Governing migration through death in Europe and the US: Identification, burial and the crisis of modern humanism
| Author | Vicki Squire |
| Date | 01 September 2017 |
| Published date | 01 September 2017 |
| DOI | 10.1177/1354066116668662 |
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https://doi.org/10.1177/1354066116668662
European Journal of
International Relations
2017, Vol. 23(3) 513 –532
© The Author(s) 2016
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DOI: 10.1177/1354066116668662
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Governing migration through
death in Europe and the US:
Identification, burial and the
crisis of modern humanism
Vicki Squire
University of Warwick, UK
Abstract
Border deaths have become an established feature of contemporary migratory politics
in both Europe and the US. This article examines the similarities and differences in
practices of ‘governing migration through death’ across the US–Mexico (Sonoran) and
in the EU–North African (Mediterranean) contexts. Instead of taking a conventional
comparative analysis of two distinct sites, the article draws on critical scholarship in the
field of border studies in order to examine biopolitical, thanatopolitical and necropolitical
dynamics of bordering that cross contexts. It argues that these operations of power
converge in both European and US bordering practices, specifically through a form
of biophysical violence that operates directly on the biological functions of migrating
bodies. The article suggests that the establishment of this violence represents a crisis of
modern humanism, which becomes implicated in the toleration of such violence through
processes of denial, displacement, rejection and compensation. By focusing, in particular,
on the ways that the treatment of the dead functions as a means of compensating
for (yet not redressing) biophysical violence, the article highlights the deficiencies of
contemporary practices of identification and burial, and raises questions about the
limitations of contestations that emphasise dignity only to perpetuate a hierarchy of
‘worthy’ and ‘unworthy’ lives. In so doing, the article concludes by suggesting that
contemporary ‘migration crises’ are better understood in terms of the crisis of modern
humanism, grounded in Graeco-Roman and Judaeo-Christian traditions, which can no
longer deny its implication in practices of governing migration through death.
Keywords
Biopolitics, borders, dignity, human rights, violence
Corresponding author:
Vicki Squire, Department of Politics and International Studies, University of Warwick, Coventry, CV4 7AL,
UK.
Email: V.J.Squire@warwick.ac.uk
668662EJT0010.1177/1354066116668662European Journal of International RelationsSquire
research-article2016
Article
514 European Journal of International Relations 23(3)
Introduction
The violence of contemporary bordering practices is no more evident than in the growing
number of border deaths across ‘deserts and seas’ over recent years. The past two dec-
ades have seen a dramatic rise in the number of such deaths in both the North American
and the European contexts, where bordering practices maintain the privileges associated
with living in a relatively stable and developed region or state. The Sonoran Desert
between Mexico and the US renders the crossing lethal for many. In the Southwest
Section of the US border territory, a total of 240 border deaths were recorded in 2015.
While this represents a slight reduction from previous years, it nevertheless continues a
concerning pattern from the late-1990s, which saw a peak of 471 recorded deaths in
2012.1 Meanwhile, border deaths increased significantly during the mid-2000s in the
Mediterranean Sea between Europe and North Africa, with there being a temporary drop
before another rise in the number of recorded deaths from 2011.2 Particularly notable
here are recent figures, with 3279 deaths recorded in 2014 and 3770 in 2015.3 Rising
numbers of border deaths are conceptualised in this article in terms of a form of biophysi-
cal violence, whereby people are abandoned to the physical forces of deserts and seas,
which directly operate on bodily functions with often devastating consequences (Squire,
2015a). As is evident in both the Sonoran and the Mediterranean contexts, biophysical
violence and the deaths associated with this have become an established feature of con-
temporary border politics.
So, how can we make sense of the emergence of death as a routine or normalised
dimension of contemporary bordering practices between more and less stable and privi-
leged regions? Moreover, and most importantly, what possibilities exist for a transforma-
tion of the troubling situation whereby death becomes a norm through which migration
is governed? Existing scholarship already provides important insight into the ways that
border fatalities are conditioned by practices that ‘govern through death’. This includes
scholarship that draws on Michel Foucault’s work on biopolitics (e.g. Rygiel, 2010;
Topak, 2014), Giorgio Agamben’s work on sovereign power and bare life (e.g. Doty,
2011; Rygiel, 2010; Vaughan-Williams, 2012), and Achille Mbembe’s work on necropo-
litics (De León, 2015; Estevez, 2014). There is also an important body of work that
explores the ways in which contestations over migrant deaths un- or re-make citizenship
and political community (Rygiel, 2014, 2016) through practices of grieving (Stierl,
2016), mourning (Bieberstein and Evren, 2016; Délano Alonso and Nienass, 2016), bur-
ial (Balkan, 2015a, 2015b) and memorial (Zagaria, 2011), all of which reject exclusion-
ary state practices associated with such deaths (Catania, 2015). This article contributes to
these literatures by paying attention to the specificities as well as the affinities of contem-
porary bordering practices in contexts of relative stability and privilege. It highlights
how biophysical violence emerges as a means through which different practices of ‘gov-
erning migration through death’ converge, while also assessing interventions that contest
such violence through emphasising the importance of human dignity.
A key aim of this article is to provide a comparative analysis of the conditions under
which border deaths emerge across both the Sonoran Desert and the Mediterranean Sea.
This is important because it facilitates insight both into the convergences and contextu-
alised mutations of contemporary bordering practices, and into the mechanisms of
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