With this article the authors intend to underline the critical potential of Human Security as a liminal field of research and practice and then explore visual methods (photography and documentary film-making) as innovative tools for unveiling and assessing the discursive nature of global (in)security. By promoting these methods as productive ways of bridging the gap between levels of analysis – from local insecurities to global trends and backwards, from human resilience at local levels to governance choices and backwards – the authors intend to raise new epistemological and methodological questions (within International Relations, security studies and the social sciences at large) and take the (global) security problématique to broader audiences. Taking stock of field activities (academic research, volunteer work and collaborative filming) conducted by the authors in the last four years in Nicaragua, Fiji, Portugal and Rwanda, the assumption is such that as an emergent discourse – intersecting the academia with the worlds of (in)security – Human Security needs to take a reflexivist turn in order to be able to foster social innovation and change for those affected by tangible insecurities. Hence, a closer link between the arts and the humanities is critical here and sits at the very core of the epistemological paradigm the authors set out to put forward. This article works as the (meta)theoretical grounding for a more empirical informed second paper that shall expand on the authors’ research experience of ‘film-making for fieldwork’ in Nicaragua, Fiji, Portugal and Rwanda from 2010 to 2014. Keywords: Pluralist research methods, HS visual paradigm, collaborative ethnography, reflexivity, narrativity

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This paper explores the diversity in the capacity to aspire among people living in societies in transition. To this end, it reflects on interviews with people living in three rural villages in the Northeast of Thailand, conducted during a period when the Thai government introduced a series of policies to support the rural poor, including the Million Baht Village Fund Program. During the past decade, many researchers have evaluated the effectiveness of this programme to facilitate the rural poor to invest in capital to increase their village incomes. However, while the rural population has engaged in off-farm activities done outside of the villages more frequently, such a perspective fails to examine the implications of the diverse manner in which people benefit from, or shy away from this programme. Cases in rural Thailand reveal the creative ways used by people to interpret and combine various resources — either those that have long existed or have been newly introduced by a specific policy — to change their livelihoods, or to hold on to the current situation. Thus, such ways illustrate diversity in the capacity to aspire to an alternative future for these people. Keywords: Capacity to aspire; rural development; Northeast Thailand; Microfinance; Million Baht Village Fund Program

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“Informed choices” has risen as a concept in circulation beyond the boundary of medical profession over the past decade. In 2003, the notion was officially highlighted in Human Security Now. Empowering individuals by keeping them informed has become a more conscious effort in providing information directly to individuals and/or creating more open sources of information to those individuals who seek for further information before making a decision. However, there is ambiguity in the concept itself -- the distance between “informing” and “making the choice”, thus leading to a question that is often times taken for granted: Are the choices informed to the individuals always good ones and/or is keeping them informed simply leaving the whole responsibility of “making the choice” on them? The paper aims to re-examine the concept “informed choices” by using different examples from an extensive research in Vietnam. In doing so, the essay makes a liberal use of prospect theory as developed by Khaneman and Tversky for probing the limits of rational choice analyses. The contribution of the paper is to shed a new light on how involved the individuals are in the decision-making process and when they are influenced, either by changes in their living environment or by the availability of choices as well as by how choices are framed (presented), before they arrive at a certain decision. In other words, empowering the individuals alone may not be enough. How to make it easier for the individuals to arrive at a good choice should also be considered. The essay aims at strengthening the notion as the key concept in human security. Keywords: Informed choices, Empowerment, decision-making process, good choice, responsibility

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The Four Northern Islands of Etorofu, Kunashiri, Shikotan and Habomais off Hokkaido in Japan are the subject of an ongoing territorial dispute between Japan and Russia. The Japanese government insists that these islands should be an inherent part of the territory of Japan and be called the Northern Territories. However, the Soviet Union (Russia) insists that it has been in possession of what they refer to as the Kuril Islands which includes the Four Islands in dispute since World War II. Japanese nationals initially inhabited the islands. The Soviet Union (Russia) gained control of the islands in 1945 and have been in occupation since. By 1949, all Japanese residents of the islands (about 17,000 people) had been forcibly deported. As a result of the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, the Russians who had moved to the islands since 1945 were facing difficulties. The waters around the islands are fertile fishing grounds. Several Japanese fishing boats, however, were seized by the Soviet Union, who claimed the area as part of their sovereign territory. Japan and Russia subsequently executed fishery agreements to improve the lives of Japanese fishermen and Russian inhabitants on these islands. The purpose of this report is to examine the two fishery agreements executed by Japan and Russia which was necessary for human security, despite the territorial dispute as well as to discuss the results of a survey carried out in 2005 on Russian inhabitants of the islands. Keywords: Four Northern Islands, fishery agreement, Japanese Fishermen, Russians on the Islands, human security

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