Bigo Critical Response

The (in)securitization practices of the three universes of EU border control: Military/Navy – border guards/police – database analysts

Didier Bigo

This article on border control by Didier Bigo continues his scholarship about the linguistics of security, following his article on International Political Sociology, where he highlights the speech act and exceptionalization of security measures as part of the process of the insecuritization in political discourse. The article is based on extensive research and interviews with professionals working in the border security field. Using sociological intervention as a methodology, they completed 14 in-depth interviews across the EU, with those who work in external border management.

In the presentation, the problematique presented for this particular text is: “How do border security practices and border surveillance problematize mobility?” in which the thesis presented is the language used in the three social universes of border security problematizes mobility through its technocratic and industrial language, and its digitalization of people which treats mobility like an inhuman problem that can should be stopped. This is an interesting and insightful point of view of the presenter – through Bigo’s emphasis on the types of technology used and the emphasis of data can create location traps for people. In addition, the heavy use of data in border security creates a ‘inhumanization’ of people and can render certain groups to be less human. As an introduction, it is important to note the three different universes of security identified by Bigo: the 1st Universe involving military personnel, 2nd Universe the border guards and police, and lastly the 3rd Universe is the intelligence and data specialists.

        Through this identification, the presenter presents two parts in which, first, she discusses how mobility is perceived to be an (in)securitization process when the language of the first two universes are used. In the second part, she discusses how technology is able to bring out a language of (in)securitization which reduces humans to data points and their mobility and freedom to a problem. Personally I find this part to be particularly relevant and applicable in reality, specifically on the point she made on ‘speed does not mean freedom’. Just because we may flow and move among borders easily, it does not mean we are free from the constraints of surveillance and being watched. In reality, we are scrutinized – this only shows the fact that the rhetoric around the intelligence and surveillance factor of borders is negative, partially because people are naturally afraid of technology and its development. Also, the reduction of people to data is so cold and industrial that it gives a clear line about the safety of people, especially the freedom of people. Hence, the speed and efficiency some of us experience in travel is not experience by all – visible through the language used by those who are practitioners of the third world of border control. Thus, mobility can be viewed as a problem; it is becoming a negative part of security and the movement of human across borders is viewed to be a problem of politics as it is a matter that is being controlled rather than eradicated.