July 22, 2022 • 42 mins
Too often, talk about security seems to belong to politicians and psychologists; to discussions about terrorism and defence, individual anxiety and insecurity. But how do sociologists think about it? And why care?
Daria Krivonos – who works on migration, race and class in Central and Eastern Europe – tells Alexis and Rosie why security matters. What’s the impact of calling migration a “security threat”? How does the security of the privileged rely on the insecurity of the precarious? And, as Russia’s war in Ukraine continues, what would it mean to truly #StandwithUkraine – from ensuring better job security for its workers abroad, to cancelling its debt?
Plus: pop culture pointers; from Kae Tempest’s “People’s Faces” to the movie “The Mauritanian” – and Alexis’ teenage passion for Rage Against the Machine.
Guest: Daria Krivonos
Hosts: Rosie Hancock, Alexis Hieu Truong
Executive Producer: Alice Bloch
Sound Engineer: David Crackles
Music: Joe Gardner
Artwork: Erin Aniker
Find more about Uncommon Sense at The Sociological Review.
Episode Resources
Daria, Rosie and Alexis recommended
- Kae Tempest’s song “People’s Faces”
- Rage Against the Machine’s song “Without a Face”
- Kevin Macdonald’s movie “The Mauritanian”
From The Sociological Review
- “Brexit On ‘Plague Island’: Fortifying The UK’s Borders In Times Of Crisis” – Michaela Benson and Nando Sigona
- “Organised State Abandonment: The meaning of Grenfell” – Brenna Bhandar
- “Food Insecurity: Upsetting ‘Apple Carts’ in Abstract and Tangible Markets” – Susan Marie Martin
By Daria Krivonos
- “The making of gendered ‘migrant workers’ in youth activation: The case of young Russian-speakers in Finland”
- “Ukrainian farm workers and Finland’s regular army of labour”
- “Who stands with Ukraine in the long term?”
- “Racial capitalism and the production of difference in Helsinki and Warsaw” (forthcoming)
Further readings
- “The Death of Asylum” – Alison Mountz
- “What was the so-called ‘European Refugee Crisis’?” – Danish Refugee Council
- World Food Programme Yemen and Ethiopia statistics
- “In Larger Freedom: Towards Development, Security and Human Rights for All” – UN Secretary-General
- “Ukrainian Workers Flee ‘Modern Slavery’ Conditions on UK Farms” – Diane Taylor
- “Bordering” – Nira Yuval-Davis, Georgie Wemyss and Kathryn Cassidy
- Anthony Giddens’ sociological work; including “Modernity and Self-identity: Self and Society in the Late Modern Age”
Support our work. Make a one-off or regular donation to help fund future episodes of Uncommon Sense: donorbox.org/uncommon-sense
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Alexis Hieu Truong (00:04):
Hi, welcome back to Uncommon Sense from The
Sociological Review, I'm AlexisHieu Truong in Quebec, Canada.
Rosie Hancock (00:11):
And I'm Rosie Hancock in Sydney, Australia.
This podcast is about showingthat sociology doesn't belong to
universities or professionalacademics, it belongs to all of
us. Each month, we takesomething we might assume we're
pretty familiar with. And we sitwith it for a while to try and
have a look at it sideways.
Because, actually, talkingdifferently about the world can
(00:31):
be a route to changing it.
Alexis Hieu Truong (00:34):
Now, today, we're looking at something you
might think sociologists have alittle to do with: security.
Think of that word, and perhapsyou jumped to images of passport
control, border control, perhapsterrorism, politicians going on
about national security, andindeed, the restrictions on
civil liberties after 9/11 andthe rise of Islamophobia. So, I
(00:58):
guess, like what we're thinkingabout here is really, like,
these ideas of control, fear,borders, walls, and othering.
Rosie Hancock (01:06):
You can totally also go the other way, though,
and think about it at a reallypersonal level. So, the idea of
security is somethingindividual. And I'm thinking
here about even psychologicalinsecurity – psychological
insecurity which I reckon hasalways been pretty gendered;
shout-out to Kanye West singing"All Falls Down" about a woman
(01:26):
being insecure or whatever. Imean, it's clear that security
is just this vast, fascinating,but also very slippery notion.
I don't know, Alexis, I'dsuggest that security seems like
something we often only becomereally aware of when it feels
(01:48):
threatened. Can I ask when youfirst remember being aware of
security, personally?
Alexis Hieu Truong (01:54):
Hmm ...
There was this time when I wasdoing my MA in Social Work, and
I was working in a high school.
And there was an incident with ayouth that brought a BB gun that
looked like a gun, and then thecops were called, they came in,
they stormed the cafeteria ...
But, interacting with thestudents afterwards, what was
most threatening, like, aboutthe safety ... that was not the
idea, necessarily, of the BB gunitself. It was really the
(02:17):
interactions with the police,where many of the students had
had prior interactions withpolice that they would define as
negative or violent, and thatreally had a big impact on them.
What about you, Rosie?
Rosie Hancock (02:33):
Yeah, well, I guess my example feels pretty
different, actually. The momentwhen I first felt my security is
something that was at stake orunder threat, was back in my
20s, when a man followed me homeone night, and he peered really
creepily over the gate as I wasgoing in the front door, and
completely freaked me out. Itreally shook my sense of
(02:56):
security in my own home. I mean,it seems far away from your
example but, when I think aboutit, both of them do share the
sense of some kind of certaintybeing shaken. And of security as
depending on the behaviour, theactions, or quite literally, in
my case, the gaze of others. Andboth examples are very much sort
(03:17):
of about power, yeah?
Alexis Hieu Truong (03:19):
Yeah. Well, today, we're actually talking to
someone whose work is all aboutsecurity and indeed, power. And
who's going to help us thinkabout how sociologists might
think about all of this. She'sDaria Krivonos, and a researcher
at the University of Helsinkilooking at things like
migration, race, class andpost-socialism – much of it with
(03:41):
a focus on Central and EasternEurope, including Ukraine. Hi,
Daria, great to have you withus.
Daria Krivonos (03:47):
Hi, nice to see you. Nice to hear you.
Rosie Hancock (03:50):
Daria, you just heard the wide-ranging examples,
actually, that Alexis and I gaveabout our personal experiences
with security. Is there a timein your life when you remember
first thinking in terms ofsecurity that you'd be happy to
share with us, that is?
Daria Krivonos (04:06):
Yeah, of course.
To me, my sense of security isreally tied to the question of
being a migrant, and being amigrant in Finland. And until I
got my Finnish citizenship, so Ibecame a naturalised citizen in
Finland. I think that my senseof security really dependent a
lot on the fact that, well, Ican become a deportable subject
(04:28):
at any point when my residencepermit expires. So, I had a
Russian citizenship, and before– well, I still have it – but
now I have double citizenship.
And of course, it largelyaffects my sense of security, in
the sense that, well, I'm not adeportable subject anymore and I
don't need to depend on a systemof residence permits to have a
(04:50):
regular residence in Finland.
Alexis Hieu Truong (04:52):
I guess that's a reminder that there are
all sorts of definitions, right,of security out there. And as we
mentioned, security is a termthat seems to belong either to
the world of, like, on the onehand politics and geopolitics,
and at the level of the nationstate, like borders, defence,
and so on; or otherwise it canbelong also to the world of
psychology at the really microlevel, at the level of
(05:15):
individuals. But how, like, youDaria ... how would you define
security as a socio ... in like,in sociological terms?
Daria Krivonos (05:24):
Well, indeed, security is a really broad term.
And I would say that quite oftensecurity is the term which is
used more widely ininternational relations, or in
politics, or internationalpolitics, when security is
discussed more in terms ofgeopolitics or security of
(05:45):
nation-states. But I think thatsociologists and I, myself
particularly, I'm moreinterested in questions of whose
security are we talking about(?) and more in the questions of
insecurity and precarity. And Iwould say that sociologists are
much more interested in thequestions of how security of
some people depends and relieson the insecurity of other
(06:07):
people; or how insecurity orimaginary security of a
nation-state depends on everydayinsecurity of migrants,
racialised and non-white people.
So, here I would say that it'smore about kind of whose
security we are talking about?
There is no universal security,I would say.
Rosie Hancock (06:29):
Yeah, right. So, I was thinking one of the things
that does bridge psychology andsociology is an idea called
ontological security, and bearwith me guys, like, I know that
we say "no jargon" – that's apretty jargony word. So,
ontological security was talkedabout quite a while ago by
people like the sociologistAnthony Giddens, and a couple of
(06:51):
psychologists too, and theconcept – so this is me trying
to explain it... I'll do mybest. The concept is all about
the idea of a sense of securityin one's own sense of self,
about our experience of being inthe world. So, sociologists have
used it to explore say, how weseek out certain things like
belonging and community thathelp our sense of self be stable
(07:18):
in response to the shifts andchanges out there in the wider
world. I mean, look, it's not aconcept I work with myself, if
you can't tell by that, thatslightly odd explanation. But it
seems that you could say it'ssomething that's been really
shaken for many people in recentyears. Is ontological security,
basically, a luxury that some ofus can access more easily than
(07:40):
others?
