Sea Ports and Security: the Politics of the Minor Border

At the UK’s sea borders, pressing global security challenges - trafficking, migration, smuggling, even terrorism - become manifested as everyday concerns. As major points of contact with ‘the international’, UK ports, marinas and coastlines have always been places of circulation and flow, but also places of risk and vulnerability. At this critical national juncture, there is a pressing need to understand the contemporary manifestation of these tensions: resolving them is vital to the UK’s future internal relations, European identity and international standing. While international marine security and global logistics have been the focus of burgeoning interdisciplinary debate – and while Europe’s southern sea borders have been heavily scrutinised – very little is known about how circulation and security are reconciled within ‘minor’ northern European sea borders. This project will address this gap by investigating the UK sea port as a problem of security and a contested matter of identity.

Principal Investigator: Dr Alexandra Hall, University of York