Rethinking Precarity in a Global World

Peter Herrmann

Email: herrmann@esosc.eu

 

ABSTRACT:

The debate on precarity – as much as the conceptualisation of Social Quality, which had been brought forward by the author in previous contributions – is very much developed from a Western, EUropean perspective. This is definitely a limitation. Some wider and “global” consideration seems to be proposed with the work on Human Security, developed in the framework of the United Nations.

Starting from earlier considerations (see paper given in Berlin in 2007) and referring to research undertaken recently in Taiwan, the presentation will consider the conceptual challenges of the “Eurocentred” concepts arising from current developments. Not least the concept of Human Security will be analysed in this perspective, asking if and to which it provides a more appropriate framework.