Leading this Association

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Yusuke Dan

JAHSS President

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April 2020

 

I would like to take this opportunity to convey to our current and future members how delighted and burdened I am at the same time to assume the leading role of this association. The feeling is all the more acute when globally we all are braced to face the onslaught of the pandemic, which has become a true human security issue. It is an ongoing crisis, the magnitude of which is yet to reveal itself. Within the next two years that I am to be in charge, we will certainly address the various aspects of this acute human insecurity, but first and foremost I, on behalf of this association, wish sincerely to extend our sympathy to all those directly or indirectly affected by this invisible human insecurity. Let us hope that the future will soon look less bleak than it is now, and, in the meantime, let us be prepared to do whatever we can in our capacity to meet the threat.

 

As I write this note during the current global crisis, I recall the fact that this association was founded soon after another global crisis, the 3.11 Fukushima disaster in 2011. The Human Security Consortium, a research forum of universities and organizations, had preceded it. With its focus on the concept of human security, this association has thrived to become a core, if not a hub, of global academic studies in the field. We have managed constantly, in English, to organize a large annual meeting every year, and to publish a refereed e-journal twice a year, a true achievement outside the English-speaking world, which we should all be proud of.

 

Another characteristic of this association is that it seeks to view insecurity issues from various disciplines including global health and medicine, in addition to economics, political science, sociology, international relations and other disciplines. We as individual global citizens should be prepared to break our conventional academic mold to discuss, with a flexible mind, all the human insecurity issues which threaten our dignity and freedom. The pandemic has acutely revealed human insecurity even in the developed parts of the world including Japan. I for one have learned a great deal from our colleagues in public health about what needs to be done in this crisis situation.

 

The association is not without its challenges. Though we have an increasing number of journal submissions from around the world, and of paper presentations at our annual meetings representing an astonishing global diversity, we need to appeal to a wider academic audience, as well as to academia within Japan. Our prime intention ten years ago to discuss and publish in English was to disseminate our academic findings globally. We will continue to commit ourselves to our founding ideas.

 

We also need to continue developing the concept of human security so that it can detail a more convincing picture of our globe today. Criticisms still abound that the concept is, as a tool, too broad and too encompassing to be of any significant use to explore the root causes of our era. As COVID-19 questions our basic human and social values, so may the term human security shed light on what lies ahead of us.

 

Last but not least, I welcome each and every one of you, who are keen to pursue academic and practical concerns related to the concept of human security, to join us in our endeavor to address global insecurity challenges.​​