Frontiers and Threats: Should Transnational Migration Be Considered a Security Issue?

Scrutinize the curriculum of nearly any security studies postgraduate degree programme and you will invariably discover a litany of module options related to warfare, military strategy and intelligence, defence policy, terrorism and counter-terrorism. But does this adequately reflect contemporary real-world security issues? In this blog post I will examine how migration has increasingly been regarded as a matter of security by governments and in academic circles globally. I will briefly outline some of the ways in which migration may be considered a global security concern for states and for some migrants themselves. I will also examine how the issues are reflected in the different theoretical approaches to the migration-security nexus. Yet, I contend that there are also dangers in depicting migration as a “security” problem. …

For the rest of the article please access

http://www.globalpolicyjournal.com/blog/20/11/2013/frontiers-and-threats-should-transnational-migration-be-considered-security-issue

Caryl Thompson is a Doctoral Researcher in the Institute of Asia Pacific Studies in the School of Politics & International Relations at the University of Nottingham. She is currently located in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, where she is undertaking research at the University’s Malaysia campus.