Daria Krivonos (07:42):
Well, to me, ontological security is a really
broad term. And actually, Ihaven't worked with this term
that much. To me, I think, itdoesn't really capture all the
nuances of security. And Istarted my explanation to my
understanding of security thatit's really, like ... we have to
take questions of race, gender,sexuality, class, when we talk
(08:02):
about security, and how securityand insecurity, actually, widely
are very closely connected.
That's why I was alwayswondering how exactly does the
concept of ontological securitycapture all these nuances?
Because, to me, it tends tooffer this kind of a universal
explanation of security that weall share this "universal"
(08:24):
ontological security. But thenI'm wondering whose ontology
we're talking about? If ontologyis about being, then who's being
we're talking about? And I thinkthat's the key question
sociologists have been workingwith. So, to me, I would say
that maybe ontological securityis a bit of a too broad term,
(08:47):
and it doesn't convince mereally. I would rather work with
questions of insecurity.
Alexis Hieu Truong (08:56):
Okay. Now, keeping in line with
jargon-busting, again, if we'retalking about security, there's
one word that's bound to come uppretty soon – securitisation.
So, I think it's worth stoppingto define it right away. Can you
define it a bit for us Daria?
Daria Krivonos (09:14):
Yeah. I've been working and other people are
working with questions ofmigration. We worked a lot with
the concept of securitisation ofmigration. And I will define
securitisation as a particularnarrative through which
immigration, for example, isdefined as a threat to Europe or
to Western communities. So,rather than thinking of security
(09:37):
as something stable or given orstatic, we can think about
securitisation as a process oras a narrative, which constructs
certain people as a "danger" tosecurity of other people or
states, for example.
Rosie Hancock (09:53):
You're right. So, I guess it's ... securitisation
sort of works in the same waythat a concept like
criminalisation or racialisationworks. So, you know, like, we
talk about criminalisationrather than just criminals, or
racialisation rather than justrace, because no one's a
criminal per se, and racedoesn't pre-exist social
(10:13):
processes. So, the "-isation" onsecuritisation does a similar
thing, right? Like, migrationisn't essentially threatening.
It's framed as a "securitythreat" by those who refer to it
as such.
Daria Krivonos (10:28):
Yeah, exactly. I think that this "-isation" in
the end refers to the process ofproducing certain things as a
"threat" or as a "securitythreat" to others. Or, if we
think about racialisation, it'salso about, like, producing
certain subjects, rather thanthinking of them as given or
(10:50):
like biologically naturalised.
Rosie Hancock (10:53):
Yeah, I mean, it's interesting, because, you
know, thinking about migrationnot being inherently threatening
in and of itself, I'm a migrantand I talk now like most
Australians do as well, but I'mactually from New Zealand. But
even when I just migrated, Iwasn't necessarily ever
considered or treated like a"migrant". I'm doing scare
(11:14):
quotes for listeners at home.
Because, you know, the scarydiscourse about migrants is not
necessarily about people likeme, if that makes sense.
Daria Krivonos (11:29):
Yeah, absolutely. I would say that we
can also think about what theword "migrant" means and who we
imagine as a migrant. And it'sinteresting that wherever I was
doing my fieldwork – now, forexample, I'm in Warsaw doing
fieldwork among Ukrainianmigrants, which ... I started
this project before the Russianinvasion of Ukraine. And also
(11:52):
here, nobody wanted to be a"migrant". And whenever I would
say that I'm studying Ukrainianmigrants, they would say, like,
"no, but we are normal people,you should go to this particular
bus station where labourmigrants from Ukraine are
arriving". So, the idea of amigrant is really classed and
racialised. So, not everybody isimagined as a migrant, and not
(12:16):
everybody wants to be a migrant.
That's why we have this word, asin "expat". People travelling
within the EU – like, whitepeople travelling within the EU
or travelling to non-europeancountries that they would rather
refer to themselves as "expats".
And I would even say that itmight be an insult for them to
be called "migrants".
Rosie Hancock (12:36):
Really?
Daria Krivonos (12:37):
Yeah, well, because "migrant" is ... as I
said, it's a very kind of aclassed and racialised category
that usually non-white peoplemight be referred to as
"migrants". And we can thinkeven further how people become
migrantised, or migrantisisedmight be better. So, how
(12:57):
citizens, like people who areborn in the country, how they
will be called "migrants" justbecause they're not white. So,
we see here how, again, the ideaof migration and migrant has
nothing to do or has not ... ithas nothing to do with one's
citizenship status. Because youcan be born in the country –
(13:19):
yeah, exactly – and you'd bestill referred to as a"migrant".
Alexis Hieu Truong (13:22):
That's really interesting, because
like, I was born in Canada, butbecause my father is Vietnamese,
like, I look, I guess, not white– if that's a category – and I
have my earliest memories, likegoing to elementary school and
stuff like that, is aboutexplaining where I'm from,
right, and definitely beingconsidered as someone from
(13:43):
outside of Canada. But talkingabout the securitisation of
migration, a word that oftencomes with that is the word –
crisis. So, I'm thinking, ofcourse, of the so-called
"migrant crisis" of 2015, whenmore than a million people
labelled as "migrants andrefugees" came to Europe via the
(14:04):
Mediterranean Sea. Many, but notall, driven by war in Syria,
right? There's this book byAlison Mountz, "The Death of
Asylum", where she highlightshow the word "crisis" is often
overused in the context ofmigration; how that word does
serious political work. So, Iwonder what happens if we talk
(14:25):
about the so-called "migrantcrisis" of 2015 with that kind
of critical awareness in mind?
Daria Krivonos (14:32):
I think it's important to think of "crisis"
and the narrative of crisis asproductive. So, and again, I
think that all our conversationis about how we shouldn't take
anything for granted neither"security" nor "crisis", nor
"migrant". So, let's take onemore word, well – crisis. I
think it's a really dangerousway to frame certain things as
(14:56):
crisis, and for example, whatwas happening in 2015 when one
million people labelled as"refugees and migrants" came to
Europe, then the situation wasframed as "crisis". But, then,
we can also ask what thisnarrative and the discourse of
"crisis" do? Because when wecall something "crisis", then we
(15:17):
frame the situation as reallyunprecedented, unexpected,
something that should requirevery fast, immediate,
unprecedented response. And Ithink this is the moment when we
should look into how borderenforcement becomes even more
strengthened, and how more andmore money is being invested
(15:39):
into the policing of borders.
And then it becomes allnaturalised and explained ...
"Well, we are in a situation ofcrisis, we have to react, we
have to ... we have to protectour borders, we have to protect
ourselves."
Rosie Hancock (15:52):
I mean, yeah, I mean, like, I think one of the
other things that's reallyinteresting is that it's framed
as a "migrant crisis", whereasyou could just as easily frame
it as a "protection crisis". So,you know, it's, it's, I think
... and I'm getting this fromthe Danish Refugee Council, who
described this so-called"migrant crisis" of 2015 as a
(16:14):
protection crisis. And theysaid, it's due to a lack of will
to share the responsibility toprotect refugees arriving in the
EU. So, the crisis is actually,you know, experienced by the
migrants.
Daria Krivonos (16:27):
Yeah, we can ask, whose crisis is it? Because
many EU countries frame it asthe crisis of the EU
nation-states; that they are incrisis. Well, actually, if we
think about it ... rather thinkabout it as a crisis of migrants
and a humanitarian catastrophewhen, well, when people are
being violently expelled fromthe borders. So, whose crisis is
(16:51):
it? And again, there is atendency to portray European
states as being the ones thatbear all the costs of this
so-called "crisis", whileactually these other
neighbouring states, likeLebanon, for example – which
holds, like, a much biggernumber of Syrian refugees than
Europe, for example, per capita.
And again, there is a tendencyto think about crisis in terms
(17:16):
of numbers. But, again, if youwill look into the data, we
understand that crisis haslittle to do with numbers
themselves. And if we look intothe current situation with
Ukrainian refugees; so, it's the71st day of the war. And in this
time, Poland alone has accepted2.5 million Ukrainian refugees,
(17:40):
and we can't see the word"crisis" circulating anywhere.
And the same happens in Finland,when 30,000 asylum seekers from
Iraq and Afghanistan arrived toFinland in 2015, then it was
seen as this massive andunprecedented "crisis". But now,
(18:00):
around 20,000 Ukrainian refugeesarrived in two months and we
don't see anywhere thecirculation of this "crisis"
discourse.
