Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-s2hrs Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-14T17:21:33.023Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Vernacular imaginaries of European border security among citizens: From walls to information management

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  15 August 2018

Georg Löfflmann  and
Nick Vaughan-Williams
Georg Löfflmann*
Affiliation:
Politics and International Studies (PAIS), University of Warwick
Nick Vaughan-Williams
Affiliation:
Politics and International Studies (PAIS), University of Warwick
*
*Corresponding author. Email: g.lofflmann@warwick.ac.uk
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Our primary aim in this article is to explore vernacular constructions of Europe’s so-called ‘migration crisis’ from the grounded everyday perspectives of EU citizens. We do so as a critical counterpoint to dominant elite scripts of the crisis, which are often reliant upon securitised representations of public opinion as being overwhelmingly hostile to migrants and refugees and straightforwardly in favour of tougher deterrent border security. In addition to broadening the range of issues analysed in vernacular security studies, the article seeks to make three principal contributions. Theoretically, we argue for an approach to the study of citizens’ views and experiences of migration and border security that is sensitive to the performative effects of research methods and the circular logic between securitising modes of knowledge production and policy justification. Methodologically, we outline and apply an alternative approach in response to these dynamics, drawing on the potential of critical focus groups and a desecuritising ethos. Empirically, we identify a vernacular theory of ‘the border’ as information management, and a significant information gap prevalent among participants with otherwise opposing views towards migration. These findings challenge bifurcated understandings of public opinion towards migration into Europe and point to the existence of vernacular border security imaginaries beyond either ‘closed’ or ‘open’ borders.

Keywords

Vernacular SecurityBorder SecurityMigrationEuropeDesecuritising Methods
Type
Research Article
Information
European Journal of International Security , Volume 3 , Issue 3 , October 2018 , pp. 382 - 400
Copyright
© British International Studies Association 2018 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

1 See, for example, Crawley, Heaven et al., ‘Interventions: Europe’s political futures’, Political Geography, 60 (2017), pp. 261–271 Google Scholar; Krastev, Ivan, After Europe (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2017)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and Youngs, Richard, New Directions for the European Union: Europe Reset (London and New York: I. B. Tauris, 2017)Google Scholar.

2 See, for example, Crawley, Heaven, ‘Managing the unmanageable? Understanding Europe’s response to the migration “crisis”’, Human Geography, 9:2 (2016), pp. 13–23 CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Crawley, Heaven et al., Unravelling Europe’s ‘Migration Crisis’ (Bristol: Policy Press, 2017)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Collyer, Michael and King, Russell, ‘Narrating Europe’s migration and refugee “crisis”’, Human Geography, 9:2 (2016), pp. 1–12 CrossRefGoogle Scholar; De Genova, Nicholas, ‘The “migrant crisis” as racial crisis: Do Black Lives Matter in Europe?’, Ethnic and Racial Studies (2017)Google Scholar.

3 Throughout this article we use ‘migrants and refugees’ pragmatically as a category to refer to those people who are on the move and seeking entry to the EU without prior authorisation. Where possible we work with the categories used in the sources that we analyse and the vernacular usage of these terms was an object of our research during the group interviews. A fuller discussion of this issue and our findings is beyond the scope of this particular article and will be published in subsequent outputs from the ‘Border Narratives’ project.

4 Weldes, Jutta et al., ‘Introduction: Constructing insecurity’, in Jutta Weldes, Mark Laffey, Hugh Gusterson, and Raymond Duvall (eds), Cultures of Insecurity (Minnesota, MN: University of Minnesota Press, 1998)Google Scholar.

5 Krause, Keith and Williams, Michael C., Critical Security Studies: Concepts and Cases (London: University College London Press, 1997), p. xii Google Scholar.

6 Jarvis, Lee and Lister, Michael, ‘Vernacular securities and their study: a qualitative analysis and research agenda’, International Relations, 27:2 (2013), pp. 158–179 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

7 ‘Everyday Narratives of European Border Security and Insecurity’, project website available at: {https://warwick.ac.uk/fac/soc/pais/research/researchcentres/irs/bordernarratives} accessed 13 April 2018.

