Description:
<jats:sec><jats:title>Abstract</jats:title><jats:p>This article critically analyses the framing of African migration in hegemonic global security discourses as a source of transnational threats to developed and stable parts of the world. Such concerns have increased since 9/11 and the inception of the Global War on Terror, and are likely to grow in the wake of the global financial meltdown. It explores the globalization-migration-development nexus as it relates to how Africa has become an object of securitization based more on the manipulation of fear, than on reality. This underscores the point that the perception of “illegal” African migration as a threat to Europe’s southern borders is constructed and deliberately exaggerated for political ends. Thus, the article argues that the barriers designed to reduce or prevent African migration in a ‘borderless world’, have more to do with hegemonic politics, and less to do with any real danger. It also discusses the ramifications of the securitization of Africa is relation to the ways it is feeding into international support for the military and policing capacity of African states. This, in some regards, is taking place at the immense social cost of popularly-rooted democratization, social development and sustainable peace in the continent - thereby increasing the threats facing African people.</jats:p>
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