The challenge to the EU posed by far-right populism and the rise of anti-foreign sentiment demand systematic research on the causes and consequences of xenophobia in all its variants. The Jean Monnet network “The Securitization of Migrants and Ethnic Minorities and the Rise of Xenophobia in the EU” (SECUREU) will focus on the role of the securitization of ethnicity (i.e., the representation of migrants and ethnic minorities as an inherent security threat that demands exceptional measures), as pursued by both the EU itself and its individual member states. The network’s activities will highlight the potential social and political problems generated by the securitization process and disseminate the newly generated knowledge to the academic and policy-making communities.

Funded by the European Commission’s Erasmus + programme, SECUREU’s research explores the securitization of migrants and its consequences for xenophobia in the context of the recent EU Refugee Crisis, which has fundamentally transformed EU migration policy but also led to contrasting reactions by individual countries.

SECUREU further investigates the securitization of migrants and ethnic minorities from a historical perspective by focusing on how the framing of different minority groups has evolved over time and how ethnic minorities experience and deal with their representation in public discourse. In developing this research agenda SECUREU will promote a theoretical integration of the ethnicity/migration and securitization fields. Although both fields have examined migration and ethnic minorities, they have developed largely independent from one another.

This Jean Monnet network will be coordinated by Matthias vom Hau and Lesley Ann Daniels over the next 3 years. Javier Arregui Moreno (UPF), Avi Astor (UAB), Irina Ciornei (IBEI), Juan Díez Medrano (Universidad Carlos III and IBEI) and Margarita H. Petrova (IBEI) will be also involved in the project.

SECUREU network will benefit from the expertise of 7 partner universities and research centres from 6 different countries:

1. University of Amsterdam (The Netherlands)
2. University of Glasgow (United Kingdom)
3. Herder Institute for Historical Research on East Central Europe - Institute of the Leibniz Association (Germany)
4. European Academy of Bozen-Bolzano (EURAC Research) (Italy)
5. Koç University (Turkey)
6. Council for European Studies (CES) – European Office (Spain)
7. Institut Barcelona d’Estudis Internacionals (Spain)