Securitisation is the process by which an issue is framed in terms of security to justify the implementation of urgent policy measures. It is often used by states to manage their territorial borders and to portray migrants as a threat to national security. However, securitisation theory also expands the concept of security to include the protection of human life and dignity, leading to the involvement of NGOs as securitising actors in their efforts to protect victims of crises and conflicts. Although NGOs are considered ‘allies’ to refugees in their mission to help refugees, recent evidence has shown how NGOs also risk contributing to the mainstream framing of refugees as a threat. This thesis takes off in this puzzle and argues that securitisation theory might help us better understand this discrepancy. This study investigates how NGOs in Sweden may reproduce securitising narratives, and whether this has changed between 2010 and 2022. Using critical discourse analysis, the study analyses 18 documents and 166 images from these organisations. The results show that the NGOs primarily reproduced a narrative of human security that portrays refugees, particularly women, children, and families as vulnerable and in need of protection. These findings align with previous research on the subject, which has suggested that human security perspectives may not be inherently beneficial for refugees. The study also shows that the NGOs to some extent reproduce state security narratives by portraying refugees as undifferentiated groups and emphasizing a perspective of security emergency rather than a humanitarian emergency. However, this study finds less evidence of state security perspectives in the Swedish context than previous research has indicated.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:UPSALLA1/oai:DiVA.org:uu-494172 |
| Date | January 2022 |
| Creators | Wartiainen, Michelle |
| Publisher | Uppsala universitet, Statsvetenskapliga institutionen |
| Source Sets | DiVA Archive at Upsalla University |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Student thesis, info:eu-repo/semantics/bachelorThesis, text |
| Format | application/pdf |
| Rights | info:eu-repo/semantics/openAccess |
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