The People United, Whenever We’re Divided: Migrant Civil Society Responses to the Securitization of the US-Mexican Border in El Paso

Abstract

In this thesis I aim to further conceptualize the role of audiences in securitization processes. While audiences are traditionally defined as passive entities concerned with enabling securitizing actors, this thesis shows that this relationship is not so one-dimensional. Audiences are actively influencing and contesting securitization processes, as different definitions and experiences of security clash. In this thesis the concept of migrant civil society, representing audiences, will be used to analyze community-level responses to the securitization of the US-Mexican border. The border, and people crossing it, has increasingly been framed as security threat, as a place that needs to be secured to ensure the continued safety of the US. Migrants arriving at the border have been framed as illegals, criminals and potential terrorists that should be kept out at all costs. In El Paso, these definitions of security and security threats are often not shared, as they oppose community-level experiences of the border, migration and migrants. Several diverse strategies are used to reactively and proactively respond to security discourses that are spread by securitizing actors, and the border enforcement programs that are legitimized by these discourses. From strategies of support to address immediate needs faced by migrants arriving at the border, to strategies of contention to highlight concerns, redefine security narratives, and advocate for comprehensive migration reform. These strategies are useful indicators to consider in this analysis of the contentious and multi-dimensional relationship between securitizing actors and audiences.