Agents of Social Change: Cultural Work, Institutions, and the (De)securitisation of Minorities

This paper combines anthropological and other critical security studies with research on cultural work to better understand the impact institutions may have (de)securitisation of minority groups. Today issues represent a recurrent theme in various national European contexts. Often perceived as threat social cohesion linked multiple successive crises, minorities migrants been focus measures at different times. focuses EU-funded project ‘Agents Change: Mediating Minorities’ explores how aimed diversity inclusion interacts dynamics securitisation. Zooming out between goals definitions, mundane local practices, institutional broader (trans)national contexts, this discusses its intervening effects while also acknowledging numerous contradictions that make any straightforward narrative desecuritisation difficult. With help empirical examples, demonstrates way widen beyond typical securitising securitised actors it contributes more nuanced understanding contexts Although countermoves initiated by are never guaranteed succeed, studying them opens new pathways reflect upon ambiguity an open-ended process involving actors, power relations operating interdependent scales. These indicate shifts taking place current ways thinking about approaching minorities, challenging dominant constructions driving