Acessibilidade / Reportar erro

The construction of the European borders as the origin of the criminalization of migration: rhetoric of securitization and humanitarianism

Abstract

This article provides a brief historical overview of the construction of Europe's external borders since the Schengen Agreement (1985). The progressive disappearance of the internal borders generates a stretching of the European borders, which are constructed as dynamic spaces justifying their continuous reterritorialization wherever they are based as an artefact to guarantee security, and consequently understanding migration towards and within Europe as a threat. The management of borders by the European Union is not linked to a discourse of hatred, although there is a rise in extreme right-wing political forces in Europe, but it must be based at the discursive level on a rhetoric of security, but also of humanitarianism. However, borders, as Balibar (2003) states, are the absolutely undemocratic -or discriminatory- condition of democratic societies.

Keywords
border; human rights; security; violence; discourse

Centro Scalabriniano de Estudos Migratórios SRTV/N Edificio Brasília Radio Center , Conj. P - Qd. 702 - Sobrelojas 01/02, CEP 70719-900 Brasília-DF Brasil, Tel./ Fax(55 61) 3327-0669 - Brasília - DF - Brazil
E-mail: remhu@csem.org.br