The Biopolitics of Migration: Ecuadorian Foreign Policy and Venezuelan Migratory Crisis

Abstract

ABSTRACT Michel Foucault’s concept of biopolitics serves to analyze Ecuador's foreign policy towards the Venezuelan migration crisis. First, I discuss the interrelations between the fields of border and mobility studies to understand the regulation of mobilities by practices such as border management. Second, I explore the contributions of post-structuralism to foreign policy analysis. Third, I study the concepts of biopower and biopolitics in central works written by Foucault such as The History of Sexuality (1990), Society Must Be Defended (2003) and Security, Territory and Population (2007). Fourth, I examine the causes of the migration crisis of Venezuelans in the region. Fifth, I analyze the securitization of Venezuelan migratory flows in Ecuador. Based on the Foucauldian notion of biopolitics, I argue that what contributes to the extreme securitization of the massive migration of Venezuelans, and therefore the Ecuadorian foreign policy’s response to this phenomenon, is the result of biopower. This form of power emphasizes on the control of populations in a given territory. This article analyzes the content of the website of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Human Mobility and several press articles to discuss the biopolitical measures taken by the Ecuadorian foreign policy to control the migration of Venezuelans.