Survival and Security in the ‘Last Map’: A Socio-Political Analysis of Securitization of Refugees in the 21st Century

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By: Satantika Biswas, MPLS (Second Year)., Roll No.: 0111

“… developments that will prompt mass migrations and, in turn, incite group conflicts – will be the core foreign policy challenge from which most others will ultimately emanate, arousing the public…” – “The Coming Anarchy” (1994). (Kaplan, 1998).

Robert D. Kaplan, in the above-quoted excerpt, underlined the era of the post-Cold War politics and society to be marked by ‘threats’ from displacement and migration, among others leading the “Last Map” of the world to be an “ever-mutating representation of chaos” (Kaplan, 1998). With the gradual development of the traditional security framework these threats from the non-state actors adversely affecting the well-being of societies and States, broadly came to be clubbed under the domain of ‘Non-Traditional Security Threats’ (NTS) (Cook, 2017). Refugees, under this frame thus gradually came to be branded as a security threat. The course of this essay aims to highlight the recent trends in international politics vis-à-vis refugee issues and attempts to delineate a shift in the attitude towards the same. It argues that refugee issues have been securitised by States and traces the course of this process concluding with an attempt to trace the impact of the same on politics and society.[1] 

To begin with, two points are in order. First, while, the constitutive elements of NTS concerns have been historically present down the centuries, until and in the backdrop of the ideological warfare of the cold-war era, security was largely accounted for “in terms of external threats coming from spaces outside of a state’s sovereign control” (Ewing & Caballero-Anthony, 2021). However, with the dismantling of the Soviet Union, the international arena witnessed a ‘realignment of international security priorities’ leading way to the creation of a security discourse that gave way to “greater attention and resources to be allocated towards a wider range of security concerns” (Ewing & Caballero-Anthony, 2021). Structural changes, along with a transformed academic and policy attention, can together be seen to have led to the rise of NTS at this juncture of history. With the gradual rise of NTS concerns, refugees have increasingly been seen as a threat to the receiving country. While migration, both internal and trans-border, has existed since the birth of civilization, it was with the birth of nations states, “that this phenomenon became a problem to be dealt with and solved” (Basu Ray Chaudhury & Ghosh 2021). Further, amidst the rising tide of NTS, with traditional security concerns gradually ‘receding over the decades,’ trans-border migration, whether voluntary or forced, “emerged as a monumental security threat for nation states.” Thus, while there are historical instances of a more accommodative attitude towards refugees in the past, in the present century, owing to the sheer increase in the volumes of migration compounded by rise of NTS concerns, a general attitude of securitizing refugee influx is perceptible. Driven by the concern relating to the vast proportions of displaced populations immediately following the close of the Second World War, the Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees in 1951, provided for an international legal refugee protection regime, aimed at the provision of rights to refugees by States providing asylum. Subsequently, the 1967 Protocol further extended, consolidated, and bolstered the convention and the refugee protection regime.

According to the UNHCR, around one-third of the total forcibly displaced population have fled borders, during the second decade of the present century (Nicholson & Kumin, 2017). Turning attention to the general trends among States vis-a-vis refugees, since the initial decades of the 21^st century, reveals,

“Confronted by seemingly intractable conflicts, by heightened security concerns, and in difficult economic times, some governments have responded by closing their doors (to refugees) … allowing the rhetoric of xenophobia and nationalism to go unchecked”. (Nicholson & Kumin, 2017)

According to the UNHCR, the once-refugee-receiving states are gradually undertaking a stance of aversion towards refugees in the light of various ‘open-ended responsibilities’ for abetting migration. The dominant misuse of asylum provisions and the concern about the benefits not reaching the target population have further hampered the process. Third, a rampant breach of the international customary law of ‘non-refoulment’ has become evident over the years. Alongside, in various States, refugees have been targeted by violence on account of their ‘difference’ from the local population. They have also found themselves in active but unequal competition for resources. Further, states as part of their efforts to curb migration have made no difference in detaining asylum seekers along with other forms of migrants. Additionally, donor countries are gradually becoming unable to bear and balance the cost of maintaining refugees within their borders and beyond, Finally, the developing world bears a refugee burden far greater than the developed, while also being the major source for the same, thus affecting their general stance towards the refugees, as well.¹ (UNHCR, 2001)

A perceptible shift in attitude towards refugees thus being underlined we now turn to the question as to what accounts for this change. A very basic understanding of security as ‘protection against threat’ or ‘freedom from fear or anxiety’ reveals its relative nature making it highly amenable to construction. However, in the interest of a holistic understanding of security shaping and affecting international, national as well as individual domains, it is important to view it as a ‘social process…without which social life would be meaningless and relatively dangerous” (Clements, 1990). It can thus be argued that elites or major actors making decisions for the ‘abstract’ entity of the State, largely pick and choose the issues they want to transform into a threat, therefore securitizing it, that gradually goes on to bear on popular attitude towards the same. The refugee issue is not an exception to this. The burden on resources, criminalization of refugee colonies, difficulties posed by a homogenizing discourse of the national ruling elite, and other constraints posed by refugees on the ruling elite, can be accounted for leading to this ‘securitization’. A glaring case in point is the 1971 Refugee Influx in India. Mrs Gandhi’s widely recorded speech in parliament highlighting the various problems the influx created gradually can be noted to have securitized the issue in the country. A marked contrast to the previous rehabilitative attitude towards the 1947 ‘natives returning home’ (Rana, 2022) – an antipathic attitude was thus created against the infiltrations threatening national security that manifested itself among others in the Nelli Carnage in Assam (Datta, 2013). The securitization of the issue can therefore be traced as a ‘speech act’ – where the utterance of security is more of a “performance of an action with the potential not just to describe but to create a (new) reality in which an issue is dealt with in the modus of a state of exception” (Stritzel, 2014) – whereby initially a “question of conscience”² gradually transformed into a matter of “security and the preservation and development of the structure of our social and economic life.”³.

