Vernacular Border Security: Citizens' Narratives of Europe's 'Migration Crisis' [Paperback]

This book argues that a conceptual and methodological shift is required in the way that border security is understood, and that a new approach is urgently required. It examines vernacular narratives of the 'crisis' and how they offer insight into citizens' knowledge of the 'crisis', and actually-existing alternatives to fantasies of control.Since the peak of Europe's so-called 2015 'migration crisis', the dominant governmental response has been to turn to deterrent border security across the Mediterranean and construct border walls throughout the EU. During the same timeframe, EU citizens are widely represented - by politicians, by media sources, and by opinion polls - as fearing a loss of control over national and EU borders. Despite the intensification of EU border security with visibly violent effects, EU citizens are1. Towards a Vernacular Study of Border Security2. Exceptional Times, Emergency Borders: (De)Constructing Europe's 'Migration Crisis'3. Populist and 'Post-Truth' Border Politics: The Securitization of Public Opinion on Migration4. Dangerous Aliens, Crisis Constellations, and Information Gaps: Vernacular Narratives of Migration5. Border Anxieties: Vernacular Narratives of Ontological (In)Security6. Desecuritizing Strangeness: Vernacular Counter-Narratives of Border SecurityAppendix 1: Moderators' Discussion GuideAppendix 2: List of Focus GroupsNick Vaughan-Williams,Professor of International Security, University of WarwickNick Vaughan-Williams, Professor of International Security, University of WarwickNick Vaughan-Williams is Professor of International Security at the University of Warwick, UK. He is a recipient of the Philip Leverhulme Prize for outstanding research in Politics and International Studies and the Association for Borderlands Studies Past Presidents' Gold Award. His research on the international politics of borders, security, and migration has been funded by the British Academy, UK Economic and Social Research Cls'