An Original Framework for Understanding the Social Construction of Security in Conflict-Affected Communities of Northeast Nigeria

Security in conflict-affected communities is experienced not as a state-provided resource but as a socially constructed, contested, and continuously negotiated condition shaped by community practices, trust relationships, and meaning-making about threat. The sociology of security has not developed theoretical frameworks that capture these constructionist dimensions in West African conflict contexts. This doctoral study develops an original sociological framework for understanding the social construction of security in conflict-affected communities of Borno, Adamawa, and Yobe States, drawing on five years of ethnographic research across twelve communities at varying distances from active conflict zones. Fieldwork combined two-year community immersions in three primary sites, ninety-six in-depth security experience interviews, social mapping of community security practices, and institutional analysis of local security governance organisations including civilian joint task forces and community vigilante structures. The original framework, termed Relational Security Assemblage, proposes that community security is constituted through dynamic assemblages of physical protection practices, social trust networks, spatial knowledge systems, and spiritual security practices that communities continuously reorganise in response to shifting threat environments. Four original theoretical propositions emerge: security perception is as socially determined as objective threat levels; community trust networks are the primary security infrastructure in state-weak conflict environments; spatial security knowledge constitutes a form of community social capital irreducible to physical infrastructure; and spiritual security practices are not irrational supplements to physical security but functional components of community resilience systems. The doctoral contribution advances security sociology with an original constructionist framework applicable to African conflict community contexts. Keywords: social construction of security, conflict communities, Northeast Nigeria, security assemblage, community resilience.