Rosie Hancock (18:14):
Yeah. So, just a quick note to listeners, you say
it's the 71st day of the war,and we're recording this in May
2022. So, you know, who knowswhere things will be when this
goes out. Now, there are manyconflicts around the world that
are threatening people'ssecurity. Yemen, where the World
Food Programme reports that upto 19 million people are
(18:35):
experiencing food insecurity,and that includes millions of
children suffering from acutemalnutrition. And in Ethiopia,
where violence and ethniccleansing have shaken the tenets
of what we think of as humansecurity. So, that's things like
freedom from fear, freedom fromwant, and so on. But security
has been in the headlines a lotrecently, because of Ukraine, I
(18:58):
think, and where you are, Daria,there's been speculation, at
least at the time of recordingthis episode, that Finland is
going to join NATO prompted bythis assault on Ukraine. That
seems to be about security inthe most conventional sense. But
how has this word, "security",been coming up in other
(19:18):
conversations that you might behearing? I'm thinking about what
is sociologically interestingabout the war in Ukraine and the
language of security that'ssurrounding it.
Daria Krivonos (19:30):
One way we can talk about that is to think
about temporary protection,which is now granted to
Ukrainian refugees; and indeed,is now celebrated as a very
unprecedented decision, whichwas made really quickly to
support Ukrainian refugees. Butthen we can also think about
what kind of security itentails, because a temporary
(19:51):
protection means that peoplehave, like, an immediate rights
to stay – to stay in the EU –for a year and then it can be
extended to up to three years.
But then, what kind of securityis that? Because people are
expected to join labour marketsimmediately, and they don't
receive any welfare protectionand any social security rights.
(20:12):
So, they would ... in thecontext of Finland, for example,
that they would get access tohousing, like in reception
centres, and then, 270 EUROS amonth of monetary support. But
then, of course, you can't makea living out of this money, and
then you're expected to join thelabour markets. And we can also
(20:32):
think about how, previously,Ukrainian labour was really
sustaining European economiesfor a really long time,
particularly in the context ofseasonal labour, and quite
often, the hosting of Ukrainianor the welcoming of Ukrainian
refugees is discussed in thecontext of absorbing their
labour, for example, inagricultural work. And many
(20:57):
Finnish farmers already arediscussing that, "okay, we
really need these Ukrainianrefugees to labour in our
farms", which was alreadyhappening before but now these
labour migrants are coming tofill in into other countries as
refugees. And now are expectedto be reabsorbed as labour
again. And then, again, we thinkabout how Ukrainianess is not
(21:19):
anything universal, and how, forexample, students from African
countries face discriminationand were even, like, expelled at
some times when trying to accessthe European borders. And again,
we can see that there is nothinguniversal about security, even
when you're coming from Ukraine,which is being bombed by Russia
(21:42):
at the moment.
Alexis Hieu Truong (21:44):
On this point of the response to
Ukrainian refugees – like,raising questions of unequal
treatment of different refugeesand migrant groups, right? Where
I am, in the City of Ottawadebated the idea of giving
Ukrainians a free bus pass – Ithink it was like for six months
– to help them with arrivals andexactly, like, looking for jobs
(22:06):
and so on, right? But obviously,other people ask, "well, what
about other people who are also,for example, refugees, who are
being displaced? Who arearriving to Canada, right?" They
also have needs, right? So, inthe end, it seems like the
authorities will indeed makethat available to more people,
but I think it shows us exactlyhow different groups of people
(22:30):
with similar needs actuallymight be understood, framed,
defined, labeled, etc,differently, just because of who
they are or where they're from,basically. In Europe, there have
been many reports of people ofcolour fleeing Ukraine, but
being turned away at the bordersof neighbouring states, and your
work on racial capitalism,predating the conflict in
(22:54):
Ukraine, adds to these recentexamples of racism. I'm thinking
of your piece about young whitepeople migrating from Ukraine
and Russia to Finland andPoland. Can you expand a bit
more and tell us a bit moreabout that work, and in doing so
also about what racialcapitalism actually is?
Daria Krivonos (23:14):
When I was writing that piece, I was
thinking a lot about how thereis so much work which discusses
how East European migrants arenot considered as fully white;
how their whiteness iscontingent, insecure; how this
whiteness is not a fullwhiteness, which Western
European – white WesternEuropean – people would enjoy.
(23:37):
But then, I was thinking whatwork this racialisation does.
So, what does it mean whenyou're a not fully white person?
And then I was thinking that itmight be helpful to think in
terms of racial capitalism, andto look into how this non fully
white people become absorbed bythe labour markets as cheap and
(23:59):
labour, while at the same timenot disturbing and not
destabilising the hegemonicwhiteness of West European
societies. So, for example, ifwe take the context of Poland,
which was usually discussed asthis country from where many
people would arrive to the UK,for example, and there was a lot
(24:20):
of work on Polish migrants inthe UK, but also Poland is
becoming this country whichhosts a very big number of
Ukrainian labour migrants – wellnow, Ukrainian refugees. And
before the war, at least, therecruitment of Ukrainian workers
had been one of the responses tothe demographic decline of
Polish workers who now migratedfurther west. And then, on the
(24:43):
one hand, we can see howUkrainian students and student
workers and workers wererecruited as desirable,
culturally similar orlinguistically similar workers
who are welcome to Poland andwho should be kind of fill in
the demand for labour. But, atthe same time, we can see how
(25:05):
these workers were incorporatedas a really cheap and precarious
labour force, and how on the dayto day level, these migrants
experienced everyday borderingand everyday forms of racism.
So, whoever I would talk totheir will tell me about their
everyday experiences of beingharassed on the streets.
Rosie Hancock (25:27):
We'll be back in a moment to talk more about work
and insecurity, after a quickhello from our producer, Alice.
Alice Bloch (25:34):
Hi, and thanks for joining us here at Uncommon
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Rosie Hancock (26:29):
Well, this seems like a good moment to dig a
little bit deeper into securityas it relates to migration work
and labour, which we've alreadykind of just started talking
about, a little bit. So, back in2020, at the start of the
COVID-19 pandemic, Daria, youwrote about how, although many
countries in Europe had closedtheir borders, some of the very
(26:51):
few international flights thatdid, at least then, continue to
operate were charter flightswith workers from Eastern
Europe. Essentially, they wereallowing workers in fields like
health care and food to reachtheir places of work. And, with
this, you say that the words"borders" and "security"
(27:11):
acquired a totally oppositemeaning to the one we've all
gotten used to in recentdecades. So, in other words,
here was the idea that bordersactually had to be kept open to
ensure our security. And thatkind of offers up a whole new
understanding of what we mean bysecurity – like, something to do
with, apparently, our quality oflife, the standard of living
(27:32):
with food security.
Daria Krivonos (27:34):
Yeah, that's right. We could see how the
borders had to remain openspecifically for so-called
"essential workers" coming fromEastern Europe to work in the
agricultural sector. And Ithought that it was quite
interesting how the wholediscourse of security suddenly
changed in relation to borders,because now the question of food
(27:55):
security in western and northernEurope became so important. And
we suddenly realise that thefood that we get to our place
doesn't come from nowhere, butsomebody has to come and
actually grow the vegetables,pick them up. So, the borders
really had to be openexclusively for agricultural
(28:17):
workers coming from EasternEurope.
Alexis Hieu Truong (28:19):
Now, what we're talking about here seems
to apply more generally waybeyond COVID. And, I guess,
we're getting at this idea that,under capitalism, the security
of some depends on theinsecurity of others, yes? And
it kind of reminds me, in fact,of last month's episode, where
we talked about intimacy and theillusion of contactless
(28:42):
transactions. Really, ourconsumption or prosperity
depends big time on the labour,often the precarious labour, the
invisible labour of others,right?
Daria Krivonos (28:53):
Yeah, that's true. If we think about security
as about the ability of lifegoing forward, then we should
really look into who makes thislife possible. And then
essentially, we have to starttalking about questions of
labour. But, quite often, whenwe talk about labour we tend to
think about this kind ofproductive labour, but we ... or
(29:14):
profit-making labour. But we canalso kind of change the focus
and think about what somefeminists called life-making
labour. And we also can thinkabout agricultural labour as
life-making labour. Exactly, thequestion of food security
relates to the questions of lifeand maintaining our lives. So,
(29:36):
then, we have to look into,well, who is actually
maintaining and reproducing ourlives? And the history of this
labour is the history ofunrecognition and
misrecognition.
Rosie Hancock (29:48):
So, for the fieldwork that you did in the
piece we were just talking aboutbefore, you were talking to
Ukrainian workers about theirexperiences of precarious labour
in the COVID-19 crisis and youfound that they were generally
underpaid and unprotected. And,I mean, that's something that I
think is really important toraise because there's all of
(30:10):
this discourse around#StandwithUkraine, which is ...
it's definitely had a momenthere in Australia. I'm wondering
if you know, maybe you've ...
it's been big in Finland too (?)But considering so much of
Ukraine's GDP comes fromremittances from money sent back
home from migrant workers – andI think you mentioned in that
2020 piece, it's about 11% – itkind of seems like standing with
(30:33):
Ukraine and Ukrainians, in thebroadest possible sense, would
mean supporting Ukrainianworkers in other countries. So,
making sure that they have jobsecurity, and that they're paid
well, because otherwise, we'rejust kind of hypocrites.
