Gendered and Racialised Border Security: Displaced People and the Politics of Fear

This article examines the dynamics of constructing current migration from the so-called Global South in ‘risk’, ‘crisis’ and ‘fear’ terms that translate into xenophobic, racialised and gendered processes of ‘othering’ people who are displaced. This is done within the framework of a ‘coloniality of power’ (Quijano 2000b) perspective, understood as the ‘colonial power matrix’ (Grosfoguel 2011. This is how the location from which the current racialised and gendered politics of fear is being constructed. The notion of racialised security leads to racialised masculinity of the ‘Other’, while stigmatising migrant men. These colonial narratives that have created ‘knowledge’ about other masculinities have been invoked and re-articulated within the current racialised processes of securitisation of migration. They have supported construction of the sexual assault of ‘our’ women as the public security concern. Consequently, racially marked rape becomes an important part of State security, linked to national territory and border control

Racialized and Gendered Cultures of Othering: Displaced People in the Neoliberal World

This article explores how the notion of being besieged has been linked to the construction of the racialized and gendered cultures of othering the displaced people. It argues that the North-South migration divide, structured by race, class and gender, echoes coloniality of global power relations, reflected in racialized and gendered notions of “border security”, “national security”, securitization of migration, and related politics of fear. It further asserts that the production of fear from being besieged is gendered, as well as racialized. Media play an important role in these processes by partaking in the cultural reproduction of images of “dangerous men” tied to fantasies of sexist violence linked to masculinist aggression, and depicting idealised victims, those who are feminised and feel fear. This politics of production of fear, it is argued, breeds racialized and gendered cultures of othering people who are displaced and creates an idealised “fearing subject” – the nation-state, people/nation, and its values, and renders the economic, social and political sources of insecurity, invisible

Forced migrations and Externalization of European Union Border Control: Serbia on the Balkan Migration Route

The article argues that the recent "migration crisis" has been constructed as a security threat to the European Union, which conceals both the multiple causes of forced migrations, and the inability of the Union to respond to the massive influx of people in need of protection. Serbia had taken up a "refugee-friendly" policy, which implied a humanitarian approach. However, due to a change of political discourse in connection with the EU accession, a shift towards the security position occurred. This article sheds light on the actual status of migrants and asylum seekers in Serbia, as well as the state response to the growing challenges in the area of acceptance and protection, following the official closure of the Balkan route. In the conclusion, the authors tentatively plead for return to a balanced humanitarian approach, since there is clear evidence that mixed migration flows will resume in the times to come