Migration, Security and Insecurity

Abstract

Post September 11 migration has increasingly been framed as a security problem. In the 2010 Australian election campaign migration was connected to security (defence of our borders, terrorism and social cohesion) and to related issues of insecurity about the future (population size, sustainability and economic growth). This framing of migration as a national issue conceals the reality that migration to Australia is part of the global largescale flow of population. This paper seeks to analyse the ‘security turn’ in migration debates in Australia and the North. It argues that the securitisation of migration signifies the transformation of security from the problem of producing national order to the problem of managing global disorder. The relationship between securitisation and the production of order are explored through firstly examining domestication and securitisation of Muslims and Islam in Western states as a strategy for their management as transnational categories of risk and secondly, the transnational management of populations as ‘hypergovernance’, the ability of some states to intervene in and shape other states and societies as a neo-imperial project through military action, humanitarian relief, religious and secular NGOs, economic aid, development assistance, education, religious evangelism and radicalism. The paper argues that the securitisation of migration in the twenty-first centuary is very likely to intensify.