Daria Krivonos (30:49):
Yeah, I agree with you and, thinking about the
future – and even in terms oftemporary protection – we really
should ask, "okay, on whatconditions people are being
welcomed?" They're also beingwelcomed into these gradations
of Europeanness and gradationsof whiteness, because people
will have to make their livingon their own very quickly, and
(31:11):
contrary to our common vision ofrefugees as some kind of
recipients of humanitariansupport. Actually, also, before
the war in Ukraine, all sorts ofrefugees were always included
into raced labour markets asprecarious and cheap labour. So,
we should be really askingourselves, what does it mean,
(31:31):
"we stand with Ukraine"? Well,we should be standing with the
Ukrainian workers. But, if wetalk about standing with
Ukraine, then we should also betalking about the question of
Ukrainian debt; because, as withother Eastern European
countries, after the collapse ofthe Soviet Union, many countries
had to take a lot ofInternational Monetary Fund
(31:53):
loans, which placed strictlimits on social spending. And,
as a result of that, Ukrainebecame heavily indebted. So, if
we want to stand with Ukraine,we should also be talking about
the question of Ukrainian debtand cancelling Ukrainian debt.
Alexis Hieu Truong (32:11):
Thanks, Daria. So, we're getting to the
part of our show, now, where welike to grab something we rarely
stop to question, and we'll kindof tear it apart.
Rosie Hancock (32:21):
And today, we thought we're talking about
something we take for granted sobadly that, to be honest, we
almost didn't think of it atall. And that is borders. So, if
you're pretty privileged,borders probably aren't
something that you think aboutevery day. Perhaps it's only
something that you think aboutwhen you have to go through
passport control. Or if you getannoyed when the body scanner
(32:44):
beeps at you at security. Imean, I remember being totally
shocked when, years ago, Ientered Israel from Jordan and
was held for four hours whilethey questioned me. I had never
ever experienced something likethat before. But, for other
people, that's just their normalreality.
Alexis Hieu Truong (33:02):
Yeah. I guess many of us are educated to
just think that borders aresomething that exists around the
edges of countries – they'rethose dotted lines on maps that
stir our imaginations as kids,the things people cross on films
like "The Sound of Music". But,Daria, how would you define a
border? Sociologists see them asa bit more slippery than say
(33:24):
cartographers do.
Daria Krivonos (33:26):
Yeah, I agree that, quite often, we tend to
think about borders as somethingterritorially fixed, as a kind
of a line that divides thenation-states. But we can also
think about borders morecritically, and think about
borders as a series of practicesthat involve everyday. And we
(33:46):
can talk about everydaybordering as the processes that
kind of produce this everydayhierarchies and stop people's
movements in the everyday life,while already being in the
national territory. But also wecan extend the concept of the
border and to think about how EUborders become externalised in
the African continent, forexample, through colonial
(34:09):
practices, and how the Europeanborder regime operates, like,
deep into the African continent,for instance, and how the
borders there operate evenbefore the movement starts. But,
talking about everyday forms ofbordering, we can also think
about how borders become enactedby police checks in how people
(34:35):
can be asked to show theirdocuments and residence permits,
or how, for example, havingaccess to the banking system and
opening a bank account, havingaccess to housing; how these are
also forms of everydaybordering, while already being
in the territory of thenation-state.
Alexis Hieu Truong (34:53):
That concept of everyday bordering is at the
heart of work by people likeNira Yuval-Davis, Georgie
Wemyss, Kathryn Cassidy andothers. Do you have examples of
it from your own work, fromplaces like Finland say?
Daria Krivonos (35:07):
Well, particularly in the context of
Finland, you can't do anythingif you don't have a social
security number, or if you don'thave a bank account, because ...
For instance, if you want tosign up to visit a doctor, you
should have a so-called bankingcodes to identify yourself. But
you can't have access to thisbanking codes if you don't have
(35:28):
a certain type of a residencepermit or if you're not staying
in Finland permanently. So, wecan see here how, even if you
are already in the territory ofFinland, and even if you have
all the required documents, oreven if you're staying with a
tourist visa, for instance, yet,you don't have access to certain
forms of kind of very essentialand normalised practices, like
(35:51):
going to visit a doctor, forinstance.
Rosie Hancock (35:54):
It's really interesting, this conversation,
Daria, because, here inAustralia, when I think of
bordering, my mind immediatelyjumps to the hard border. And I
think that's what lots of peoplethink about when they think of
Australia, because everyonewho's tried to seek asylum in
Australia and have come by boat– since, I think about 2013 –
have been told that they'renever going to get permanent
residency, they can apply forrefugee status, and then they're
(36:18):
just put on this cycle oftemporary protection visa after
temporary protection visa thatthey have to keep reapplying
for. It's just this kind ofawful, perpetual insecurity.
But, I mean, what you'redescribing is really making me
think about how border policyand surveillance follows people
around in their everyday lives.
And, I guess, what you're sayingis that it could actually rip up
(36:40):
the social fabric. Do you thinkthat that happens in Finland?
Daria Krivonos (36:47):
Certainly. And in the context of Finland, there
is a tendency, of course, todiscuss the state in relation to
the welfare state, and todiscuss the high trust in the
state. But, actually, if we talkto non-white people or to
migrants, then we see a verydifferent picture of ... in
terms of trust to the state.
Because everyday forms ofbordering – like police checks
(37:10):
and how Roma people, forexample, are being followed in
the shops through this racialprofiling – how these forms of
everyday bordering are reallydisrupting people's trust in the
state. And quite often, we tendto think of the trust in the
welfare state as verynormalised, that "okay,
(37:31):
everybody believes in the Nordicwelfare state". Well, but
actually it doesn't work foreverybody. It doesn't work for
all the people in the same ways.
And, of course, it is tied toquestions of race in particular
ways.
Alexis Hieu Truong (37:45):
Okay, so, we've been talking about some
pretty heavy stuff today. Butbefore we go, just to wind down
a bit, we wanted to each shareour recommendations for
something from what you call /might call "pop culture" –
something that speaks to thistheme of security; a movie, a
book, an artwork, a song,something you've seen on social
(38:07):
media? Whatever. So, Rosie, whatwould be your recommendation?
Rosie Hancock (38:12):
Okay, mine is probably a little bit obvious.
But I'm going to say "TheMauritanian" movie with Benedict
Cumberbatch. So, it's just yourkind of classic story about the
overreach of the state, takingtheir national security
imperative way too far andpersecuting someone that they
don't have enough evidence for.
So, lots of themes is likeextradition and all of that kind
(38:33):
of stuff. It's not verycheerful. Alexis, what about
you?
Alexis Hieu Truong (38:41):
Actually, this theme kind of like, threw
me into a very nostalgic moodand made me think of Rage
Against the Machine, which Ilistened to a lot, like, in my
teen years; and the song"Without a Face". So, that's a
song that speaks to, like, themigration and borders, Mexico
and the South of the US. Butyeah, in that particular song,
(39:04):
the lyrics start off with a "gotno card so I got no soul, life
is prison, no parole, nocontrol". And that really, like,
yeah ... it really linked tothat theme, and it made me
remember how, like, yeah, duringthose teen years when those were
things that I hadn't reallythought about; that there was a
lot of political, maybe,reflections, or a lot of
(39:27):
critical reflections that camefrom songs like that. Daria, am
I right that you also wanted torecommend a song?
Daria Krivonos (39:36):
Yeah, I wanted to recommend a song by Kae
Tempest. I've been listening alot to their music lately. And I
particularly like the songcalled "People's Faces". It's a
little bit sad, maybe, but Idon't know, I wouldn't maybe
define it as sad, but I thinkit's the song about struggle and
hope, and I like the poetrythere. It's, well, Kae Tempest
(39:58):
sings, "too much depends on thefragile wages, and the extortion
of rents here." And then, theyalso say that "the old ways need
to end", and "did you everwonder if all these could be
done differently?" And everytime I listen to this song I ask
myself this question – could allthis be done differently? And I
(40:18):
think that that's the questionwe should be asking ourselves on
a daily basis, and continue oursociological thinking and our
struggle.
Rosie Hancock (40:27):
Thank you so much, Daria. You have given us
so much to think about fortoday. And I think Alexis and I
are going to have a lot to chatabout later. But we'll say
goodbye here.
Daria Krivonos (40:38):
Thank you. Thank you for inviting me here. It was
great to talk to you.
Alexis Hieu Truong (40:47):
Well, that's it for this month. We'll make
sure all of thoserecommendations and more are in
our episode's notes, and over onthe podcast page at
thesociologicalreview.org.
Rosie, what I'll take away fromtoday is a question that Daria
asked us, right – whose securityand whose insecurity? And I
think that, really, when we werefocusing on this question of
(41:09):
"who?", it really brought itback to the humans and the
people and the experiences. So,I really ... that really gave me
a lot to think about. What aboutyou?
