TY - JOUR
T1 - Entangled Vulnerabilities
T2 - Gendered and Racialised Bodies and Borders in EU External Border Security
AU - Sachseder, Julia
AU - Stachowitsch, Saskia
AU - Standke-Erdmann, Madita
N1 - © 2024 The Author(s). Published with license by Taylor & Francis Group, LLC.
PY - 2024/1/4
Y1 - 2024/1/4
N2 - The notion of vulnerability is gaining traction in EU border protection. On the one hand, the concept refers to vulnerable migrants and their affectedness by insecurity and violence. On the other, it indicates the susceptibility of borders to irregular crossings and cross-border crime. Both forms of vulnerability are assessed through dedicated procedures under the umbrella of the European Border and Coast Guard Agency Frontex. To make sense of these seemingly contradictory conceptual and practical uses of vulnerability, we draw on feminist postcolonial scholarship in security studies and political geography. We argue that a shared colonial matrix of gendered and racialised meanings and problematisations enables analogies between borders and bodies as (un-)deserving of protection. In a discourse-theoretical analysis of Frontex documents, we show how the ambiguous use of vulnerability legitimises the EU border regime and its security practices by constructing EU bordering as neutral and objective and EU borders as objects of care. We conclude that vulnerability becomes increasingly important for normalising the EU’s violent borders in the context of the EU’s broader claims to liberal values of freedom, protection, and human rights.
AB - The notion of vulnerability is gaining traction in EU border protection. On the one hand, the concept refers to vulnerable migrants and their affectedness by insecurity and violence. On the other, it indicates the susceptibility of borders to irregular crossings and cross-border crime. Both forms of vulnerability are assessed through dedicated procedures under the umbrella of the European Border and Coast Guard Agency Frontex. To make sense of these seemingly contradictory conceptual and practical uses of vulnerability, we draw on feminist postcolonial scholarship in security studies and political geography. We argue that a shared colonial matrix of gendered and racialised meanings and problematisations enables analogies between borders and bodies as (un-)deserving of protection. In a discourse-theoretical analysis of Frontex documents, we show how the ambiguous use of vulnerability legitimises the EU border regime and its security practices by constructing EU bordering as neutral and objective and EU borders as objects of care. We conclude that vulnerability becomes increasingly important for normalising the EU’s violent borders in the context of the EU’s broader claims to liberal values of freedom, protection, and human rights.
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85181495667&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1080/14650045.2023.2291060
DO - 10.1080/14650045.2023.2291060
M3 - Article
C2 - 39318502
AN - SCOPUS:85181495667
SN - 1465-0045
VL - 29
SP - 1913
EP - 1941
JO - Geopolitics
JF - Geopolitics
IS - 5
ER -