The search for security has become an almost permanent feature of the contemporary lived experience and what Brian Massumi has called an ‘operative logic’ for states across the globe. The modern study – and practice – of security has, nonetheless, been largely concerned with the protection, preservation and sustaining of the material, the tangible and the visible. For many people around the world, however, feelings of security also derive from understandings of an individual or community’s relationships with invisible and spiritual forces. Religious devotion and divine protection represent a central plank of security for many, just as fears of divine retribution, demonic possession or witchcraft feature as a central dimension of insecurity for many others. This remains, however, a significant blindspot in much of security studies – and, indeed, often eludes and challenges state authority as much as it intersects with and enhances it. Drawing on fieldwork undertaken in northwestern Uganda, this study reflects critically on the provenance and implications of this blindspot and argues for an expanded understanding of what ‘counts’ as (in)security. In doing so, the article emphasizes the global character of spiritual (in)security and the challenges an understanding of (in)security that encompasses this pose to longstanding scholarly and practitioner associations of (in)security with state authority.

对安全的追求已经成为当代生活经验的几乎永久性特征，而布莱恩·马苏米（Brian Massumi）则称其为全球各州的“操作逻辑”。但是，对安全的现代研究和实践在很大程度上一直与物质，有形和有形物质的保护，保存和维持有关。但是，对于世界各地的许多人来说，安全感也源于对个人或社区与无形和精神力量之间关系的理解。宗教的奉献和神圣的保护代表了许多人的安全中心，就像对神的报应，恶魔般的拥有或巫术的恐惧成为许多其他人的不安全的中心方面一样。但是，在许多安全研究中，这仍然是一个严重的盲点–实际上，与国家权威相交和增强的程度常常被躲避和挑战。这项研究利用在乌干达西北部进行的实地考察，批判性地反映了这一盲点的出处和影响，并主张对“安全”的“计数”有更深入的了解。在此过程中，本文强调精神（不安全）的全球性特征和挑战（对不安全）的理解，包括对（国家）权威（长期）的学者和实践者协会的这种构成。