Rethinking the (In) security/ Migration Nexus
Calls for Papers – RGS-IBG 2012 paper sessions
Rethinking the (In) security/ Migration Nexus
Session convenors: Nir Cohen, Bar Ilan University (Israel); Ibrahim Sirkeci, Regents College London (UK).
While the migration / security nexus is hardly new, as exemplified by anti-migration laws implemented in some countries during both World Wars, the last decade has witnessed a considerable increase in interest in its various forms and manifestations. Driven largely by the events of September 2001, the US-led so called ‘War on Terror’ and, more recently, the global financial crisis, migrants – including asylum seekers and refugees – are often conceived as a threat to the socio-economic, cultural and political security of ‘Western’ nations. Vilifying, xenophobic discourse, anti-migrant riots, and tightened, high-technology border control systems geared to ‘contain’ in-migration flows are now a daily spectacle in an ever-growing number of countries and cities. Nevertheless, concerns of (in) security are not limited to wars or armed conflicts; indeed, a broader definition of conflict – including latent or explicit forms of it (e.g. community level tensions, individual disagreements, disputes) – provides a useful framework to understand the perception of insecurity and its relevance to human mobility. Migrants and non-migrants alike react to the perceived insecurities around them, be they economic (e.g. lack of suitable jobs), political (e.g. paucity of participation channels), or socio-cultural (e.g. ethnic discrimination).
The purpose of this session is to rethink old and debate new linkages between migration – and other forms of mobility – and security at multiple scales. Informed by recent understandings of security as both a strategic objective and a socio-political value (Huysmans & Squire, 2009), we seek papers that articulate security as a broad array of real and imagined practices, technologies and discourses that manage, control and govern people’s migratory experiences. We are particularly interested in papers that embed securities in urban contexts and attend to the contested politics of securitized spaces and places in cities. Possible topics include:
- Security in/of/through borders and barriers
- Economic (in)security and migration
- Migration as a threat to national security
- Migration and personal (in)security
- ‘Compromising our lifestyle’ – migrants as threat to cultural security
- Securing migratory routes
- Migration and (in)security in cities
- Securities in/of/for households
- (In)securities at destination
- Gender and (in) security
- (In)security and return migration
- Remittances and (in)security
- Perceptions of (in)security
Please send abstracts (up to 300 words) to Nir.Cohen@biu.ac.il and Sirkecii@regents.ac.uk by 20th January 2012.