Uninhibited violence: race and the securitization of immigration

Moffette, David; Vadasaria, Shaira

doi:10.1080/21624887.2016.1256365

Cited by 51 publications

(44 citation statements)

References 49 publications

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“…Third, an emerging body of scholarship has inquired into how ST can better account for colonialism and racism Mofette and Vadassaria 2016). Such scholarship moves significantly beyond a thin interpretation of Eurocentrism.…”

Section: Securitization Theory and Its Criticsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Third, an emerging body of scholarship has moved significantly beyond a thin interpretation of Eurocentrism to inquire into how ST can better account for colonialism and racism Mofette and Vadasaria 2016). This work has highlighted how 'securitizations' are animated by racialized threat imaginaries Mofette & Vandasaria 2016).…”

Section: Securitization Theory and Its Criticsmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Is securitization theory racist? Civilizationism, methodological whiteness, and antiblack thought in the Copenhagen School

2019

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This article provides the first excavation of the foundational role of racist thought in securitization theory. We demonstrate that Copenhagen School securitization theory is structured not only by Eurocentrism but also by civilizationism, methodological whiteness, and antiblack racism. Classic securitization theory advances a conceptualization of ‘normal politics’ as reasoned, civilized dialogue, and securitization as a potential regression into a racially coded uncivilized ‘state of nature’. It justifies this through a civilizationist history of the world that privileges Europe as the apex of civilized ‘desecuritization’, sanitizing its violent (settler-) colonial projects and the racial violence of normal liberal politics. It then constructs a methodologically and normatively white framework that uses speech act theory to locate ‘progress’ towards normal politics and desecuritization in Europe, making becoming like Europe a moral imperative. Using ostensibly neutral terms, securitization theory prioritizes order over justice, positioning the securitization theorist as the defender of (white) ‘civilized politics’ against (racialized) ‘primal anarchy’. Antiblackness is a crucial building-block in this conceptual edifice: securitization theory finds ‘primal anarchy’ especially in ‘Africa’, casting it as an irrationally oversecuritized foil to ‘civilized politics’. We conclude by discussing whether the theory, or even just the concept of securitization, can be recuperated from these racist foundations.

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Section: Securitization Theory and Its Criticsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Securitization Theory and Its Criticsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Is securitization theory racist? Civilizationism, methodological whiteness, and antiblack thought in the Copenhagen School

2019

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“…In line with critical strands of International Relations and Security Studies (e.g. Bigo, ; Henderson, ; Moffette & Vadasaria, ), critical sociolinguistics further has a role to play in laying bare the ways in which these global processes are deeply entrenched in racialized colonial histories worldwide. Finally, the engagement of sociolinguistics at the intersection of language policy and peace and conflict studies may help demonstrate the pervasiveness of (in)securitization worldwide, and the false distinction between (in)securitization in seemingly “extraordinary” contexts and that of everyday schooling for minoritized children and youth.…”

Section: A Case For Engaging Sociolinguisticsmentioning

confidence: 93%

Language and (in)securitization: Observations from educational research and practice in conflict‐affected contexts

Zakharia

2019

Journal of Sociolinguistics

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Spurred in part by violent conflict and natural disaster, the surge in global migration calls for renewed attention to the central role of language in everyday (in)securitization. In this brief response, I draw on my work in the Middle East and among Arabic‐speaking populations in the United States to offer some illustration of the instantiation of global, macro‐processes of (in)securitization and surveillance in the everyday micro‐practices of schooling—issues that are possible to “see” when language policy is the site of inquiry. In centring everyday communicative practice, sociolinguistics provides a distinctive entry point for examining the lived experience of this (in)securitization, by illuminating pervasive and mundane micro‐processes within the “extraordinary” and routinized social interactions of everyday schooling.

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“…Scholars have developed tools to study the ways that certain issues are framed and governed as security threats through a variety of discursive and non-discursive practices, and provided very insightful critiques of the logics of securitization (e.g., Huysmans, 2006), but rarely do they make explicit the racial dimension of the grids of intelligibility that provide the grammar for this framing. As with surveillance studies, there exist exceptions here too, but despite critiques pointing to the lack of attention to race (Amin-Khan, 2012;Ibrahim, 2005;Moffette & Vadasaria, 2016), it remains the norm in Foucauldian critical security studies as well.…”

Section: Absent Presence Of Racementioning

confidence: 99%

“…Xenophobic fears, extremist movements, racist attacks, the circulation of stereotypes, problematics of integration and marginality, and nativist rhetorics are all very much present in the literature (Fassin, 2011;Huysmans, 2006;Schinkel & van Houdt, 2010), and yet many write of securitization and demonization with only a brief allusion to the racially coded discourses at play. Indeed, in many accounts race only operates in the background (Amin-Khan, 2012;Moffette & Vadasaria, 2016). Discussions regarding differential mobilities, sovereign bans, regimes of detention and deportation, or risk profiling draw attention to operations of profiling, segmentation, partition, and the fostering and capitalization of anxiety (Bigo, 2002;Geiger & Pécoud, 2013;Muller, 2009;Rumford, 2006).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Flickering Presence: Theorizing Race and Racism in the Governmentality of Borders and Migration

Moffette

Walters

2018

SSJ

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Analytics of biopolitics and government have proven to be powerful tools in a growing scholarship examining the bordering, surveillance, securitization and contestation of migratory processes. Yet the critical potential of such research is hampered by the rather limited ways it has managed to make sense of race and racism. While Foucault was insistent that governmentality should orient itself to the understanding of singularities, too often race appears, when treated at all, as a general phenomenon. This article makes two contributions aimed at addressing these shortcomings. First, we survey studies in the governmentality of migration and develop a typology of what we call framings of race – the ways that race appears, is mobilized, or haunts this scholarship. Second, we look to recent debates about race and racism in Science & Technology Studies for useful theoretical innovations that might help us study border- and race-making as mutually constitutive processes.

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Uninhibited violence: race and the securitization of immigration

Cited by 51 publications

References 49 publications

Is securitization theory racist? Civilizationism, methodological whiteness, and antiblack thought in the Copenhagen School

Is securitization theory racist? Civilizationism, methodological whiteness, and antiblack thought in the Copenhagen School

Language and (in)securitization: Observations from educational research and practice in conflict‐affected contexts

Flickering Presence: Theorizing Race and Racism in the Governmentality of Borders and Migration

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