Audie Klotz

​Professor, Political Science
Maxwell School, Syracuse University

Abstract

Are the Trump administration’s attempts to restrict entry into the US a response to legitimate security concerns or an abrogation of basic legal protections for individuals and families? To what extent is Brexit driven by concern of Eastern European migrants or Syrian refugees? Do EU designations of “safe” countries or deals with Turkey and Libya to preclude migration around the Mediterranean undermine the non-refoulement norm? Should anti-foreigner sentiment in South Africa be labelled xenophobia, a term typically associated with racism? We can better understand these rising tensions between migration as a potential security concern and a sphere for rights protections through the politics of threat construction. Three dimensions of security--interstate, societal, and human—provide distinct perspectives. Examples from around the world underscore that the inclusion of migration within security studies also requires a reassessment of the field’s Eurocentric roots.

Biography

Audie Klotz is a Professor of Political Science in the Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs at Syracuse University. Her interests span theories of international relations, qualitative methods, transnational activism, global migration, and identity politics, with a regional specialization in Southern Africa and more broadly the former British Empire.