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Governing migration through death in Europe and the US : identification, burial and the crisis of modern humanism
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Squire, Vicki (2017) Governing migration through death in Europe and the US : identification, burial and the crisis of modern humanism. European Journal of International Relations, 23 (3). pp. 513-532. doi:10.1177/1354066116668662
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Official URL: http://doi.org/10.1177/1354066116668662
Abstract
Border deaths have become an established feature of contemporary migratory politics in both Europe and the US. This article examines similarities and differences in practices of ‘governing migration through death’ across the US-Mexico (Sonoran) and in the EU-North African (Mediterranean) contexts. Instead of taking a conventional comparative analysis of two distinct sites, the article draws on critical scholarship in the field of border studies in order to examine biopolitical, thanatopolitical and necropolitical dynamics of bordering that cross contexts. It argues that these operations of power converge in both European and US bordering practices, specifically through a form of biophysical violence that operates directly on the biological functions of migrating bodies. The article suggests that the establishment of this violence represents a crisis of modern humanism, which becomes implicated in the toleration of such violence through processes of denial, displacement, rejection and compensation. By focusing in particular on the ways that the treatment of the dead functions as a means of compensating for (yet not redressing) biophysical violence, the article highlights the deficiencies of contemporary practices of identification and burial, and raises questions about the limitations of contestations that emphasise dignity only to perpetuate a hierarchy of ‘worthy’ and ‘unworthy’ lives. In so doing, the article concludes by suggesting that contemporary ‘migration crises’ are better understood in terms of the crisis of modern humanism, grounded in Greco-Roman and Judaeo-Christian traditions, which can no longer deny its implication in practices of governing migration through death.
| Item Type: | Journal Article | ||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Divisions: | Faculty of Social Sciences > Politics and International Studies | ||||||||
| Journal or Publication Title: | European Journal of International Relations | ||||||||
| Publisher: | Sage Publications Ltd. | ||||||||
| ISSN: | 1354-0661 | ||||||||
| Official Date: | 1 September 2017 | ||||||||
| Dates: |
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| Date of first compliant deposit: | 7 November 2016 | ||||||||
| Volume: | 23 | ||||||||
| Number: | 3 | ||||||||
| Page Range: | pp. 513-532 | ||||||||
| DOI: | 10.1177/1354066116668662 | ||||||||
| Status: | Peer Reviewed | ||||||||
| Publication Status: | Published | ||||||||
| Access rights to Published version: | Restricted or Subscription Access | ||||||||
| Funder: | Leverhulme Trust (LT) | ||||||||
| Grant number: | RF-2015-545 | ||||||||
| Related URLs: |
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