What is Border Militarisation?

           
            Serrano and Dunn used the term militarisation in 1998 to describe increased border policing, highlighting specifically the “use and normalisation of military rhetoric and ideology, as well as military tactics, strategy, technology, equipment and forces” (Serrano & Dunn, 1998, p. 3). Graham (2010) refines that definition by connecting normalisation of military paradigms with “efforts at the aggressive disciplining of bodies, places and identities deemed not to benefit […] nation, citizenship or body” (Graham, 2010, p. 60), and Kraska (2007) adds the assertion that militarism regards “use of force and threat of violence as the most appropriate and efficacious means to solve problems” (Kraska, 2007, p. 503). This means that border militarisation does not only consist of the presence of military personnel and equipment at the border, or the use of military tactics but includes the militarised and pre-emptive rationales embedded throughout the policing and enforcement of borders (Wilson, 2014).