Ontological security paper SCGW

DRIVEN BY INSECURITY
Can the concept of ontological security explain the
motivations of the Christchurch shootings in 2019?
s2309866

Security Challenges in a Globalizing World
Dr. G.M. van Buuren
23-10-2022
Wordcount: 3294

,Inhoudsopgave
Introduction............................................................................................................................................. 2
Theoretical Framework ........................................................................................................................... 2
Ontological security ............................................................................................................................. 2
A stable sense of home ................................................................................................................... 3
Optimistic view of the future .......................................................................................................... 3
Having basic trust in one’s community and political and societal institutions ............................... 3
Ontological insecurity .......................................................................................................................... 4
Distrust in one’s community and institutions ................................................................................. 4
Sense of a lost home ....................................................................................................................... 4
Pessimistic view of the future ......................................................................................................... 4
Methodology ........................................................................................................................................... 5
Operationalization ................................................................................................................................... 5
Analysis .................................................................................................................................................... 7
Conclusion ............................................................................................................................................... 8
References ............................................................................................................................................... 8
Appendix A ............................................................................................................................................ 10
Appendix B ............................................................................................................................................ 18




1

, Introduction

On the 15th of March 2019, a young man called Brenton Tarrant started a Facebook live with
the words “let’s get this party started”. While listening to pop music he drove to the Al Noor Mosque
in Christchurch, New Zealand. His car was loaded with five firearms. He parked the car, took one of
his weapons, and killed 51 people who were at the Al Noor Mosque that day, 41 were injured (Ganor,
2020).

Before his actions Tarrant published a manifest titled “The Great Replacement” where he explains his
extremist ideologies and motivations for the attack. This paper aims to research if feelings of
ontological insecurity where present with Tarrant and could therefore perhaps explain the attack.
The research question therefore is: “to what extent can the Christchurch-shootings be explained by
the perpetrator’s sense of ontological insecurity, based on his manifest The Great Replacement?”

Ontological security can be described as “a security of being, a sense of confidence and trust that the
world is what it appears to be” (Kinnvall, 2004). This paper will focus on how one can go from feeling
ontological secure to feeling ontological insecure by looking at multiple drivers of ontological security
and applying those to the manifest.

In the theoretical framework the concept of ontological security will be further explained based on
relevant literature, out of this literature three drivers of ontological insecurity are distilled. How
these drivers are then applied to the manifest is explained in the methodology and
operationalization section. In the analysis the application of the drivers to the manifest is discussed,
followed by a conclusion where the findings are summarized and an answer to the research question
is given as well as a critical note on the current literature on ontological security.



Theoretical Framework

Ontological security
Ontological security was first conceptualised by R.D. Laing, who introduced the concept of
ontological security and ontological insecurity in his project The Divided Self, which aim was to
conceptualize an existentialist approach to psychoanalysis and to explain psychosis and schizophrenia
(Laing, 1965; Rossdale, 2015).

Anthony Giddens applies a sociological lens to Laing’s insights. He argues that in the context of
ontological security, the word security does not refer to “classic” security such as immediate danger,
crimes, war, survival; it refers to the “security as a being,” it is a political, social, and mental
construction. Ontological security is about the ability of people to give meaning to their lives, have a
fundamental sense of safety in the world and be free from existential anxiety (Giddens, 1991). These
existential anxieties are concerned with the awareness of the individual’s ultimate meaningless
existence and mortality (Kinnvall & Mitzen, 2020). Existential anxieties are based on an undeniably
true fear: our individual existence is meaningless, and we will all die, therefore an individual can never
feel fully ontological secure, as mortality and meaninglessness are always present (Kinnvall & Mitzen,
2020).

fundamental to the sense of ontological security are stability, routines, and self-identity. Having basic
trust, confidence, and optimism in the future. The belief that said narratives and live will work out in

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