Europe's Border Crisis - Biopolitical Security and Beyond

- Develops distinctive and original readings of a range of texts in contemporary biopolitical theory - Provides a new paradigm for critical thought, judgment, and action in response to Europe's border crisis - Sets out new empirical and conceptual research, drawing upon NGO research, 'irregular' migrants' testimonies, and fieldwork Europe's Border Crisis explores current dynamics in EU border security and migration management. It argues that a crisis point has emerged because 'irregular' migrants are seen as both a security threat to the EU and also as a life threatened and in need of protection. This leads to paradoxical situations whereby humanitarian policies and practices expose 'irregular' migrants to often dehumanizing and sometimes lethal border security mechanisms. The dominant way of understanding these dynamics — one that blames a gap between policy and practice — fails to address the deeper issues at stake and ends up perpetuating the terms of the crisis. Drawing on conceptual resources in biopolitical theory the book offers an alternative diagnosis and sets out a new research agenda for the interdisciplinary field of critical border and migration studies.

Part 1 Borders, crises, critique 1.: Europes border crisis 2.: European border security and the crisis of humanitarian critique 3.: Conceptual crises in critical border and migration studies 4.: Key themes and a map of the study Part 2. Biopolitical borders 5.: Introduction 6.: European border security and migration management: from Schengen to the Arab Spring 7.: Foucault and the biopolitical paradigm 8.: Biopolitical border security in Europe Part 3. Thanatopolitical borders 9.: Introduction 10.: The sovereign ban and thanatopolitical spaces 11.: Reassessing Agamben in critical border and migration studies 12.: Push-backs and abandonment in the European borderscape Part 4. Zoopolitical borders 13.: Introduction 14.: Borderwork and contemporary spaces of detention in Europe 15.: Critical infrastructure, dehumanization, animalization 16.: Derridas zoopolitics and the bestial potential of border security Part 5. Immunitary borders 17.: Introduction 18.: Life, politics, and immunity in Esposito 19.: The immunitary paradigm 20.: Reconceptualizing the border as an immune system Part 6. Affirmative borders 21.: Introduction 22.: Affirmative biopolitics 23.: Towards an affirmative biopolitical border imaginary 24.: Affirmative headings for European border security and migration management