Operationalising the borderscape: making sense of proliferating (in)securities and (im)mobilities

Abstract

This article brings insights from Critical Border Studies (CBS) to bear on the diverse and proliferating borderings that have characterised the EU’s migration crisis. It harnesses the broad ontological and empirical scope of ‘Borderscapes’ scholarship to make coherent sense of seemingly disparate, plural borderings without eliding their diversity or particularity. It conceptualises the ‘borderscape’ as being constituted by ‘related arrays’ of bordering features, discourses and practices. This analytical framework is complemented by an interpretive framework that distinguishes the borderscape from other sociopolitical phenomena while contextualising it in relation to wider political concerns. The conceptualisation encourages nuanced yet cogent analysis of proliferating (in)securities, (im)mobilities and borderings, as well as their political implications: for identity, subjectivity, order and governance. The article thus offers a way to make sense of diverse manifestations, representations and analyses and of Europe’s migration crisis—and provides a tool for making policy recommendations to address their negative consequences.