Humanity Washed Ashore : Visual representations of practices, people, and the borders of Europe

Abstract: Over the past decade, Frontex (European Border and Coast Guard Agency) has emerged as a central actor for the European Union’s migration and border policies. This doctoral dissertation examines the role of Frontex in constructing understandings of borders, practices, and people present in these spaces as well as more ambivalent representations of risk, unease, and (in)security. The study is based on material produced by Frontex during the period 2010-2016. More specifically, the dissertation explores how borders, practices, and people as well as risk, unease, and (in)security are produced through representational practices. In doing so, this dissertation examines how Frontex is normalised as the EU’s central actor at Europe’s borders. Unlike previous studies on Frontex, which have tended to focus on either the practices of the agency, its legal context, or use of technology, this dissertation examines Frontex as a producer of different discourses. Secondly, this dissertation adds to the existing research on Frontex by examining their visual material. Likewise, in contrast to much of the research in the field of Critical Border Studies (CBS), which has focused on the performative aspects of how borders are produced, this dissertation adds to the field of CBS by examining how borders are performed through representational practices of visual material. In order to examine representational practices of (in)securitisation by which Frontex is normalised as the EU’s central actor at Europe’s borders, this dissertation draws primarily on the research on (in)securitisation while adding a visual aspect to create a framework termed visual (in)securitisation. The overall findings cast light on the complexity of processes of (in)securitisation and the performances of borders and offers new ways of understanding both processes. The findings point to the role of images in shaping conditions for processes of (in)securitisation, influencing how borders, practices, and people in these spaces are understood. Empirically, this dissertation demonstrates the significance of integrating images whilst analysing how (in)security and borders are produced and how Frontex are normalised as the EU’s central actor at Europe’s borders. Theoretically, it highlights the relationship between images and ambiguity, ambivalence, risk, and unease in processes of (in)securitisation as well as the role of images in performing borders.