Identities in Transition

The Enkidu Summer Conference 2007

June 1 - 5, 2007

Mexico City

in:

Identity, Silences, Security and Nation: Keeping Others at bay

Uzzi Ohana

London School of Economics and Political Science

United Kingdom/Reino Unido

This paper examines the securitisation of Others, the process through which identity is exploited as a security discourse. The utmost purpose of utilising identity as a security tool is maintaining the status quo and gaining increased power in a post-9/11 scenario. The immediate aim of the securitisation of Others is twofold: a) to construct Others as recognised threats to the dominant identity; b) to obtain special powers to tackle that “menace”. Yet, this discursive process differs from a normal securitisation (the Copenhagen School) as there may be no utterance about the Other, which can be concealed to avoid unpleasant outcomes that may compromise governance (e.g. the 2005 Paris riots, the cartoongate). As a result, the process has to be carried out through a parallel convincing securitisation intrinsically related to the Other (e.g. Mexicans might be securitised in the US via illegal immigration; Muslims via terrorism). Said otherwise, the securitisation of Others should be presented as if the emphasis is on what rather than on who. Although there is no mention of the Other, it is inferred as the real target of the securitisation because of its intrinsic relation, either natural or constructed, with the what. This omission is supported by reality but, above all, by the shared knowledge of both what and who. This is why a securitisation of Others is the ideal method to control a given minority, an adversary, without even mentioning it. Hence, its value (and dangerousness) is enormous not only for politicians and policymakers but also for people with hidden, illegitimate agendas.

About Uzzi Ohana

A Mexican doctoral student at the London School of Economics and Political Science. His doctoral research examines the notion of the securitisation of Others. Specifically, his thesis centres on how the Other is increasingly being conceived as a security matter in the post-9/11 world and the process through which the Other is constructed as a threat for a dominant identity.

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