Conference report - Caryl Thompson

In an increasingly interdependent and globalized world, migration has become a topic of considerable and often contentious debate. Recent estimates suggest that there are 232 million migrants globally, often motivated to migrate by economic opportunities beyond their home countries but also including unprecedented numbers displaced through conflict and oppression, or as victims of trafficking. Simultaneously, nations around the globe are adopting increasingly stringent immigration controls to secure their borders and populist anti-immigrant political parties are gaining momentum.

I am grateful to the Institute of Asia and Pacific Studies for their generous award of a travel bursary that allowed me to attend the Human Rights Law Centre’s Annual Student Human Rights Conference which took place at The University of Nottingham on Saturday, 7 March, 2015. The conference theme of “Migration and Human Rights: Perception v Reality” examined the treatment of migrants within an international human rights context and included presentations by eminent academic experts and practitioners from the UNHCR, ILO and EU.

I was fortunate to be able to present my own research which focuses on political discourse relating to the nexus between migration and security in the Asia Pacific region and provides a comparative, cross-national analysis of two major Southeast Asian host countries, Malaysia and Singapore. Using Critical Discourse Analysis research methods to critique the Copenhagen School securitization framework, the study examines how political elites discursively construct migrants as threats to security through “speech acts” and compares and contrasts securitizing discourse in the two countries.

My attendance at the conference not only allowed me to receive constructive feedback on my research but to engage in lively topical discussion relating to this important, contemporary issue and network with other students from a wide range of disciplines with similar research interests.

Caryl Thompson, Doctoral Researcher