The framework of “securitisation” has been put forth by Copenhagen School to conceptualize the security within an analytical framework to various dimensions of the ‘war on terror’ (Buzan 2006). Securitisation defines security as a social construction and a social fact produced in discursive practices. Waever (Buzan et al, 1998: 26) considered security as a “speech act”: an utterance, which represents and recognises phenomena as “security,” thus giving it special status and legitimising extraordinary measures (Buzan et al, 1998: 26). So for the Copenhagen School, issues more over threats become security issues through language.
But in pre-post 9/11 era as As Wæver (1995:57) argues, ‘security is articulated only from a specific place, in an institutional voice, by elites. Some actors empowered to ‘speak’ security on behalf of particular communities who, through this process, considered as passive recipients of elite discourses.
With regard to the discussion of construction of social borders through language, this paper seeks to explore constructed and securitized social borders in the post 9/11 era through discursive practices of “us” and the “others”; “securitisers” and the “securitized”; “Muslims and the non-Muslims”; “veiled and the unveiled” and “west” and the “rest.
The goal here is the argue the questions raised as “to what extent with the articulations of the powerful, the most vulnerable have been silenced or delegitimized? How particular actors are either empowered or marginalized in ‘speaking’ security?
