Description
As seen in the recent wave of anti-immigration protests and governmental discourses across the globe, we are living in a highly securitised environment. While the literature has duly responded by exploring the normative impact of securitising migration, still, less is known about how, if at all, we can desecuritise migrant populations. South America is an ideal testing ground for desecuritisation, given the region’s paradigmatic ‘open doors’ approach to migration during the 2000s post-neoliberal tide. Drawing from the comparative analysis of Ecuadorian and Argentinian migration policy, this paper maps desecuritisation strategies and the racialised, gendered, and colonial factors that shaped their emergence and demise. Turning to Latin American decolonial literature, the paper contributes to critical security scholarship by bringing a South-South perspective to the relatively underexplored desecuritisation of migration.
