Vernacular Border Security

This book argues that a conceptual and methodological shift is required in the way that border security is understood, and that a new approach is urgently required. It examines vernacular narratives of the 'crisis' and how they offer insight into citizens' knowledge of the 'crisis', and actually-existing alternatives to fantasies of control. Since the peak of Europe's so-called 2015 'migration crisis', the dominant governmental response has been to turn to deterrent border security across the Mediterranean and construct border walls throughout the EU. During the same timeframe, EU citizens are widely represented - by politicians, by media sources, and by opinion polls - as fearing a loss of control over national and EU borders. Despite the intensification of EU border security with visibly violent effects, EU citizens are