8 Skey, Michael, ‘“A sense of where you belong in the world”: National belonging, ontological security, and the status of the ethnic majority in England’, Nations and Nationalism, 16:4 (2010), pp. 715–733 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

9 Krause, Keith and Williams, Michael. C. (eds), Critical Security Studies: Concepts and Cases (London: University College London Press, 1997)Google Scholar.

10 Guild, Elspeth, Security and Migration in the 21st Century (Cambridge: Polity, 2009); Johnson, Heather, ‘The other side of the fence: Reconceptualizing the “camp” and migration zones at the borders of Spain’, International Political Sociology, 7:1 (2013), pp. 75–91 Google Scholar; McNevin, Anne, ‘Beyond territoriality: Rethinking human mobility, border security and geopolitical space from the Indonesian island of Bintan’, Security Dialogue, 45:3 (2014), pp. 295–310 CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Squire, Vicki (ed.), The Contested Politics of Mobility: Borderzones and Irregularity (London and New York: Routledge, 2011)Google Scholar.

11 See, for example, Amoore, Louise, ‘Biometric borders: Governing mobilities in the war on terror’, Political Geography, 25 (2006), pp. 336–351 CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Huysmans, Jef, ‘The European Union and the securitization of migration’, Journal of Common Market Studies, 38:5 (2002), pp. 751–777 CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Huysmans, Jef, The Politics of Insecurity: Fear, Migration, and Asylum in the EU (London and New York: Routledge, 2006)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Walters, William, ‘Mapping Schengenland: Denaturalising the border’, Environment and Planning D: Society and Space, 20:5 (2002), pp. 564–580 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

12 See, for example, Nyers, Peter, Rethinking Refugees: Beyond State of Emergency (London and New York: Routledge, 2013)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Papadopoulos, Dimitrios et al., Escape Routes: Control and Subversion in the 21st Century (London: Pluto Press, 2008)Google Scholar; Scheel, Stephan, ‘Autonomy of migration despite its securitization? Facing the terms and conditions of biometric bordering’, Millennium: Journal of International Studies, 41:3 (2013), pp. 575–600 CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Stierl, Maurice, ‘“No one is illegal!” Resistance and the politics of discomfort’, Globalizations, 9:3 (2012), pp. 425–438 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

13 Huysmans, Jef, ‘Conclusion: Insecurity and the everyday’, in Patricia Noxolo and Jef Huysmans (eds), Community, Citizenship and the ‘War on Terror’: Security and Insecurity (Basingstoke and New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2009), pp. 196–208 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

14 Stevens, Daniel and Vaughan-Williams, Nick, Everyday Security Threats: Perceptions, Experiences, Consequences (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2016)Google Scholar.

15 Smith, Dorothy E., The Everyday World as Problematic: A Feminist Sociology (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1987)Google Scholar.

16 Crawford, Adam and Hutchingson, Steven, ‘Mapping the contours of “everyday security”: Time, space, and emotion’, British Journal of Criminology, 56:6 (2016)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

17 Bigo, Didier, ‘Security, exception, ban and surveillance’, in David Lyon (ed.), Theorizing Surveillance: The Panopticon and Beyond (Portland: Willan Publishers, 2006), pp. 46–68 Google Scholar.

18 Noxolo, Patricia and Huysmans, Jef (eds), Community, Citizenship, and the ‘War on Terror’: Security and Insecurity (Basingstoke and New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2009)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

19 Weldes, Jutta and Rowley, Christina, ‘The evolution of International Security Studies and the everyday: Suggestions from the Buffyverse’, Security Dialogue, 43:6 (2012), pp. 513–530 Google Scholar.

20 Gillom, John, ‘Resisting surveillance’, Social Text, 23:2 (2005)Google Scholar; Nyers, Peter, ‘Liberating irregularity: No borders, temporality, citizenship’, in Xavier Guillaume and Jef Huysmans (eds), Citizenship and Security: the Constitution of Political Being (London and New York: Routledge, 2013), pp. 37–52 Google Scholar.

21 Bubandt, Nils, ‘Vernacular security: the politics of feeling safe in global, national and local worlds’, Security Dialogue, 36:3 (2005), p. 291 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

22 Jarvis, Lee and Lister, Michael, Anti-Terrorism, Citizenship and Security (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2015)Google Scholar; Gillespie, Marie, and O’ Loughlin, Ben, ‘Precarious citizenship: Multiculturalism, media and social insecurity’, in Patricia Noxolo and Jef Huysmans (eds), Community, Citizenship and the ‘War on Terror’: Security and Insecurity (Basingstoke and New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2009), pp. 89–112 CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Moss, Giles, and O’ Loughlin, Ben, ‘Convincing claims: Representation and democracy in post-9/11 Britain’, Political Studies, 56:3 (2008), pp. 705–724 Google Scholar.

