‘Crisis’ in the channel? Practices of securitization and epistemic borderwork in the British/European borderlands

This chapter traces the historical development of securitization policies in the Channel as a borderland space. Paying particular attention to the forms of non/knowledge produced about the border and the actors involved in its securitization, this chapter investigates ‘crisis’ narratives in the Channel borderlands as a form of ‘borderwork’ that both undermine and make possible the enactment of British sovereign power. It argues that to better understand the recurrence of border ‘crises’ in the Channel, critical border and security studies would benefit from paying greater attention to the epistemic dimensions of border securitization. This chapter focuses on three areas of epistemic borderwork: the production of non/knowledge about the borderline between inside/outside, anxieties over self/other(s), and the epistemic violence of everyday borderwork. Doing so, it argues, affords a closer examination of the centrality of Channel borderland imaginaries and spaces to the production of racialized ontological (in)securities in post/colonial Britain that fuel cycles of ‘crisis’ and securitization.