From resource security to resource securitisation: materialities, latent securitisation, and the politics of (in)security in low-carbon transitions

Building on recent debates about materialities, this paper examines processes of resource securitisation occurring amidst a climate crisis and renewed international tensions. The past two decades have seen shifts between resource security (i.e. routine policies seeking to achieve stable, economically efficient, resilient, and sustainable resource management) and resource securitisation (i.e. exceptional policies invoking national security, climate emergency, and geopolitical imperatives). Focusing on two empirical cases–critical minerals and oil & gas–we suggest that the rapid pace and relative ease of these shifts reflect a state of latent securitisation, whereby the securitisation of particular objects is facilitated by the existing security constructions embedded in their materialities and imaginaries. Examining how securitisation takes material form–and how material processes become securitised–complements discursive approaches in critical security studies, while also highlighting the tangible impacts of securitisation and security discourse on material practices.