ABSTRACT
This chapter introduces the crossover between the securitisation of migration and innovations in border control as a significant nodal point in the field of global security relations. It begins with an overview of some of the dominant trends in global migration and a commentary on how states go about classifying different types of migrants. From here the discussion moves on to consider how migration has been rendered a security problem in relation to the politics of insecurity in Europe, human trafficking and the gendered dimension of migration, and the relationship between critical security studies and ‘critical migration studies’. Moves towards new forms of border security practices in response to the threat of migration are then traced and illustrated against the backdrop of US and EU contexts. The changing nature and location of borders in global politics poses a number of conceptual challenges for theorists of security and the chapter ends by discussing what these are and how current research in ‘critical border studies’ seeks to address them.
