Introduction

Abstract

AbstractThis chapter explains that the securitisation of migration is on the ascendancy in global politics. The chapter argues that securitisation negates, or at least discounts, the economic and social benefits of migration. In many cases, it stresses the negative side of the international political economy of migration. Then it stresses, and often exaggerates, the imagined, potential or actual security threats migrants pose to host or receiving countries. This causes us to think about the relationship between migration and the future of global security. We think that the securitisation of migration is reductionist in the sense that it reduces migration to a problem of security. By so doing securitisation simultaneously sees migration as always a security matter and negates/discounts non-security aspects of migration or sees those non-security aspects as security matter.KeywordsEuropeMigrationNigeriaSecuritisationNorth America