Vernacular Border Security

Vernacular Border Security represents a major contribution to the burgeoning field of vernacular security studies and will be of immense interest to scholars looking for alternative conceptualizations to understand the contemporary politics of migration, borders, and security. * Peter Nyers, Perspectives on Politics *
Vernacular Border Security is arguably the most conceptually and empirically ambitious contribution to the recent vernacular turn in critical security studies to date. It is not only an accomplished piece of research which should be of immense value to policymakers, but an agenda setting piece for critical border, security, and citizenship studies. * Ben Rosher, E-International Relations *
Vaughan-Williams poses the important question, why has the recent frenzy of border fortification—especially but not only in the EU—intensified rather than reduced popular anxieties about borders and migrants? To answer it, Vaughan-Williams listens closely to the people churned by such anxieties. This essential, original, and extraordinarily well-researched contribution to border and migration studies arrives at conclusions that should stop both policy makers and critical theorists in their tracks. * Wendy Brown, Class of 1936 First Professor of Political Science, University of California, Berkeley, and author of Walled States, Waning Sovereignty *
In foregrounding the vernacular, Nick Vaughan-Williams makes a powerful and highly significant interference in contemporary understandings of the politics of security, borders, and migration. Vernacular Border Security takes the extensive literature on the importance of language for securitization and desecuritization in a new direction by foregrounding conversations rather than speech acts, claims, or discourses. In doing so, Vaughan-Williams has given us a rich resource for critically engaging contemporary framings of security, borders, and migration through a democratic analytics that values the reflective and critical engagement of ordinary people in the politics of insecurity. * Jef Huysmans, Professor of International Politics, Queen Mary University of London *
Vernacular Border Security is a must-read for all political geographers concerned with questions of borderings, wallings, and the contemporary political imaginations of migrations in Europe. Beautifully written and conceptually innovative, this book brilliantly connects the grand narratives of border security promoted by institutions at the most diverse scales with a set of vernacular perspectives on the experience of border security in specific European settings. The rich and original empirical material matched by the sophisticated theoretical analysis proposed here by Nick Vaughan-Williams makes this book a path-breaking intervention in the fields of border and migration studies. * Claudio Minca, Professor, Department of History and Cultures, University of Bologna *
Coming from cultural studies and gender studies, I found Nick Vaughan-Williams' vernacular approach to be an illustrative perspective on security. Besides deconstructing the 'migration crisis' narrative, Vaughan-Williams explains theories of populism and ontological (in)security in a reader-friendly manner. I particularly enjoyed the author's take on affect and processes of gendering and racializing the figure of 'the migrant'. Reading this eloquent and important book gave me tools to analyze critically the perpetual debate about migration, borders, and securitization. * Tuija Saresma, Senior Researcher, University of Jyväskylä *
European governments adopted inhuman, unlawful, and ineffective border security measures in the name of citizens allegedly frightened by migrants. Yet the empirical evidence offered by Nick Vaughan-Williams suggests that anti-migrant narratives originated at the top rather than at the bottom of societal ladders, aggravating anxieties among European citizens. The book points to counter-narratives embracing cultures of hospitality, rebuffing fantasies of walls and wired borders. These findings are not likely to deter populist politicians, but they should offer food for thought to moderate ones and to mass-media gurus eager to talk on behalf of 'ordinary people' without engaging in genuine conversation with them. I strongly recommend this book to all concerned citizens. * Jan Zielonka, Professor of Politics at the University of Oxford and the University of Venice, Ca Foscari *