Paper short abstract:

Drawing on field research in Austrian state institutions and media discourse the paper scrutinizes how the perceived loss of control in the course of the dismantlement of border checks reproduces the concept of an endangered and insecure in-group while reinforcing the myth of the "pure" nation state

Paper long abstract:

Anti-immigration discourse frequently is framed by parts of the political and media actors as a "contagion" of the "body politic", of an imagined self-contained community or social body that has to be protected from intruders that might do harm to it. This idea of the state, society and polity as the body politic embodies the myth of the sovereign and homogenous nation state as opposed to a potentially dangerous "outside".

Mental boundaries and institutionalized borders both play a pivotal role for the imagined (security) community in the construction of Self and Other and are thus particularly prone to the securitization of external threats from anywhere "behind the border". Thereby an ideal and homogenous in-group is constructed, essentialized and positioned against an equally essentialized and threatening out-group.

But what happens to the in-groups perception of Self and Other when the imagined bulwark suddenly is about to crumble? When the social body, deprived of protection, feels exposed and vulnerable? With the abolishment of border controls in the course of the enlargement of the Schengen zone the symbolic function of the border as "protection" against intruders and other external threats is put to the test.

Drawing on field research in Austrian state institutions and media discourse the paper scrutinizes how the perceived loss of control in the course of the dismantlement of border checks reproduces the concept of the endangered and insecure in-group while reinforcing the myth of the sovereign nation state and the "pure" body politic.