The Securitisation of African Borders

In this chapter, I examine the securitisation of African borders in order to determine the extent to which securitisation as a practice has contributed to prolonged refugee encampment. I analyse the securitisation theory formulated by the Copenhagen School, and the Traditional Securitisation conceptual frameworks in relation to the securitisation of African borders. While securitisation as a practice is considered a recent development in Western philosophical thought, it was already encoded within colonial practice in Africa in the sixteenth century Tans Atlantic Slave Trade. It is within this colonial context that this book offers decolonial critique of securitisation as a practice. As the African states inherited their colonial borders almost unchanged, this chapter reveals how the securitisation of the borders has contributed to prolonged encampment. It also challenges the dominant assumption that securitisation is a recent phenomenon.