Communicating the ‘Migrant’ Other as Risk: Space, EU and Expanding Borders

Abstract

Forced migration and border spaces as fault lines posing risks to society through the notion of ‘Othering’, remain under-explored in risk literature. With Europe facing its biggest humanitarian crisis with forced migration and displacement due to conflict zones, the borders of the European Union have received renewed attention in media. Refugees and the displaced are often depicted as ‘migrants’ and are seen as transgressing borders as illegitimate entities. Although increasing attention has been paid to border patrol and issues of securitization since 9/11, the ‘migrant’ body as ‘risky body’ in political and policy discussions is under-conceptualised and theorised in risk literature. We examine political discourses of the UK government to discern how the migrant and the expanding borders of the EU are framed as forms of societal and economic risk and equally how these are mitigated with and through the discourse of space and borders. We take a constructionist approach to the ‘migrant’ problem in the EU and UK where risk is socially constructed through political discourse.