Thesis Title: The coloniality of European border securitisation: An analysis of pushbacks at Europe’s external borders
Abstract: ‘Border pushbacks’ describe a variety of state measures aimed at forcing migrants out of a territory while obstructing access to applicable legal and procedural frameworks. In 2022, the UN Special Rapporteur on the Human Rights of Migrants described land and sea border pushbacks as ‘de facto general policy’; in the same year, NGOs recorded at least 225,500 pushbacks across Europe’s external borders – more than 600 per day.
This research intends to evaluate the impact of pushbacks as an emergent ‘de facto’ practice on the construction of migration as a security issue in Europe. Since the 1980s, Western political discourse and practice has increasingly politicised immigrants and asylum seekers as a security threat. Given that the securitisation of migration is embedded within a normative politics of belonging, the paper intends to evaluate the tacit knowledge(s) of border practice, policy, and discourse in relation to legacies of colonial thought and practice. Using a methodology which considers what knowledge is required to perform world politics, and which things and technologies produce the international, this paper intends to combine a discursive reading of European border policy with a praxeological analysis of border practices. These observations enable an analysis of border pushbacks and the securitisation of migration in relation to coloniality. The research will interrogate how systems of hierarchy are upheld or transgressed during pushbacks, the way in which European epistemological tradition has produced narratives which encourage restrictive immigration policies, and the extent to which securitising narratives in Europe (and beyond) are underpinned by a euro-hegemonic cultural hierarchy.
Ultimately, the project evaluates the interpretation of policy into (mal)practice within a broad historical context. This offers insight into how policy is re-interpreted and folded into the daily routines and workplace cultures of security practitioners.
Primary Supervisor: Jef Huysmans
Social Media: https://uk.linkedin.com/in/anastasia-barclay-354753134