Rosie Hancock (41:21):
Look, I mean, I was gonna say that the thing I'm
going to be thinking about themost is the idea that someone's
security depends on someoneelse's insecurity. But,
actually, what's really nice is– and I guess it kind of ties
nicely in with that – is rightat the very end of her
(41:41):
recommendation of Kae Tempest'ssong, "People's Faces", and the
question "can we do thisdifferently?" I think that's ...
that's pretty great.
Alexis Hieu Truong (41:52):
Yeah. And we also talked about, like, borders
and boundaries. I'm pretty surethat that will be coming up next
month, also, when we turn to thetheme of bodies.
Rosie Hancock (42:03):
Ooh, I'm excited about that one. So, if you've
enjoyed listening to UncommonSense, please tap follow and
rate or review us in whateverapp you're using. And do share
us with your friends and family.
Alexis Hieu Truong (42:15):
Our executive producer was Alice
Bloch. Our sound engineer wasDave Crackles. Thanks for
listening.
Rosie Hancock (42:22):
Bye!
Alexis Hieu Truong (42:23):
Bye.
Hi, welcome back to Uncommon Sense from The
Sociological Review, I'm AlexisHieu Truong in Quebec, Canada.
Rosie Hancock (00:11):
And I'm Rosie Hancock in Sydney, Australia.
This podcast is about showingthat sociology doesn't belong to
universities or professionalacademics, it belongs to all of
us. Each month, we takesomething we might assume we're
pretty familiar with. And we sitwith it for a while to try and
have a look at it sideways.
Because, actually, talkingdifferently about the world can
(00:31):
be a route to changing it.
Alexis Hieu Truong (00:34):
Now, today, we're looking at something you
might think sociologists have alittle to do with: security.
Think of that word, and perhapsyou jumped to images of passport
control, border control, perhapsterrorism, politicians going on
about national security, andindeed, the restrictions on
civil liberties after 9/11 andthe rise of Islamophobia. So, I
(00:58):
guess, like what we're thinkingabout here is really, like,
these ideas of control, fear,borders, walls, and othering.
Rosie Hancock (01:06):
You can totally also go the other way, though,
and think about it at a reallypersonal level. So, the idea of
security is somethingindividual. And I'm thinking
here about even psychologicalinsecurity – psychological
insecurity which I reckon hasalways been pretty gendered;
shout-out to Kanye West singing"All Falls Down" about a woman
(01:26):
being insecure or whatever. Imean, it's clear that security
is just this vast, fascinating,but also very slippery notion.
I don't know, Alexis, I'dsuggest that security seems like
something we often only becomereally aware of when it feels
(01:48):
threatened. Can I ask when youfirst remember being aware of
security, personally?
Alexis Hieu Truong (01:54):
Hmm ...
There was this time when I wasdoing my MA in Social Work, and
I was working in a high school.
And there was an incident with ayouth that brought a BB gun that
looked like a gun, and then thecops were called, they came in,
they stormed the cafeteria ...
But, interacting with thestudents afterwards, what was
most threatening, like, aboutthe safety ... that was not the
idea, necessarily, of the BB gunitself. It was really the
(02:17):
interactions with the police,where many of the students had
had prior interactions withpolice that they would define as
negative or violent, and thatreally had a big impact on them.
What about you, Rosie?
Rosie Hancock (02:33):
Yeah, well, I guess my example feels pretty
different, actually. The momentwhen I first felt my security is
something that was at stake orunder threat, was back in my
20s, when a man followed me homeone night, and he peered really
creepily over the gate as I wasgoing in the front door, and
completely freaked me out. Itreally shook my sense of
(02:56):
security in my own home. I mean,it seems far away from your
example but, when I think aboutit, both of them do share the
sense of some kind of certaintybeing shaken. And of security as
depending on the behaviour, theactions, or quite literally, in
my case, the gaze of others. Andboth examples are very much sort
(03:17):
of about power, yeah?
Alexis Hieu Truong (03:19):
Yeah. Well, today, we're actually talking to
someone whose work is all aboutsecurity and indeed, power. And
who's going to help us thinkabout how sociologists might
think about all of this. She'sDaria Krivonos, and a researcher
at the University of Helsinkilooking at things like
migration, race, class andpost-socialism – much of it with
(03:41):
a focus on Central and EasternEurope, including Ukraine. Hi,
Daria, great to have you withus.
Daria Krivonos (03:47):
Hi, nice to see you. Nice to hear you.
Rosie Hancock (03:50):
Daria, you just heard the wide-ranging examples,
actually, that Alexis and I gaveabout our personal experiences
with security. Is there a timein your life when you remember
first thinking in terms ofsecurity that you'd be happy to
share with us, that is?
Daria Krivonos (04:06):
Yeah, of course.
To me, my sense of security isreally tied to the question of
being a migrant, and being amigrant in Finland. And until I
got my Finnish citizenship, so Ibecame a naturalised citizen in
Finland. I think that my senseof security really dependent a
lot on the fact that, well, Ican become a deportable subject
(04:28):
at any point when my residencepermit expires. So, I had a
Russian citizenship, and before– well, I still have it – but
now I have double citizenship.
And of course, it largelyaffects my sense of security, in
the sense that, well, I'm not adeportable subject anymore and I
don't need to depend on a systemof residence permits to have a
(04:50):
regular residence in Finland.
Alexis Hieu Truong (04:52):
I guess that's a reminder that there are
all sorts of definitions, right,of security out there. And as we
mentioned, security is a termthat seems to belong either to
the world of, like, on the onehand politics and geopolitics,
and at the level of the nationstate, like borders, defence,
and so on; or otherwise it canbelong also to the world of
psychology at the really microlevel, at the level of
(05:15):
individuals. But how, like, youDaria ... how would you define
security as a socio ... in like,in sociological terms?
Daria Krivonos (05:24):
Well, indeed, security is a really broad term.
And I would say that quite oftensecurity is the term which is
used more widely ininternational relations, or in
politics, or internationalpolitics, when security is
discussed more in terms ofgeopolitics or security of
(05:45):
nation-states. But I think thatsociologists and I, myself
particularly, I'm moreinterested in questions of whose
security are we talking about(?) and more in the questions of
insecurity and precarity. And Iwould say that sociologists are
much more interested in thequestions of how security of
some people depends and relieson the insecurity of other
(06:07):
people; or how insecurity orimaginary security of a
nation-state depends on everydayinsecurity of migrants,
racialised and non-white people.
So, here I would say that it'smore about kind of whose
security we are talking about?
There is no universal security,I would say.
Rosie Hancock (06:29):
Yeah, right. So, I was thinking one of the things
that does bridge psychology andsociology is an idea called
ontological security, and bearwith me guys, like, I know that
we say "no jargon" – that's apretty jargony word. So,
ontological security was talkedabout quite a while ago by
people like the sociologistAnthony Giddens, and a couple of
(06:51):
psychologists too, and theconcept – so this is me trying
to explain it... I'll do mybest. The concept is all about
the idea of a sense of securityin one's own sense of self,
about our experience of being inthe world. So, sociologists have
used it to explore say, how weseek out certain things like
belonging and community thathelp our sense of self be stable
(07:18):
in response to the shifts andchanges out there in the wider
world. I mean, look, it's not aconcept I work with myself, if
you can't tell by that, thatslightly odd explanation. But it
seems that you could say it'ssomething that's been really
shaken for many people in recentyears. Is ontological security,
basically, a luxury that some ofus can access more easily than
(07:40):
others?
Daria Krivonos (07:42):
Well, to me, ontological security is a really
broad term. And actually, Ihaven't worked with this term
that much. To me, I think, itdoesn't really capture all the
nuances of security. And Istarted my explanation to my
understanding of security thatit's really, like ... we have to
take questions of race, gender,sexuality, class, when we talk
(08:02):
about security, and how securityand insecurity, actually, widely
are very closely connected.
That's why I was alwayswondering how exactly does the
concept of ontological securitycapture all these nuances?
Because, to me, it tends tooffer this kind of a universal
explanation of security that weall share this "universal"
(08:24):
ontological security. But thenI'm wondering whose ontology
we're talking about? If ontologyis about being, then who's being
we're talking about? And I thinkthat's the key question
sociologists have been workingwith. So, to me, I would say
that maybe ontological securityis a bit of a too broad term,
(08:47):
and it doesn't convince mereally. I would rather work with
questions of insecurity.
Alexis Hieu Truong (08:56):
Okay. Now, keeping in line with
jargon-busting, again, if we'retalking about security, there's
one word that's bound to come uppretty soon – securitisation.
So, I think it's worth stoppingto define it right away. Can you
define it a bit for us Daria?
Daria Krivonos (09:14):
Yeah. I've been working and other people are
working with questions ofmigration. We worked a lot with
the concept of securitisation ofmigration. And I will define
securitisation as a particularnarrative through which
immigration, for example, isdefined as a threat to Europe or
to Western communities. So,rather than thinking of security
(09:37):
as something stable or given orstatic, we can think about
securitisation as a process oras a narrative, which constructs
certain people as a "danger" tosecurity of other people or
states, for example.
