ABSTRACT

The chapters in this collection explore differing approaches to migrants' insecurity, emphasizing the mutually constituted notions of both individual and social attitudes to security for formerly displaced populations. Rather than reprise state-based approaches to security, contributors instead consider experiences of insecurity that recognize the dual importance of both legal borders and less visible barriers to community engagement. Under the influence of new technologies, constructs of community and security have undergone profound change throughout the Global North. Many of the authors highlight an increasing tension throughout the first decade of the twenty-first century, whereby states' tightened control of international borders has rendered participation in local communities increasingly fraught and contested. Therefore, local spaces have become vital sites, providing space in which to enact identifications with multiple localities beyond that immediately experienced. As multiple contributors argue, this has had a profound implication for modern forms of civic identity and community inclusion.