The adverse impact of the same is visible in the recent trends concerning refugees. Refugees today thus find it difficult to receive asylum, aid, and relief. There is a large-scale denial of their basic human rights. The securitization has led refugees to be seen as ‘threats’ to the refugee countries, who thus turn a blind eye to the threats faced by the refugees in turn in their home and asylum countries. The compounding refugee crises worldwide – Syria, Afghanistan, Ukraine, Rohingyas etc. – and the deploring conditions and vulnerabilities faced by this population are one impact of increasing securitization. This is underscored by the decreasing international attention to the issue, as reflected in the existence of only two international frameworks for refugee protection. The 2016 New York Declaration on Refugees and Migrants – reaffirming the protection of the human rights of migrants and refugees, bears a promise. However, the perlocutionary effect of speech acts, i.e., the social attitude it shapes, complicates the picture. Security, initiated by the political actor gradually seeps into the general social psyche and memory, altering which becomes difficult if not impossible. To reiterate the above-mentioned example, securitization of the 1971 influx still bears a lasting impact in the minds of most Indians, especially in the state of Assam, as perceptible via their general ‘Assam for Assamese’ sentiment. The securitization thus impacts in generating a feeling of ‘otherization’ by bolstering the ‘affective border’ – beyond the physicality or legality of restriction, and in the domain of emotions, constructing an ‘emotional barrier’ (Datta, 2013). Thus, securitization of migration as indicated by and leading to the general adverse attitude towards refugees, has in effect securitized their very survival– casting a shadow on the refugee protection regime, adding to the vulnerabilities of this population, and thus calling for holistic and united solutions to this ever-compounding issue.

Endnotes:

• ¹For further details on this section, look UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR). (2001). Refugee Protection: A Guide to International Refugee Law. UNHCR. available at:   https://www.refworld.org/docid/3cd6a8444.html  [accessed 16 November 2023] 
• ² For details see - Grbac, P. (2015). Politicizing Protection: India and Its 1971 Refugees. Canadian Association for Refugee and Forced Migration Studies, Working Paper Series, Working paper no.: 2015/6, October: 2-21. Pg. 6.
• ³ Part of a Speech given by Mrs. Gandhi, in the Parliament on 24^th May, 1971. For details see Sisson, R. & Leo, R.E. (1990). War and Secession: Pakistan, India and the Creation of Bangladesh. University of California Press. 

References:

• Chaudhury, A. B., & Ghosh, A. K. (2021). Trans-Border Migration: Bridging the Gap between State and Human Security. ORF Occasional Paper. https://www.orfonline.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/04/ORF_OccasionalPaper_311_Migration.pdf (Last Accessed om 5 February, 2024)
• Clements, K. (1990). Toward a Sociology of Security. Conflict Research Consortium, Working paper 90-4.
• Cook, A. (2017). Non-Traditional Security and World Politics. https://www.researchgate.net/publication/314220878_Non-traditional_Security_and_World_Politics (Accessed on 16 November, 2023)
• Datta, A. (2013). Refugees and Borders in South Asia: The Great Exodus of 1971. Routledge, Taylor and Francis. 
• Ewing, J. J., & Caballero-Anthony, M. (2021). Assessing the Emergence of Non-Traditional Security Studies. https://www.worldscientific.com/doi/pdf/10.1142/9789811224430_0001 (Last Accessed on 5 February, 2024)
• Grbac, Peter. 2015. “Politicizing Protection: India and Its 1971 Refugees.” Canadian Association for Refugee and Forced Migration Studies, Working Paper Series, Working paper no.: 2015/6, October: 2-21.
• Kaplan, R. D. (1998). "The Coming Anarchy" from the Atlantic Monthly (1994). In G. O. Tuathail, S. Dalby, & P. Routledge, The Geopolitics Reader (pp. 188-196). London: Routledge.
• Nicholson, F., & Kumin, J. (2017). A Guide to International Refugee Protection and Building state asylum. Inter-parliamentary Union and United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees.
• Rana, H. (2022). India's refugee law and politics of hospitality since independence. In S. I. Rajan, The Routledge Handbook of Refugees in India (pp. 135-156). Routledge, Taylor and Francis.
• Sisson, Richard and Leo E. Rose. 1990. War and Secession: Pakistan, India and the Creation of Bangladesh. University of California Press.
• Stritzel, H. (2014). Security in Translation: Securitization Theory and the Localization of Threat. London: Palgrave Macmillan.
• The New York Declaration for Refugees and Migrants. OHCHR. https://www.ohchr.org/en/migration/new-york-declaration-refugees-and-migrants#:~:text=The%20text%20of%20the%20New,for%20international%20human%20rights%20law. (Accessed on 16 November, 2023).
• UNHCR. (2001). Refugee Protection: A Guide to International Refugee Law. UNHCR.