Vigilant Citizens: Voluntary Border Patrols as Political Participation on the Kent Coast

The proposed project concerns emerging vigilante practices among self-organised border patrol
groups in Kent, England. Through ethnographic fieldwork, interviews, and archival research, I will
assess how these groups understand their role relative to the politics of statecraft and border-
making, and how this links with mainstream efforts to shape national belonging. Situated in the
immediate post-Brexit era, the project will analyse patrols in the context of historical 'anti-invasion'
coastal defence in England, studying how imagery and narratives of the past inform contemporary
motivations.
The project considers questions of national identity in a febrile period of political transition. Through
fieldwork and interviews with patrol members, policy makers, patrol officials, and other unaffiliated
individuals, it will contribute to an understanding of a contentious emergent phenomenon. The
project contributes to academic and policy discussion on migration and debates on extralegal
activity targeting migrants against a backdrop of perceived deficits in policing by a modern nation
state.