23 On the use of focus groups in the study of security narratives and International Relations more generally, see also Jackson, Richard and Hall, Gareth, ‘Talking about terrorism: a study of vernacular discourse’, Politics, 36:3 (2016), pp. 292–307 CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and Stanley, Liam, ‘Using focus groups in political science and International Relations’, Politics, 36:3 (2016), pp. 236–249 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

24 Stevens, Daniel and Vaughan-Williams, Nick, Everyday Security Threats: Perceptions, Experiences, Consequences (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2016)Google Scholar.

25 Waite, Louise, Valentine, Gill, and Lewis, Hannah, ‘Multiple vulnerable populations: Mobilizing a politics of compassion from “the capacity to hurt”’, Social and Cultural Geography, 15:3 (2014), pp. 313–331 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

26 Botterill, Kate, Hopkins, Peter, and Sanghera, Gurchathen Singh, ‘Young people’s everyday securities: Preemptive and proactive strategies towards ontological security in Scotland’, Social and Cultural Geography (2017)Google Scholar.

27 Kinnvall, Catarina, ‘Globalization and religious nationalism: Self, identity, and the search for ontological security’, Political Psychology, 25:5 (2004), pp. 741–767 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

28 Laing, R. D., The Divided Self: An Existential Study in Sanity and Madness (London: Penguin, 2010 [orig. pub. 1960]), p. 42 Google Scholar.

29 Philo, Chris, ‘Insecure bodies/selves: Introduction to theme section’, Social and Cultural Geography, 15:3 (2014), pp. 284–290 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

30 Rumford, Chris, ‘Introduction: Citizens and borderwork in Europe’, Space and Polity, 12:1 (2008), p. 2 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

31 Cooper, Anthony, Perkins, Chris, and Rumford, Chris, ‘The vernacularisation of borders’, in Reece Jones and Corey Johnson (eds), Placing the Border in Everyday Life (London and New York: Routledge, 2014), pp. 15–32 Google Scholar.

32 Yuval-Davies, Nira, Wemyss, Georgie, and Cassidy, Kathryn, ‘Introduction to the Special Issue: Racialised bordering discourses on European Roma’, Ethnic and Racial Studies, 40:7 (2017), pp. 1047–57 CrossRefGoogle Scholar; see also Basham, Victoria and Vaughan-Williams, Nick, ‘Gender, race, and border security practices: a profane reading of “muscular liberalism”’, British Journal of Politics and International Relations, 15:4 (2013), pp. 509–527 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

33 Jagetic Andersen, Dorte, ‘The multiple politics of borders: Images of the Slovenian-Croation border on Istria from the perspective of an ethnographer on the move’, in Dorte Jagetic Andersen, Martin Klatt, and Marie Sandberg (eds), The Border Multiple: The Practicing of Borders between Public Policy and Everyday Life in a Rescaling Europe (Farnham and Burlington, VT: Ashgate, 2012), pp. 141–162 Google Scholar.

34 Ibid., p. 142.

35 Krastev, After Europe; Youngs, Europe Reset.

36 EU Commission, ‘Enhancing Security in a World of Mobility: Improved Information Exchange in the Fight against Terrorism and Stronger External Borders’ (2016), available at: {https://ec.europa.eu/home-affairs/sites/homeaffairs/files/what-we-do/policies/european-agenda-security/legislative-documents/docs/20160914/enhancing_security_in_a_world_of_mobility_en.pdf} accessed 26 July 2018.

37 Ibid., p. 2

38 Ibid., p. 4.

39 EU Commission, ‘Shared Vision, Common Action: A Stronger Europe – Global Strategy for the European Union’s Foreign and Security Policy’ (2016), p. 28, available at: {https://europa.eu/globalstrategy/en/global-strategy-foreign-and-security-policy-european-union} accessed 22 January 2017.

