(De)Securitization, Crisis and Humanitarianism? Mapping the Field of EU Border Management and the Production of Borders

Drawing on Bourdieu’s concept of field, this paper delimits ‘the field of EU border management’, which it takes as its unit of analysis. Asking how this field is enacted and through what logics; the paper aims to provide a genealogy of the field of EU border management from the early 2000s until today, including the various discourses and practices comprising it, as well as the actors that populate it and their positions. Concentrated on the European Border and Coast Guard Agency (Frontex), the paper will map the development of this field from the creation of Frontex in 2004 until today, with an emphasis on continuity and change over time. Careful not to treat the EU as a monolithic actor or EU border management as a unitary field, the analysis will tease out various inter-institutional struggles in this field, where the different discourses and practices overlap, contrast or clash with each other. The theoretical framework, composed of the Copenhagen- and Paris school of security studies, allows for an exploration of how the process of securitization unfolds through both discourses and practices in the field of EU border management. Attention will also be paid to other elements characterizing this field, such as de-securitization, crisis and humanitarianism, among others. Treating bordering as a practice further enables a focus on what type of border regime this field produces. Document- and critical discourse analysis of relevant documents produced by the different actors will be conducted, as well as interviews with officials from the different institutions/agencies. Contributing to the literature on EU border management, the aim of the paper is to provide a more nuanced and comprehensive understanding of this multilayered, rapidly changing field than has been provided to date.