In the past decade, migration has grown more and more as a security issue. In the previous blog, it was established that the European Union frames migration as a security threat issue on economic and cultural basis. During the Cold war, the concept of European security was broadened to include economic security and other various interreferences in domestic affairs because the European states were afraid of “threats from below” which were basically viewed as “societal interaction with the West as potentially dangerous and destabilizing” (Waever, 1995).
People protesting against pushbacks and border violence at the Greek-Turkish border [File: Louiza Vradi/Reuters]
There have been efforts to broaden the scope of security to include threats other than military ones whilst still keeping the state in focus. Despite that, the concept of security has been framed through the lens of the state and not the individual. In this sense, biopolitics comes into exercise (Foucault, 1990) wherein the EU has control over human life, including the choice to grant or refuse access to those who want to join the EU. In order to identify and dictate who may join the EU (and hence, live) and who may be refused access (and hence, not survive/die), biometric data involving the identification and tracking of individuals along with predicting potential threats through risk assessment models are the extreme measures of scrutiny that the state undertakes. This regime, thus brings various ethical and political concerns into light.
Ole Waever in his paper “Securitization and Desecuritization” delves into how the utterance of security in itself is an act, constituting a “speech act” (Waever, 1995). Within this understanding, the EU has framed migration as a security issue through its language and practices. EU institutions such as Frontex have presented migration as a threat and used securitised language in their reports (Bello, 2022).
Waever also explores how speech act is a form of social construction. However, a speech act has the power to materialise in the real world. Speech act materialises in the form of evident spiralling of a negative perception towards migrants among the public, within the media and in political debates, creating larger indifference among masses. Increasingly, this larger indifference has been added to the legal apparatus of the state by framing migration as a security issue (Foucault, 1990). It is interesting then to note that this creation of this greater negative perception hasn’t reduced migration but instead increased the number of undocumented migrants, leading to them being detained. By denying asylum seekers a safe haven, it is forcing migrants into the hands of human traffickers and smugglers. This has further materialised in the form of “societal (in)security” wherein practices of state security such as border controls and other various kinds of economic policies, are simultaneously practices that are rendering certain groups insecure because of their identity (Waever, 1995).
Speech act materialises in the form of evident spiralling of a negative perception towards migrants among the public, within the media and in political debates, creating larger indifference among masses. Increasingly, this larger indifference has been added to the legal apparatus of the state by framing migration as a security issue (Foucault, 1990).
Additionally, when we analyse the absence of gender in migration as a securitising speech act, Lene Hansen’s work comes handy as she explains the perpetuation of two scenarios due to such regressive regimes (Hansen, 2000). One, that female asylum seekers already have such less agency that they have limited or no possibility of being able to voice their security concerns as they may be further penalised for it. Their intersectional identities may further aggravate their position in the hierarchy of power dynamics. For instance, there have been allegations of pushbacks and human rights violations at the EU's external borders (Hindrichs, Abdelbaki, & Helena Rodriguez Gomez, 2023), particularly towards female refugees and migrants from Africa and the Middle East. But they face failure in reaching out and voicing these violations, due to fear of retaliation especially if their abuser is from the host country. In a lot of cases many female survivors of domestic violence are unable to report their abusive partners due to the fear of losing their refugee status when they arrive in a new country with limited support system and networks. Hence, the state tends to differentiate on the level of indifference it offers to the female refugees who constitute mere biological existence or “bare life” and the citizens that are politically valuable to the state and constitute “bios” (Foucault, 1990).
Secondly, the “othering” of migrants is created out of the allusion of an existential threat for the referent object which in most cases is a nation’s majoritarian population. While religion, race and nationality can be the foundation for this collective identity that forms the majoritarian political community constituting the state, gender can never exclusively be the basis for such a collectivity. This reveals how gender falls outside the scope of security entirely which means that women aren’t secure, neither as a citizen nor as a migrant. But it’s the discursive practices that convince us that certain women within the territories of the nation are safe while certain women outside of it aren’t.
Migrants in front of a barrier at the border with Hungary near the village of Horgos, Serbia, September 15, 2015. (Photo: Reuters)
To address all these challenges and blind spots, Ole Waever suggests a reconceptualization of the security field by presenting a duality between state security that focuses on protecting sovereignty and societal security that focuses on protecting identities (Waever, 1995). As long as there is a focus on state security and not societal security, there will always be an element of “othering” and violence towards the community that is subject to “othering” because that is the only way for the idea of state security to materialise. However, it is at times like these when we need to understand that the threat to human security is far more urgent than national security. It calls for adding the humanitarian dimension to the migration-security nexus, problematising the relationship between borders and security and accordingly shifting the discourse (Panebianco, 2022).
References
1. Foucault, Michel. The history of sexuality: An introduction. Trans. Robert Hurley. New York: Vintage 95 (1990). (Selection: Part Five: Right of Death and Power over Life)
2. Hansen, Lene. 2000. ‘The Little Mermaid’s Silent Security Dilemma and the Absence of Gender in the Copenhagen School’. Millennium 29 (2): 285–306.
3. Hindrichs, B., Abdelbaki, S., & Helena Rodriguez Gomez. (2023, November 3). At EU borders, refugees report invasive genital searches during pushbacks. Retrieved from Al Jazeera website: https://www.aljazeera.com/features/2023/11/3/at-eu-borders-refugees-report-invasive-genital-searches-during-pushbacks
4. Koser, K. (2011, March 31). When is Migration a Security Issue? Retrieved April 8, 2024, from Brookings website: https://www.brookings.edu/articles/when-is-migration-a-securityissue/#:~:text=The%20burgeoning%20migrant%20smuggling%20and,goods%2C%20including%20weapons%20and%20drugs.
5. Ole, Wæver. 1995. “Securitization and Desecuritization.” In On Security, edited by Ronnie Lipschutz. New York: Columbia University Press. https://www.libraryofsocialscience.com/assets/pdf/Waever-Securitization.pdf
6. Panebianco S. (2022). Human security at the Mediterranean borders: humanitarian discourse in the EU periphery. International Politics (The Hague), 59(3), 428–448. https://doi.org/10.1057/s41311-021-00316-1
7. Valeria Bello (2022) The spiralling of the securitisation of migration in the EU: from the management of a ‘crisis’ to a governance of human mobility? Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies, 48:6, 1327-1344, DOI: 10.1080/1369183X.2020.1851464
8. Buttin, T. (2017, October 31). The Schengen crisis: a failure. Retrieved from The New Federalist website: https://www.thenewfederalist.eu/the-schengen-crisis-a-failure?lang=fr
Than you for such a comprehensive approach to the issue of migration. The reference to Ole Waever's work on (de)securitization is particularly insightful. Drawing from Waever's reconceptualization of security, do you think that a shift from state security to societal security can foster a more inclusive approach to security governance?
Thank you for this insightful take on the migrant issue in Europe through the lens of biopower and securitization . It is extremely important to analyze the threats being faced by those who are migrating and how they are 'othered' by the European countries , your article provides a very comprehensive take on these topics .