Securitization Of Migration: A Literature Review

Several authors highlighted the role of racism in the process of securitization of migration (Huysmans 2000; Ibrahim 2005; Togral 2011). According to Maggie Ibrahim, the securitization of migration can be examined as “discourse through which relations of power are exercised” and is “racism’s most modern form” (Ibrahim 2005, pp.163-164). Certainly, the antagonism directed towards migrants is based on the beliefs that the host country views his or her race and/or culture as superior, thus excluding migrants from all aspects of their society. One way in which this is done is through discriminatory and prejudicial laws. Therefore, a critical evaluation of the implications of the securitization of migration should also include an analysis of the

Similarly, Huysmans points out that EU policies support the idea of “cultural homogeneity as a stabilizing factor” (Huysmans 2000, p.753) and that “the protection and transformation of cultural identity is one of the key issues through which the politics of belonging and the question of migration are connected” (Huysmans 2000, p.762). Therefore, the political construction of migration as a security threat should be embedded in the politics of belonging.

The position taken in this sense is one that highlights a broader contemporary European political point of view as well as attitude, one in which immigrants are viewed as undermining and weakening European cultural homogeneity. In this context, it becomes rather difficult for these policies to be one of inclusion, albeit when European culture and society are viewed as primary concerns. Thus, the challenge to assimilate or become a part of the European homogeneity will be a difficult task to say the least for immigrants, based on the strategies of supporting a securitization of migration

“New racism” is a term coined in 1981 by Martin Barker, in the context of the ideologies supporting the British Conservative Party’s rise in the UK, to refer to what he believed was racist public discourse depicting immigrants as a threat. According to Burcu Togral this “new racism” is much more “hidden” and “respectable” than previous forms of racism, since it has been built upon configurations, such as “preservation of one’s identity, own way of life and values in the face of the destabilizing and damaging effects of other cultures” (Togral 2011, p.220). Yet, “new racism” does not mean the replacement of older forms of racist practices that used biological discourses as a pretext to exclude and discriminate certain groups of people; rather “new racism” adds a cultural dimension to the already existing racist practices. Although the “new racism” discourse has no reference to “race” in the classical sense, it is still racism in that it “functions to maintain racial hierarchies of oppression” (Togral 2011,