Humanitarianism, Security, Terrorism: Stories of Global Displacement

This paper examines how the politics of state, border, and biological control affect the journeys and experiences of asylum seekers and ‘irregular’ migrants who are, at once, the victims and recipients of care and security. Building on fieldwork carried out in Europe and across North America, the harsh realities of the indefinitely displaced in supposedly-liberal democratic spaces reflect not only a disintegrating duty of care, but also the very conditions—and political logics—that make such moves possible. It exposes these practices in terms of biopolitics, the state of exception and humanitarian government; an assemblage of domination that seeks not to provide adequate security to those subjects seeking refuge, but to instead ‘enhance the biological and emotional well-being of host populations’ (Mavelli 2017: 809) which must be inoculated from them.

Ultimately, it links into the Confronting the Terrorist/Refugee Narrative project, an Irish Research Council-funded initiative that has captured, and will continue to facilitate, the stories of those who have experienced these politics through their lived experience(s). Ultimately, it mediates on the effectiveness of storytelling, narrative and oral history as effective frames of analysis to highlight, and ultimately, deconstruct the tragic tapestry of the contemporary global displacement crisis.

Reference:

Mavelli, L. 2017. Governing populations through the humanitarian government of refugees: Biopolitical care and racism in the European refugee crisis. Review of International Studies, 43(5): 809-832.