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Abstract

This article examines the tension between food security as strategic practice and as the human insecurity of hunger. It makes the case that hunger is a security matter that warrants greater attention from security scholars, but identifies some limitations with state-centric and human security approaches. The article explores Ken Booth’s ‘emancipatory realism’ security project as one avenue for overcoming these limitations and uses Booth’s work to assist in developing a reframing of food security. It proposes redefining food security in terms of securing vulnerable populations from the structural violence of hunger, and argues that such a framing offers both conceptual and practical value for efforts to confront the problem of increasing and widespread hunger.

Keywords

human security insecurity violence critical security studies food security structural violence hunger

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Thinking critically about food security

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