The Securitization of Migrants and Ethnic Minorities and the Rise of Xenophobia in the EU (SECUREU)

Grant number: 20149

The challenge to the EU posed by far-right populism and the rise of anti-foreign sentiment demand systematic research on the causes and consequences of xenophobia in all its variants. SECUREU will focus on the role of the securitization of ethnicity (i.e., the representation of migrants and ethnic minorities as an inherent security threat that demands exceptional measures), as pursued by both the EU itself and its individual member states. The network’s activities will highlight the potential social and political problems generated by the securitization process and disseminate the newly generated knowledge to the academic and policy-making communities.

SECUREU’s research explores the securitization of migrants and its consequences for xenophobia in the context of the recent EU Refugee Crisis, which has fundamentally transformed EU migration policy but also led to contrasting reactions by individual countries.SECUREU further investigates the securitization of migrants and ethnic minorities from a historical perspective by focusing on how the framing of different minority groups has evolved over time and how ethnic minorities experience and deal with their representation in public discourse. In developing this research agenda SECUREU will promote a theoretical integration of the ethnicity/migration and securitization fields. Although both fields have examined migration and ethnic minorities, they have developed largely independent from one another.

This network grant brings together researchers from both fields to generate new research, educate students and young researchers, produce policy briefs and create new synergies around these key issues.