Viral bodies: racialised and gendered logics in the securitisation of migration during COVID-19 in Italy

Abstract

Since the spread of the COVID-19 pandemic, migrants’ mobility has been increasingly securitised as governments have been adopting extraordinary measures to close both external and internal borders. Similarly, the presence of migrants within countries has often been met with lower levels of acceptance, leading to the implementation of discriminatory and xenophobic measures. Although debates on the securitisation of migration are well established in the literature, this article demonstrates how the securitisation of migration during the COVID-19 pandemic has relied on gendered and racialised notions deeply entrenched in the legacy of colonial modernity. Examining newspaper articles and declarations by Italian prominent politicians, this contribution shows how this process has happened through 4 main discursive frames imbued with racial and gendered assumptions: 1) the virus as a foreign threat; 2) migrants as diseased bodies; 3) migrants as a burden; 4) migrants as racialised hypermasculine bodies.