The Question of the Limit: Desecuritisation and the Aesthetics of Horror in Political Realism

Desecuritisation-or, the unmaking of the securitisation-of migration, is a critical strategy which should make it possible to relocate the question of migration to a context of ethico-political judgement in wh ich one does not seek to found the political on the basis of an existential threat. This article contributes to a better understanding of the ethico-political problematique this 'relocation' addresses by rendering explicit the central ethico-political issue which is born out of the securitisation of migration. More specifically, I look at this question by interpreting the political significance of an existential threat in a Schmittean rendering of the political. The key ethico-political question which arises from this interpretations is whether one wa,lts to integrate free individuals into a political community on the basis of a passage to the limit and the political aesthetics of horror it implies.