University of St Andrews

Key information

SCOTCAT credits : 30

ECTS credits : 15

Level : SCQF level 10

Semester: 2

Availability restrictions: Not automatically available to General Degree students

Planned timetable: 1.00 pm Tue

As the world becomes increasingly interconnected, and faced with new types of threats and insecurities, questions of ethics or how we should act, which rely on some notion of who 'we' are, become more complex. This module seeks to analyse a number of seemingly intractable global security problems, relating, among others, to health, the environment, migration and political violence, from a different angle and to explore the implications for how we should act in the world to ensure a secure and sustainable future. The module will be structured around Burke and Nymans, eds., Ethical Security Studies (2016) and a range of complementary texts.

Relationship to other modules

Pre-requisite(s): Before taking this module you must pass IR2006

Learning and teaching methods and delivery

Weekly contact: 1-hour lecture (x 11 weeks), 1-hour tutorial (x 9 weeks) 2 consultation hours with Coordinator (x 12 weeks)

Assessment pattern

As used by St Andrews: Coursework = 100%


Re-assessment: 3-hour Written Examination = 100%

Personnel

Module coordinator: Professor K M Fierke
Module teaching staff: Prof K Fierke
Module coordinator email kf30@st-andrews.ac.uk

Intended learning outcomes

• understand the distinction between security and ethics and security as ethics
• understand what is at stake in the shift from an individual to a relational ontology as it relates to models of science and different knowledge traditions;
• understand the meaning and significance of identity as difference
• understand the significance of a notion of emotions as relational for the re-narration of the local and global
• understand the relevance of a relational ontology for rethinking migration, the medicalization of trauma and the disentangling of conflict
• understand the transformative potentials of a relational approach to the environment and questions of global order