Memory, Trauma and the Securitization of Migration in Contemporary Hungary

Abstract

This article discusses discursive strategies employed by Hungary’s Prime Minister Viktor Orbán that embody the securitization of migration through mnemonic elements, namely, memory and trauma. The discursive policies that have been identified were produced in the context of the European refugee crisis. Literature in International Relations has debated the discursive and non-discursive practices that result in the securitization of migration, yet there exist few studies that articulate the junctions of (in)security, migration, memory and trauma. This article draws from Critical Discourse Analysis and critical geopolitics to discuss how political discourse can frame migration from a security perspective through the use of mnemonic arguments. Textual categories corresponding to intersections of migration, (in) security, memory and trauma were identified. I argue that linking migration to these topics has allowed Orbán to (re)construct Hungarian ontological location, relocating the country in relation to Central and Eastern Europe and placing it within the arena of Russian influence.