In international political sociology, a variety of scholars following Agamben and the so-called state of exception emphasize the routes of violence against migrants in the light of their privation of rights or “suspended law”. While acknowledging that law creates at times violent conditions, this scholarship tends to consider that the main problem of migrant deaths… Read more »
Tag: Migration
Rethinking security through sound
Security has become an increasingly prominent part of everyday life, impacting us as we travel, interact in community spaces, or consider options for communication. While physical barriers, passports, and technologies such as X-ray machines and metal detectors are commonly accepted as integral parts of the evolving security sector, ambient sound is rarely imagined as salient… Read more »
Debunking the Security Myth of Military Might
By Vitoria Basham Using and maintaining military force as a means of achieving security: a flawed idea? In my recent article published in Security Dialogue I critique the longstanding idea that military force and the maintenance of strong armed forces provides security. This idea forms part of the social contract between liberal democratic states and… Read more »
The transactional politics of border control in the Aegean
The images of migrants and refugees trying to reach the European mainland by boat are well known. Much less is known about how border surveillance at sea actually takes place. The research for our article ‘Surveillance at sea: The transactional politics of border control in the Aegean’ brought us to the Greek islands Chios and… Read more »