The Front and the Line: The Paradox of South American Frontiers Applied to the Bolivian Case

The article examines possibilities to study security in a globalized world. It argues that in order to do so it will remain a futile exercise to opt for one of the many competing conceptualizations of security, but that rather the very variety of these conceptualizations can be read as reflecting an all‐pervasiveness of risks as a structural feature of contemporary world society. Following Ulrich Beck, the paper first introduces the idea of a world risk society emerging in a process of ‘reflective modernization’. It then shows how various recent reconceptualizations of security at least partly express this very process and are thus linked, in spite of substantial differences amongst themselves. Finally, turning again to some issues raised by contemporary theories of society, it argues that in fact security might be a hollow reference point in analytical as well as in practical terms and. invites to consider whether multifaceted strategies of insurance have not come to replace attempts to achieve security in a globalized world.