The embodied state: why and how physical security matters for ontological security

The concept of ontological security has proved a valuable addition to International Relations (IR). At the same time, its discipline-specific incorporation has had consequences. Specifically, the widespread opposition of ontological security to physical security sometimes makes the ontological security-seeking self appear as disembodied. While a second wave of ontological security studies (OSS) has challenged such assumptions and paid greater attention to the ways in which ontological and physical security intersect, it has yet to address in detail the most immediate physical aspect of the self: its material body. Doing so allows us to extend the analytical reach of OSS and to move beyond a concern with particularised role-identities. Thus, this article draws on the foundational ontological security literature, as developed by Anthony Giddens and especially R. D. Laing, to highlight the importance of embodiment for ontological security. It argues that there is a genuine two-way relationship between physical and psychological security and that ontological security is consequently best understood as ‘security of the self-in-the-body’. Upon theorising what it means for states to have bodies, a brief analysis of the psychological impact of the so-called ‘North Korean abduction issue’ in Japan serves to illustrate this point.