Rosie Hancock (09:53):
You're right. So, I guess it's ... securitisation
sort of works in the same waythat a concept like
criminalisation or racialisationworks. So, you know, like, we
talk about criminalisationrather than just criminals, or
racialisation rather than justrace, because no one's a
criminal per se, and racedoesn't pre-exist social
(10:13):
processes. So, the "-isation" onsecuritisation does a similar
thing, right? Like, migrationisn't essentially threatening.
It's framed as a "securitythreat" by those who refer to it
as such.
Daria Krivonos (10:28):
Yeah, exactly. I think that this "-isation" in
the end refers to the process ofproducing certain things as a
"threat" or as a "securitythreat" to others. Or, if we
think about racialisation, it'salso about, like, producing
certain subjects, rather thanthinking of them as given or
(10:50):
like biologically naturalised.
Rosie Hancock (10:53):
Yeah, I mean, it's interesting, because, you
know, thinking about migrationnot being inherently threatening
in and of itself, I'm a migrantand I talk now like most
Australians do as well, but I'mactually from New Zealand. But
even when I just migrated, Iwasn't necessarily ever
considered or treated like a"migrant". I'm doing scare
(11:14):
quotes for listeners at home.
Because, you know, the scarydiscourse about migrants is not
necessarily about people likeme, if that makes sense.
Daria Krivonos (11:29):
Yeah, absolutely. I would say that we
can also think about what theword "migrant" means and who we
imagine as a migrant. And it'sinteresting that wherever I was
doing my fieldwork – now, forexample, I'm in Warsaw doing
fieldwork among Ukrainianmigrants, which ... I started
this project before the Russianinvasion of Ukraine. And also
(11:52):
here, nobody wanted to be a"migrant". And whenever I would
say that I'm studying Ukrainianmigrants, they would say, like,
"no, but we are normal people,you should go to this particular
bus station where labourmigrants from Ukraine are
arriving". So, the idea of amigrant is really classed and
racialised. So, not everybody isimagined as a migrant, and not
(12:16):
everybody wants to be a migrant.
That's why we have this word, asin "expat". People travelling
within the EU – like, whitepeople travelling within the EU
or travelling to non-europeancountries that they would rather
refer to themselves as "expats".
And I would even say that itmight be an insult for them to
be called "migrants".
Rosie Hancock (12:36):
Really?
Daria Krivonos (12:37):
Yeah, well, because "migrant" is ... as I
said, it's a very kind of aclassed and racialised category
that usually non-white peoplemight be referred to as
"migrants". And we can thinkeven further how people become
migrantised, or migrantisisedmight be better. So, how
(12:57):
citizens, like people who areborn in the country, how they
will be called "migrants" justbecause they're not white. So,
we see here how, again, the ideaof migration and migrant has
nothing to do or has not ... ithas nothing to do with one's
citizenship status. Because youcan be born in the country –
(13:19):
yeah, exactly – and you'd bestill referred to as a"migrant".
Alexis Hieu Truong (13:22):
That's really interesting, because
like, I was born in Canada, butbecause my father is Vietnamese,
like, I look, I guess, not white– if that's a category – and I
have my earliest memories, likegoing to elementary school and
stuff like that, is aboutexplaining where I'm from,
right, and definitely beingconsidered as someone from
(13:43):
outside of Canada. But talkingabout the securitisation of
migration, a word that oftencomes with that is the word –
crisis. So, I'm thinking, ofcourse, of the so-called
"migrant crisis" of 2015, whenmore than a million people
labelled as "migrants andrefugees" came to Europe via the
(14:04):
Mediterranean Sea. Many, but notall, driven by war in Syria,
right? There's this book byAlison Mountz, "The Death of
Asylum", where she highlightshow the word "crisis" is often
overused in the context ofmigration; how that word does
serious political work. So, Iwonder what happens if we talk
(14:25):
about the so-called "migrantcrisis" of 2015 with that kind
of critical awareness in mind?
Daria Krivonos (14:32):
I think it's important to think of "crisis"
and the narrative of crisis asproductive. So, and again, I
think that all our conversationis about how we shouldn't take
anything for granted neither"security" nor "crisis", nor
"migrant". So, let's take onemore word, well – crisis. I
think it's a really dangerousway to frame certain things as
(14:56):
crisis, and for example, whatwas happening in 2015 when one
million people labelled as"refugees and migrants" came to
Europe, then the situation wasframed as "crisis". But, then,
we can also ask what thisnarrative and the discourse of
"crisis" do? Because when wecall something "crisis", then we
(15:17):
frame the situation as reallyunprecedented, unexpected,
something that should requirevery fast, immediate,
unprecedented response. And Ithink this is the moment when we
should look into how borderenforcement becomes even more
strengthened, and how more andmore money is being invested
(15:39):
into the policing of borders.
And then it becomes allnaturalised and explained ...
"Well, we are in a situation ofcrisis, we have to react, we
have to ... we have to protectour borders, we have to protect
ourselves."
Rosie Hancock (15:52):
I mean, yeah, I mean, like, I think one of the
other things that's reallyinteresting is that it's framed
as a "migrant crisis", whereasyou could just as easily frame
it as a "protection crisis". So,you know, it's, it's, I think
... and I'm getting this fromthe Danish Refugee Council, who
described this so-called"migrant crisis" of 2015 as a
(16:14):
protection crisis. And theysaid, it's due to a lack of will
to share the responsibility toprotect refugees arriving in the
EU. So, the crisis is actually,you know, experienced by the
migrants.
Daria Krivonos (16:27):
Yeah, we can ask, whose crisis is it? Because
many EU countries frame it asthe crisis of the EU
nation-states; that they are incrisis. Well, actually, if we
think about it ... rather thinkabout it as a crisis of migrants
and a humanitarian catastrophewhen, well, when people are
being violently expelled fromthe borders. So, whose crisis is
(16:51):
it? And again, there is atendency to portray European
states as being the ones thatbear all the costs of this
so-called "crisis", whileactually these other
neighbouring states, likeLebanon, for example – which
holds, like, a much biggernumber of Syrian refugees than
Europe, for example, per capita.
And again, there is a tendencyto think about crisis in terms
(17:16):
of numbers. But, again, if youwill look into the data, we
understand that crisis haslittle to do with numbers
themselves. And if we look intothe current situation with
Ukrainian refugees; so, it's the71st day of the war. And in this
time, Poland alone has accepted2.5 million Ukrainian refugees,
(17:40):
and we can't see the word"crisis" circulating anywhere.
And the same happens in Finland,when 30,000 asylum seekers from
Iraq and Afghanistan arrived toFinland in 2015, then it was
seen as this massive andunprecedented "crisis". But now,
(18:00):
around 20,000 Ukrainian refugeesarrived in two months and we
don't see anywhere thecirculation of this "crisis"
discourse.
Rosie Hancock (18:14):
Yeah. So, just a quick note to listeners, you say
it's the 71st day of the war,and we're recording this in May
2022. So, you know, who knowswhere things will be when this
goes out. Now, there are manyconflicts around the world that
are threatening people'ssecurity. Yemen, where the World
Food Programme reports that upto 19 million people are
(18:35):
experiencing food insecurity,and that includes millions of
children suffering from acutemalnutrition. And in Ethiopia,
where violence and ethniccleansing have shaken the tenets
of what we think of as humansecurity. So, that's things like
freedom from fear, freedom fromwant, and so on. But security
has been in the headlines a lotrecently, because of Ukraine, I
(18:58):
think, and where you are, Daria,there's been speculation, at
least at the time of recordingthis episode, that Finland is
going to join NATO prompted bythis assault on Ukraine. That
seems to be about security inthe most conventional sense. But
how has this word, "security",been coming up in other
(19:18):
conversations that you might behearing? I'm thinking about what
is sociologically interestingabout the war in Ukraine and the
language of security that'ssurrounding it.
Daria Krivonos (19:30):
One way we can talk about that is to think
about temporary protection,which is now granted to
Ukrainian refugees; and indeed,is now celebrated as a very
unprecedented decision, whichwas made really quickly to
support Ukrainian refugees. Butthen we can also think about
what kind of security itentails, because a temporary
(19:51):
protection means that peoplehave, like, an immediate rights
to stay – to stay in the EU –for a year and then it can be
extended to up to three years.
But then, what kind of securityis that? Because people are
expected to join labour marketsimmediately, and they don't
receive any welfare protectionand any social security rights.
