A threat to climate-secure European futures? Exploring racial logics and climate-induced migration in US and EU climate security discourses

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Telford, A. ORCID: 0000-0002-8430-4866, 2018. A threat to climate-secure European futures? Exploring racial logics and climate-induced migration in US and EU climate security discourses. Geoforum, 96, pp. 268-277. ISSN 0016-7185

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Official URL: http://doi.org/10.1016/j.geoforum.2018.08.021

Abstract

Whether formulated as a security risk, a form of climate adaptation, a legal dilemma, or an issue of (in)justice, the debate on climate change and migration draws upon multiple, oftentimes contradictory, discourses. This paper examines the role of racial identities in debates about the security implications of climate-induced migration (CIM). The paper proposes a reconceptualization of ‘racial logics’: a form of discursive construction that connects naturalized assumptions about racialized Others with possible outcomes in conditions of future climate insecurity. The paper argues that 'Muslim' and 'African' migrant populations – in the context of possible CIM from the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region to the EU – are racialized with a potential capacity for radicalization and terrorism. Constructed as racialized Others, 'Muslim' and 'African' migrant populations could face exclusionary containment policies in climate-insecure futures. The article concludes with a call to challenge racial logics and the restrictive, unjust possibilities they suggest for future climate security politics.

Item Type:

Journal article

Publication Title:

Geoforum

Creators:

Telford, A.

Publisher:

Elsevier

Date:

November 2018

Volume:

ISSN: