Human security and emancipation: Measurements and issues

The concept of human security, which has undergone a radical change in traditional security research through the change of the referent object to the individual from the State, has three dimensions: freedom from fear, freedom from want, and freedom to make their own decisions, signifying emancipation. Broadening this thinking, the idea of freeing people of fear and giving them freedom to want are prerequisites to achieve autonomy, this is not necessarily so, because in some situations emancipation comes before deprivation. The lack of consensus regarding the threats which cause Human Insecurity allows for growth in criticism, such as the debate surrounding the instrumental use of the term to justify ‘humanitarian” intervention; on the one hand, strengthening the concept or weakening it, whilst on the other hand, acknowledging that the term has an extremely broad and adaptable meaning, transforming the academic and political discourse regarding Human Security into an inocuous analysis on that scenario. This work aims at verifying the existing methods of measuring Human Security, such as the index used by James Michel and King & Murray, who consider data related to underdevelopment; GECHS Index of Human Insecurity (The Global Environmental Change and Human Security Project ) Index of Human Insecurity ( IHI ), which measures security in social, environmental, economic and institutional domains, and the Human Security Report Index, which attempts to analyze Security through the number of death caused by crimes and conflicts,  the similarities and differences, weakness and disabilities of the methodologies, try to contribute to the academic debate about Human Security,  in search of a better understanding of emancipation and empowerment of people, and as such aims to transform victimized individuals into empowered people.