(20:12):
So, they would ... in thecontext of Finland, for example,
that they would get access tohousing, like in reception
centres, and then, 270 EUROS amonth of monetary support. But
then, of course, you can't makea living out of this money, and
then you're expected to join thelabour markets. And we can also
(20:32):
think about how, previously,Ukrainian labour was really
sustaining European economiesfor a really long time,
particularly in the context ofseasonal labour, and quite
often, the hosting of Ukrainianor the welcoming of Ukrainian
refugees is discussed in thecontext of absorbing their
labour, for example, inagricultural work. And many
(20:57):
Finnish farmers already arediscussing that, "okay, we
really need these Ukrainianrefugees to labour in our
farms", which was alreadyhappening before but now these
labour migrants are coming tofill in into other countries as
refugees. And now are expectedto be reabsorbed as labour
again. And then, again, we thinkabout how Ukrainianess is not
(21:19):
anything universal, and how, forexample, students from African
countries face discriminationand were even, like, expelled at
some times when trying to accessthe European borders. And again,
we can see that there is nothinguniversal about security, even
when you're coming from Ukraine,which is being bombed by Russia
(21:42):
at the moment.
Alexis Hieu Truong (21:44):
On this point of the response to
Ukrainian refugees – like,raising questions of unequal
treatment of different refugeesand migrant groups, right? Where
I am, in the City of Ottawadebated the idea of giving
Ukrainians a free bus pass – Ithink it was like for six months
– to help them with arrivals andexactly, like, looking for jobs
(22:06):
and so on, right? But obviously,other people ask, "well, what
about other people who are also,for example, refugees, who are
being displaced? Who arearriving to Canada, right?" They
also have needs, right? So, inthe end, it seems like the
authorities will indeed makethat available to more people,
but I think it shows us exactlyhow different groups of people
(22:30):
with similar needs actuallymight be understood, framed,
defined, labeled, etc,differently, just because of who
they are or where they're from,basically. In Europe, there have
been many reports of people ofcolour fleeing Ukraine, but
being turned away at the bordersof neighbouring states, and your
work on racial capitalism,predating the conflict in
(22:54):
Ukraine, adds to these recentexamples of racism. I'm thinking
of your piece about young whitepeople migrating from Ukraine
and Russia to Finland andPoland. Can you expand a bit
more and tell us a bit moreabout that work, and in doing so
also about what racialcapitalism actually is?
Daria Krivonos (23:14):
When I was writing that piece, I was
thinking a lot about how thereis so much work which discusses
how East European migrants arenot considered as fully white;
how their whiteness iscontingent, insecure; how this
whiteness is not a fullwhiteness, which Western
European – white WesternEuropean – people would enjoy.
(23:37):
But then, I was thinking whatwork this racialisation does.
So, what does it mean whenyou're a not fully white person?
And then I was thinking that itmight be helpful to think in
terms of racial capitalism, andto look into how this non fully
white people become absorbed bythe labour markets as cheap and
(23:59):
labour, while at the same timenot disturbing and not
destabilising the hegemonicwhiteness of West European
societies. So, for example, ifwe take the context of Poland,
which was usually discussed asthis country from where many
people would arrive to the UK,for example, and there was a lot
(24:20):
of work on Polish migrants inthe UK, but also Poland is
becoming this country whichhosts a very big number of
Ukrainian labour migrants – wellnow, Ukrainian refugees. And
before the war, at least, therecruitment of Ukrainian workers
had been one of the responses tothe demographic decline of
Polish workers who now migratedfurther west. And then, on the
(24:43):
one hand, we can see howUkrainian students and student
workers and workers wererecruited as desirable,
culturally similar orlinguistically similar workers
who are welcome to Poland andwho should be kind of fill in
the demand for labour. But, atthe same time, we can see how
(25:05):
these workers were incorporatedas a really cheap and precarious
labour force, and how on the dayto day level, these migrants
experienced everyday borderingand everyday forms of racism.
So, whoever I would talk totheir will tell me about their
everyday experiences of beingharassed on the streets.
Rosie Hancock (25:27):
We'll be back in a moment to talk more about work
and insecurity, after a quickhello from our producer, Alice.
Alice Bloch (25:34):
Hi, and thanks for joining us here at Uncommon
Sense. Each month we invite anexpert guest to join us and
manoeuvre an everyday concept weall tend to think we understand.
And together we work to see itdifferently, through a simple
sociological lens. You can headto our archive to catch people
like the feminist Bev Skeggsshaking up the idea of care – it
(25:55):
is, she says, about things liketaxation, climate change, a
whole ethic of socialresponsibility, really – or hear
activist scholar RemiJoseph-Salisbury in our episode
on school, reflecting on what agood education actually is.
You'll find reading lists andmore on the podcast page at
thesociologicalreview.org. Anddo remember to tap follow in the
(26:15):
app you're using to hear this,it helps us to keep making this
podcast for everyone. We'll seeyou back here next month.
Rosie Hancock (26:29):
Well, this seems like a good moment to dig a
little bit deeper into securityas it relates to migration work
and labour, which we've alreadykind of just started talking
about, a little bit. So, back in2020, at the start of the
COVID-19 pandemic, Daria, youwrote about how, although many
countries in Europe had closedtheir borders, some of the very
(26:51):
few international flights thatdid, at least then, continue to
operate were charter flightswith workers from Eastern
Europe. Essentially, they wereallowing workers in fields like
health care and food to reachtheir places of work. And, with
this, you say that the words"borders" and "security"
(27:11):
acquired a totally oppositemeaning to the one we've all
gotten used to in recentdecades. So, in other words,
here was the idea that bordersactually had to be kept open to
ensure our security. And thatkind of offers up a whole new
understanding of what we mean bysecurity – like, something to do
with, apparently, our quality oflife, the standard of living
(27:32):
with food security.
Daria Krivonos (27:34):
Yeah, that's right. We could see how the
borders had to remain openspecifically for so-called
"essential workers" coming fromEastern Europe to work in the
agricultural sector. And Ithought that it was quite
interesting how the wholediscourse of security suddenly
changed in relation to borders,because now the question of food
(27:55):
security in western and northernEurope became so important. And
we suddenly realise that thefood that we get to our place
doesn't come from nowhere, butsomebody has to come and
actually grow the vegetables,pick them up. So, the borders
really had to be openexclusively for agricultural
(28:17):
workers coming from EasternEurope.
Alexis Hieu Truong (28:19):
Now, what we're talking about here seems
to apply more generally waybeyond COVID. And, I guess,
we're getting at this idea that,under capitalism, the security
of some depends on theinsecurity of others, yes? And
it kind of reminds me, in fact,of last month's episode, where
we talked about intimacy and theillusion of contactless
(28:42):
transactions. Really, ourconsumption or prosperity
depends big time on the labour,often the precarious labour, the
invisible labour of others,right?
Daria Krivonos (28:53):
Yeah, that's true. If we think about security
as about the ability of lifegoing forward, then we should
really look into who makes thislife possible. And then
essentially, we have to starttalking about questions of
labour. But, quite often, whenwe talk about labour we tend to
think about this kind ofproductive labour, but we ... or
(29:14):
profit-making labour. But we canalso kind of change the focus
and think about what somefeminists called life-making
labour. And we also can thinkabout agricultural labour as
life-making labour. Exactly, thequestion of food security
relates to the questions of lifeand maintaining our lives. So,
(29:36):
then, we have to look into,well, who is actually
maintaining and reproducing ourlives? And the history of this
labour is the history ofunrecognition and
misrecognition.
Rosie Hancock (29:48):
So, for the fieldwork that you did in the
piece we were just talking aboutbefore, you were talking to
Ukrainian workers about theirexperiences of precarious labour
in the COVID-19 crisis and youfound that they were generally
underpaid and unprotected. And,I mean, that's something that I
think is really important toraise because there's all of
(30:10):
this discourse around#StandwithUkraine, which is ...
it's definitely had a momenthere in Australia. I'm wondering
if you know, maybe you've ...
it's been big in Finland too (?)But considering so much of
Ukraine's GDP comes fromremittances from money sent back
home from migrant workers – andI think you mentioned in that
2020 piece, it's about 11% – itkind of seems like standing with
(30:33):
Ukraine and Ukrainians, in thebroadest possible sense, would
mean supporting Ukrainianworkers in other countries. So,
making sure that they have jobsecurity, and that they're paid
well, because otherwise, we'rejust kind of hypocrites.
Daria Krivonos (30:49):
Yeah, I agree with you and, thinking about the
future – and even in terms oftemporary protection – we really
should ask, "okay, on whatconditions people are being
welcomed?" They're also beingwelcomed into these gradations
of Europeanness and gradationsof whiteness, because people
will have to make their livingon their own very quickly, and
(31:11):
contrary to our common vision ofrefugees as some kind of
recipients of humanitariansupport. Actually, also, before
the war in Ukraine, all sorts ofrefugees were always included
into raced labour markets asprecarious and cheap labour. So,
we should be really askingourselves, what does it mean,
(31:31):
"we stand with Ukraine"? Well,we should be standing with the
Ukrainian workers. But, if wetalk about standing with
Ukraine, then we should also betalking about the question of
Ukrainian debt; because, as withother Eastern European
countries, after the collapse ofthe Soviet Union, many countries
had to take a lot ofInternational Monetary Fund
(31:53):
loans, which placed strictlimits on social spending. And,
as a result of that, Ukrainebecame heavily indebted. So, if
we want to stand with Ukraine,we should also be talking about
the question of Ukrainian debtand cancelling Ukrainian debt.
