There were several factors that influenced methodology deliberations, and assisted in establishing the chosen methodology for this research. The persuasive factors included: the thematic nature of the subject (particularly the health components, and the relevance of Defence and Security Studies in regards to civilian - military coordination considerations), organisational realities (particularly the theoretical location of the research at the intersection between organisational policy and academic theory), the use of subjective and secondary data, and the need for the analysis to elicit otherwise implicit relationships (particularly between security understanding and operational reality). The three key research mechanisms considered appropriate to meeting the research requirements were: an over-arching qualitative methodology especially in regards to the case-studies, a phenomenological approach to the positional and experience of the researcher and the participants, and the application of a tri-partite structure as informed by critical theory.
Although commonly associated with primary data collection (Greene, 2010:68), in this instance, the qualitative methodology is crucial in regards to respecting subject interpretation and meaning, such as that which is garnered from the experiences of security within the NZRC delegate case-studies (a source of secondary data). A number of researchers also support the application of qualitative methodologies when a dual focus is required, such as Holloway and Wheeler (2010) and Greene (2010). Such as the distinction within this research between the individual and the organisation (i.e. the
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Red Cross) or any broader research scope (i.e. the wider development or humanitarian environment). The inclusion of a phenomenological approach in this research reflects the health-based of the research context, the existential understanding of experience by the NZRC delegate, and recognises my professional positional within the Red Cross. The close association of the phenomenological approach within health-related studies is also helpful here, due to that methodology’s innate association with health-related research.
The use of critical theory was appropriate as a methodology that might be more relevant to the thematic presence of military interests, and the reference to Defence and Security Studies within the research. The relevance to the research aims of this thesis, and the potential to use it to guide the research structure is further supported by its critical value in investigating organisations (Clegg, Hardy & Lawrence, 2006:264), such as the Red Cross. As the history of the Red Cross (in relation to security developments) is discussed in the next chapter, critical theory provides a structure within which the organisational
characteristics within the history of the Red Cross can be considered in relation to its
operational definitions in the field, and the concepts of human security. Such a theoretical construction was utilised by Bennett (2009:13), and will be emulated here to guide this research. Using such a critical theory structure, alongside a qualitative and phenomenological methodology, will guide the research in exploring individual perceptions within prevalent power structures, allow for challenges to fundamental ideas, and make explicit any concealed security relationships.
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Chapter 3 – Historical Security and its Characterisation
in the Red Cross
Arguably, [human security’s] roots are much deeper, and can be traced back to the nineteenth-century work of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) and ‘the notion that people should be protected from violent threats and, when they are harmed or injured, that the international community has an obligation to assist them’.
Krause (2014:77)
Introduction
When looking at how the contemporary experience of humanitarian and development practitioners reflects the prevailing human security and rights-based discourse, it is important to review how such concepts may already be inherent within Red Cross historical concerns. Human security as a concept was first articulated in the 1994 UNDP report, but what delineates the human security paradigm may have already been entrenched in the historical mandate of the Red Cross according to Krause (2014:77). The correlation between human security and mandates such as those of the Red Cross are also identified and acknowledged by Hampson (2002:17).
These proposed historical roots of human security might even be extended back further to pre-nineteenth century practices. The contribution of such individuals as European diplomats Gustav Moynier and Henry Dunant is well documented (and ‘mythologised’) in traditional accounts of the Red Cross’ foundation. There is less acknowledgement of similar ideas that already existed prior to the conceptualisation of the Red Cross ‘brand’. This infers that a historical overview of security understanding in response to individual need is critical to the understanding of human security, and its exclusive relationship to the Red Cross today.
As well as considerations of field-based insecurity, the historical narrative of the Red Cross significantly intersects with chronological accounts of military developments. The accepted presence of military factors within more traditional notions of security, as well their role in implementing conventional ideas of ‘national security’, and the simultaneous existence of military actors alongside civilian agencies in accordance with the complexity human security framing and response, might be considered somewhat routine to a Red
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Cross way of thinking and operating. It may also hardly seem necessary to articulate further the role that the Red Cross undertakes in the provision of health-care and medical services within humanitarian operations and development programmes. However, the Red Cross mandate as a provider of these services is so deeply established and guided by the Geneva Conventions and historical aspects of military conduct in general, that it is important to also explore this here. Krause stated that human security thinking has its roots in the nineteenth century practise of the Red Cross. Human security might, thus, also be informed specifically by the Red Cross’ historical framework for the provision of health-care within an integrated civilian and military environment.
From New Zealand, the international deployment of personnel to support the field operations of both the IFRC and the ICRC is undertaken through the NZRC Delegate Programme. This programme serves as a mechanism by which members of the New Zealand public may offer their patronage and technical expertise to the development programmes and humanitarian operations of the Red Cross.
The historical overview below will also cover the evolution of this programme, to further locate the potential reflection of human security, within the experience of its members. The exposure to military during NZRC training to be a delegate in many ways reinforces a level of ‘normalcy’ about the relationship that the Red Cross can hold traditionally with many military players. As such, this historical overview will also examine NZRC programmatic unanimity with military bodies domestically at an organisational and operational level as an inherent part of NZRC health-based delegate experience. The growing significance of medical personnel as a category of those deployed by the NZRC, and their growing exposure to the impacts of insecurity, since the programme’s first inception over fifty years ago, will also be explored in this chapter.
As the expectation of individual security has changed historically, so too has the organisation’s response to addressing it. The relationship between Red Cross organisational developments and security understanding within conflict (as well as peace-time development), may parallel the same synergetic relationships that gave rise to human security as noted above. This chapter explores not only how the history of the Red Cross informs the contemporary experience of NZRC delegates, but also evaluates Krause’s assertion that the history of the Red Cross embodies the origins of human security thinking today.