Security for Whom and How? Migrants’ Felt and Embodied (In)Securityscape on the Atlantic Route

Given the unique geographical and geopolitical position of the Spanish Canary Islands between Europe and Africa, there are multiple and intersecting internal and external bordering processes at work. Migrants travelling on the 're-activated' Atlantic route therefore encounter and experience the border at multiple sites during their journeys. Although externalised border control affects the human security of irregularised migrants, few empirical studies have examined how they experience, feel and mitigate this (in)security. Drawing on feminist geopolitics and feminist security studies, this article develops a conceptual framework of the 'embodied (in)security scape', incorporating ontological, experiential, performative, physical and relational dimensions of (in)security. Based on fieldwork and interviews conducted with people who arrived by boat from North- and West Africa to the Canary Islands, the article provides empirical insights into how they experience (in)security at different stages of the Atlantic route. It also explores the security-seeking strategies that emerge from these experiences with the externalised border regime. Bringing analytical attention to the various dimensions of (in)security along the migration trajectory illustrates how the dangerous Atlantic crossing and the multi-layered EU border regime both evoke and produce affective responses.