizomatic assemblages – is absolutely crucial for this research and fits perfectly with the two case studies. They are crucial for a comprehension of how a given articulation of human security – both discursive and material – is constituted, maintained and hybridised as an assemblage. Foucault’s contribution through his ‘analytics of government’ is then vital for an examination of political rationalities which have shaped and regulated these human-security assemblages. The key concepts of such analytics are outlined and related to an analysis of socio-political orders and economies of power which have sustained these orders. Finally, the chapter discusses ‘governmentalised human-security assemblages’ which are, conceptually, a result of the ontological convergence of Foucauldean and Deleuze-Guattarian analytical grids.
