Description
In the last decades, critical migration studies within International Relations have mainly focused on bordering mechanisms independently from discursive practices, as securitization has become one of its main research strands. This paper considers that when the security-migration nexus is highlighted, even with the goal to criticize border regimes, migration is treated as a self-referential area of expertise, emphasising the notion of a “migration crisis”. Drawing on the work of Black feminist scholars, who examine how the focus on the objectification of Black people can inadvertently perpetuate the very system of knowledge that produces such objectification, the paper argues that the method of describing migrants’ dehumanization reinforces it. The text navigates through literary and cinematographic works that reimagine migration instead of treating it as a bounded sociological research area, exploring how storytelling may disrupt the objectification of migrants and stretch our imagination of who they might be. This approach aims to reconnect the symbolic dimension to non-discursive mechanisms of control, while also fostering a closer dialogue between political theory and the humanities.
