Brexit at the Irish Border: Applying the Lens of Biopolitics

Context

The UK/Ireland border was frequently a site of conflict and contestation until the Good Friday Agreement ushered in the most peaceful time in the border region since its creation in 1921. Brexit is changing the nature of the border once more and it is important to understand the good and bad of current bordering practices in order to inform the post-Brexit border and ensure that, as well as "no return to the borders of the past" (May, 2016), the borders of the future are fit for purpose. As the nature of the citizenship of some groups may change as a result of Brexit we must ask; how do the rules and social relations that govern the UK/Ireland border affect different groups? Or, more simply, do they experience it as a border? The project will address this question by examining the border beyond its geographical demarcation; conceptualising it as a social field within which biopolitical practices act upon the bodies and identities of those who live and work in the border region. In doing so the research will fill a gap in the Brexit border literature and contribute to the wider literature on border and critical security studies, as well as examining the effect of Brexit on one of the most sensitive regions of the UK and providing vital evidence to inform post-Brexit bordering practices from frequently marginalised voices.

The UK government's call for innovative solutions to manage the border provides a timely opportunity to revisit bordering practices. The power of borders is found in the way in which they are enacted on those who cross and live along them; they contain the power to include or exclude, to (un)authorise, and to (de)legitimise. Northern Ireland is a unique case in that its citizens have the right to plural citizenships (British/Irish/Both), while citizens of the UK and Ireland have reciprocal voting rights and access to healthcare outwith their EU membership. Furthermore, under the Common Travel Area (CTA), UK and Irish citizens can travel through each jurisdiction unchecked, while the border crossing of non-UK/IRE (and potentially soon to be EU) nationals is monitored. These are forms of biopolitical bordering; they act on the body of the individual rather than specifically at the site of the border and bestow on individuals different rights and restrictions in different territories. Such practices are likely to be impacted by Brexit; if free movement is to continue across the island, the CTA is to be maintained, and no hard border is to be found in the Irish Sea, further biopolitical authentication and authorisation is likely to play a role.

Methodology

To do justice to the range and complexity of experience in the border region, especially in light of its contested history, ethnography is the most suitable method for conducting this research. It will allow those with the greatest insight into the lived reality of border practices to highlight their own experiences; to identify how they are treated by the border, how they adapt to and resist the border, and how these acts serve to subvert, generate, or reify power structures and bordering practices. The study will focus on three groups: British and Irish, other EU, and non-EU citizens in urban areas of the border region on each side of the border. These groups are chosen because Brexit has direct but different effects on the nature of their citizenship in relation to the two states on the island and should be most affected by any changes to the border regime.

Impact

In conducting this research I will engage with civil society organisations within the border field, such as the Centre for Cross-Border Studies, to ensure that the views and experiences of key stakeholders, such as community organisations and the communities themselves, can be identified and developed so that they may inform the future border in a way that is supportive of those who are most affected by it.