Human Security and the “Double Jump”: A Critical Analysis of Electronic Waste in Ghana

This essay seeks to contribute to the academic discourse on the human security paradigm by bringing to light the term‘s embedded yet unrecognized ―double jump,‖ or the move to accept any threat (be it violent or non-violent) as a threat to human security. By investigating the use of the human security paradigm in African security studies broadly, this essay argues that the non-recognition of the double jump has meant that a reliance on the paradigm frequently obscures the intricacies of complex ground-level social processes that, rather than singularly serving to impede humans‘ well-being, can actually abet them. Corroborated by a case study of electronic waste (or ―e-waste‖) in Ghana, the essay emphasizes that although the second hand electronics trade in the country has indeed had adverse effects on some aspects of humans‘ wellbeing, myriad benefits that accompany it are glossed over when the phenomenon is strictly contextualized within a human security framework.