"Servants of the state" : An Analysis of the Role Irish Cultural Nationalism Plays in Border Securitization Work

Sammanfattning

This thesis investigates the understandings and practices that Irish border officers have of their securitisation work on the Irish border. Specifically, it interrogates if and how Irish cultural nationalism interacts with these understandings and practices. Utilising a combined theoretical framework of Bigo’s (2002) securitisation, Lipsky’s (1969) street-level bureaucracy, and Billig’s (1995) banal nationalism, this qualitative research reveals contradictory and discretionary aspects of cultural performance within Irish border work. While the officers frame discretionary practices of warm hospitality towards migrants as distinctly Irish in nature, these practices are selectively dispersed and overridden by national protection remits. Furthermore, extranational dynamics of securitisation are present in the officers’ self-understandings regarding British-Irish relations as well as the wider European context. An assemblage of ambivalent perceptions, responsibilities, and emotions in relation to national identity and securitisation is revealed in this thesis.