40 For a summary of extant research and a fuller exploration of the problem to which we refer, see Helen Dempster and Karen Hargrave, ‘Understanding Public Attitudes towards Refugees and Migrants’, Chatham House Working Paper 512 (June 2017), emphasis added.

41 Eurobarometer 84 (2015), available at: {http://ec.europa.eu/COMMFrontOffice/publicopinion/index.cfm/Survey/getSurveyDetail/instruments/STANDARD/surveyKy/2098} accessed 13 July 2017.

42 Standard Eurobarometer surveys contain questions on general, personal attitudes toward migration, both from within the EU and from outside the EU, and allow for responses ranging from ‘total negative’ to ‘total positive’ in the context of the respondent’s own member state and the EU as a whole. When asked about a specific policy response toward migration this is the only question offered to citizens in Eurobarometer 84. For a critical commentary on the politics of Eurobarometer surveys more generally, see Law, John, ‘Seeing like a survey’, Cultural Sociology, 3:2 (2009), pp. 239–256 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

43 On the self-referential dynamic and performative effects of methodology, see also Law, John and Urry, John, ‘Enacting the social’, Economy and Society, 33:3 (2004), pp. 390–410 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

44 A similar example of an elite association made between hostile representations of public opinion and justifications for tougher border security occurred in June 2016. The European Parliament published the results of a special Eurobarometer poll, which reported that on the issue of migration 66 per cent of respondents considered EU action to be insufficient and that 74 per cent would like to see the EU take more action. This was followed by a reference to the protection of external borders where 61 per cent considered EU action to be insufficient and 71 per cent would like to see the EU take more action, available at: {http://www.europarl.europa.eu/atyourservice/en/20160623PVL00111/Europeans-in-2016-Perceptions-and-expectations-fight-against-terrorism-and-radicalisation} accessed 3 January 2018.

45 Buzan, Barry, Wæver, Ole, and de Wilde, Jaap, Security: A New Framework for Analysis (Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner, 1998)Google Scholar

46 Huysmans, Jef, ‘Security! What do you mean? From concept to thick signifier’, European Journal of International Relations, 4:2 (1998), pp. 226–255 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

47 Aradau, Claudia and Huysmans, Jef, ‘Critical methods in International Relations: the politics of techniques, the devices and acts’, European Journal of International Relations, 20:3 (2014), pp. 596–619 CrossRefGoogle Scholar. Aradau and Huysmans refer to methods not as technologies to scientifically represent an observable external reality, but as ‘devices’ to enact particular social and political worlds, and ‘acts’, which ‘can also create ruptures in these worlds’, Aradau and Huysmans, p. 603.

48 See, for example, the highly nuanced findings of the survey ‘Attitudes towards National Identity, Immigration, and Refugees in Germany’, PURPOSE (July 2017).

49 Leander, Anna, ‘Marketing security matters: Undermining de-securitization through acts of citizenship’, in Patricia Noxolo and Jef Huysmans (eds), Community, Citizenship, and the ‘War on Terror’: Security and Insecurity (Basingstoke and New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2009), p. 108 Google Scholar.

50 Coule, Tracey, ‘Theories of knowledge and focus groups in organization and management research’, Qualitative Research in Organizations and Management: An International Journal, 8:2 (2013), pp. 148–162 CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Barbour, Rosaline and Kitzinger, Jenny (eds), Developing Focus Group Research: Politics, Theory and Practice (London and New Delhi: Sage, 2009)Google Scholar; Rodriguez, Katrina et al., ‘Culturally responsive focus groups: Reframing the research experience to focus on participants’, International Journal of Qualitative Methods, 10:4 (2011), pp. 401–417 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

51 Barbour and Kitzinger, Developing Focus Group Research, p. 5.

52 Ibid., p. 608.

53 Stevens, Dan and Vaughan-Williams, Nick, ‘Vernacular theories of everyday (in)security: the disruptive potential of non-elite knowledge’, Security Dialogue, 47:1 (2016), pp. 40–58 (p. 42)Google Scholar.

54 Stevens, Dan and Vaughan-Williams, Nick, 'Citizens and security threats: Issues, perceptions, and consequences beyond the national frame', British Journal of Political Science, 46:1 (2016), pp. 149–175 CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Stevens, Dan and Vaughan-Williams, Nick, Everyday Security Threats: Perceptions, Experiences, Consequences (Manchester: Manchester University Press)Google Scholar.