Insecurities in EU border management: The unintended consequences of securitization processes in the Mediterranean

Abstract

The goal of this article is to shed light on how securitization processes at the European Union (EU)’s southern borders – the Mediterranean – are feeding various insecurities both inside and outside the EU. We follow a sociological approach to securitization which revisits the work by Thierry Balzacq. By adding to the conceptualization of securitization processes as speech acts and the outcome of security practices, this approach contributes to understanding how specific responses to perceived security threats result from contextual dynamics and power relations between significant actors in the security field. The article lies at the convergence of the fields of Anthropology and International Relations adding to efforts to promote a critical reflection about processes of (in)securitization and emancipatory possibilities for social change. The article concludes that the insecurity narratives feeding border dynamics end up in a spiral of insecurity perceptions with implications for borders’ management. The need to desecuritize policies and practices becomes, thus, part of the way to rethink possibilities for addressing the structural causes of violence and mass dislocation of people at the southern borders of the EU.