Alexis Hieu Truong (32:11):
Thanks, Daria. So, we're getting to the
part of our show, now, where welike to grab something we rarely
stop to question, and we'll kindof tear it apart.
Rosie Hancock (32:21):
And today, we thought we're talking about
something we take for granted sobadly that, to be honest, we
almost didn't think of it atall. And that is borders. So, if
you're pretty privileged,borders probably aren't
something that you think aboutevery day. Perhaps it's only
something that you think aboutwhen you have to go through
passport control. Or if you getannoyed when the body scanner
(32:44):
beeps at you at security. Imean, I remember being totally
shocked when, years ago, Ientered Israel from Jordan and
was held for four hours whilethey questioned me. I had never
ever experienced something likethat before. But, for other
people, that's just their normalreality.
Alexis Hieu Truong (33:02):
Yeah. I guess many of us are educated to
just think that borders aresomething that exists around the
edges of countries – they'rethose dotted lines on maps that
stir our imaginations as kids,the things people cross on films
like "The Sound of Music". But,Daria, how would you define a
border? Sociologists see them asa bit more slippery than say
(33:24):
cartographers do.
Daria Krivonos (33:26):
Yeah, I agree that, quite often, we tend to
think about borders as somethingterritorially fixed, as a kind
of a line that divides thenation-states. But we can also
think about borders morecritically, and think about
borders as a series of practicesthat involve everyday. And we
(33:46):
can talk about everydaybordering as the processes that
kind of produce this everydayhierarchies and stop people's
movements in the everyday life,while already being in the
national territory. But also wecan extend the concept of the
border and to think about how EUborders become externalised in
the African continent, forexample, through colonial
(34:09):
practices, and how the Europeanborder regime operates, like,
deep into the African continent,for instance, and how the
borders there operate evenbefore the movement starts. But,
talking about everyday forms ofbordering, we can also think
about how borders become enactedby police checks in how people
(34:35):
can be asked to show theirdocuments and residence permits,
or how, for example, havingaccess to the banking system and
opening a bank account, havingaccess to housing; how these are
also forms of everydaybordering, while already being
in the territory of thenation-state.
Alexis Hieu Truong (34:53):
That concept of everyday bordering is at the
heart of work by people likeNira Yuval-Davis, Georgie
Wemyss, Kathryn Cassidy andothers. Do you have examples of
it from your own work, fromplaces like Finland say?
Daria Krivonos (35:07):
Well, particularly in the context of
Finland, you can't do anythingif you don't have a social
security number, or if you don'thave a bank account, because ...
For instance, if you want tosign up to visit a doctor, you
should have a so-called bankingcodes to identify yourself. But
you can't have access to thisbanking codes if you don't have
(35:28):
a certain type of a residencepermit or if you're not staying
in Finland permanently. So, wecan see here how, even if you
are already in the territory ofFinland, and even if you have
all the required documents, oreven if you're staying with a
tourist visa, for instance, yet,you don't have access to certain
forms of kind of very essentialand normalised practices, like
(35:51):
going to visit a doctor, forinstance.
Rosie Hancock (35:54):
It's really interesting, this conversation,
Daria, because, here inAustralia, when I think of
bordering, my mind immediatelyjumps to the hard border. And I
think that's what lots of peoplethink about when they think of
Australia, because everyonewho's tried to seek asylum in
Australia and have come by boat– since, I think about 2013 –
have been told that they'renever going to get permanent
residency, they can apply forrefugee status, and then they're
(36:18):
just put on this cycle oftemporary protection visa after
temporary protection visa thatthey have to keep reapplying
for. It's just this kind ofawful, perpetual insecurity.
But, I mean, what you'redescribing is really making me
think about how border policyand surveillance follows people
around in their everyday lives.
And, I guess, what you're sayingis that it could actually rip up
(36:40):
the social fabric. Do you thinkthat that happens in Finland?
Daria Krivonos (36:47):
Certainly. And in the context of Finland, there
is a tendency, of course, todiscuss the state in relation to
the welfare state, and todiscuss the high trust in the
state. But, actually, if we talkto non-white people or to
migrants, then we see a verydifferent picture of ... in
terms of trust to the state.
Because everyday forms ofbordering – like police checks
(37:10):
and how Roma people, forexample, are being followed in
the shops through this racialprofiling – how these forms of
everyday bordering are reallydisrupting people's trust in the
state. And quite often, we tendto think of the trust in the
welfare state as verynormalised, that "okay,
(37:31):
everybody believes in the Nordicwelfare state". Well, but
actually it doesn't work foreverybody. It doesn't work for
all the people in the same ways.
And, of course, it is tied toquestions of race in particular
ways.
Alexis Hieu Truong (37:45):
Okay, so, we've been talking about some
pretty heavy stuff today. Butbefore we go, just to wind down
a bit, we wanted to each shareour recommendations for
something from what you call /might call "pop culture" –
something that speaks to thistheme of security; a movie, a
book, an artwork, a song,something you've seen on social
(38:07):
media? Whatever. So, Rosie, whatwould be your recommendation?
Rosie Hancock (38:12):
Okay, mine is probably a little bit obvious.
But I'm going to say "TheMauritanian" movie with Benedict
Cumberbatch. So, it's just yourkind of classic story about the
overreach of the state, takingtheir national security
imperative way too far andpersecuting someone that they
don't have enough evidence for.
So, lots of themes is likeextradition and all of that kind
(38:33):
of stuff. It's not verycheerful. Alexis, what about
you?
Alexis Hieu Truong (38:41):
Actually, this theme kind of like, threw
me into a very nostalgic moodand made me think of Rage
Against the Machine, which Ilistened to a lot, like, in my
teen years; and the song"Without a Face". So, that's a
song that speaks to, like, themigration and borders, Mexico
and the South of the US. Butyeah, in that particular song,
(39:04):
the lyrics start off with a "gotno card so I got no soul, life
is prison, no parole, nocontrol". And that really, like,
yeah ... it really linked tothat theme, and it made me
remember how, like, yeah, duringthose teen years when those were
things that I hadn't reallythought about; that there was a
lot of political, maybe,reflections, or a lot of
(39:27):
critical reflections that camefrom songs like that. Daria, am
I right that you also wanted torecommend a song?
Daria Krivonos (39:36):
Yeah, I wanted to recommend a song by Kae
Tempest. I've been listening alot to their music lately. And I
particularly like the songcalled "People's Faces". It's a
little bit sad, maybe, but Idon't know, I wouldn't maybe
define it as sad, but I thinkit's the song about struggle and
hope, and I like the poetrythere. It's, well, Kae Tempest
(39:58):
sings, "too much depends on thefragile wages, and the extortion
of rents here." And then, theyalso say that "the old ways need
to end", and "did you everwonder if all these could be
done differently?" And everytime I listen to this song I ask
myself this question – could allthis be done differently? And I
(40:18):
think that that's the questionwe should be asking ourselves on
a daily basis, and continue oursociological thinking and our
struggle.
Rosie Hancock (40:27):
Thank you so much, Daria. You have given us
so much to think about fortoday. And I think Alexis and I
are going to have a lot to chatabout later. But we'll say
goodbye here.
Daria Krivonos (40:38):
Thank you. Thank you for inviting me here. It was
great to talk to you.
Alexis Hieu Truong (40:47):
Well, that's it for this month. We'll make
sure all of thoserecommendations and more are in
our episode's notes, and over onthe podcast page at
thesociologicalreview.org.
Rosie, what I'll take away fromtoday is a question that Daria
asked us, right – whose securityand whose insecurity? And I
think that, really, when we werefocusing on this question of
(41:09):
"who?", it really brought itback to the humans and the
people and the experiences. So,I really ... that really gave me
a lot to think about. What aboutyou?
Rosie Hancock (41:21):
Look, I mean, I was gonna say that the thing I'm
going to be thinking about themost is the idea that someone's
security depends on someoneelse's insecurity. But,
actually, what's really nice is– and I guess it kind of ties
nicely in with that – is rightat the very end of her
(41:41):
recommendation of Kae Tempest'ssong, "People's Faces", and the
question "can we do thisdifferently?" I think that's ...
that's pretty great.
Alexis Hieu Truong (41:52):
Yeah. And we also talked about, like, borders
and boundaries. I'm pretty surethat that will be coming up next
month, also, when we turn to thetheme of bodies.
Rosie Hancock (42:03):
Ooh, I'm excited about that one. So, if you've
enjoyed listening to UncommonSense, please tap follow and
rate or review us in whateverapp you're using. And do share
us with your friends and family.
Alexis Hieu Truong (42:15):
Our executive producer was Alice
Bloch. Our sound engineer wasDave Crackles. Thanks for
listening.
Rosie Hancock (42:22):
Bye!
Alexis Hieu Truong (42:23):
Bye.
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