Get 20M+ Full-Text Papers For Less Than $1.50/day. Start a 7-Day Trial for You or Your Team.

Learn More →

Everyday Ontological Security: Emotion and Migration in British Soaps

Everyday Ontological Security: Emotion and Migration in British Soaps Abstract Work on affect has made significant contributions to how international relations (IR) scholars understand the high politics of international affairs, capturing political reactions to the horrific, the spectacular, and the exceptional. However, the turn to affect has been less inclined to offer comprehensive insight into the importance of emotion in banal or everyday international politics. The theory of ontological security can offer such insight as it attends to experiences of the everyday, particularly through the discursive production of identity. Identity might be disrupted at moments of spectacular or exceptional events that call it into question but is equally made and remade in the discursive production of everyday life. This research focuses on the latter, analyzing the reproduction of the international in the everyday through the vehicle of British soap operas Coronation Street and Emmerdale, both of which introduced storylines about migrant workers in the late 2000s. British soaps are designed to be culturally proximate and incorporate didactic messages. Analysis of soaps offers a layered and intersectional view of emotional reactions to international migration at the level of an abstracted individual and the level of the nation-as-viewer. Work on affect has made significant contributions to how IR scholars understand the high politics of international affairs, capturing political reactions to the horrific, the spectacular, and the exceptional (Fierke 2012; Auchter 2014; Hutchinson and Bleiker 2014). However, the turn to affect has been less inclined to offer comprehensive insight into the importance of emotion in banal or everyday international politics. Feminists in IR are, of course, the exception to this rule, variously focusing on the importance of emotion in encounters with international phenomena (Stern 1998; Ackerley and True 2008; MacKenzie 2011; Dauphinee 2013). Notable feminists such as Cynthia Enloe (1989) and Marysia Zalewski (1996) turned attention away from elites and patriarchal structures to attend to everybody and the everyday of international relations. Further, work on everyday experiences of security has made inroads into understanding the politics of resistance and the importance of identity (Parker 2012; Hansen and Niessenbaum 2009). Similarly, work on vernacular security has incorporated an experiential security and seeks to learn from the everyday (Bubandt 2005; Croft and Vaughn Williams 2016). I suggest here that the theory of ontological security can offer insight into the role of emotion in everyday international relations as it attends to the discursive production and, I argue, the performative production of identity. Identity might be disrupted at moments of spectacular or exceptional events that call it into question but is equally made and remade in everyday life. This research focuses on the latter, analyzing the reproduction of the international in the everyday. To explore the security/identity nexus, I focus on migration in the United Kingdom. Studies at the intersection of migration and security have explored variously the securitization of migration (Huysmans 2006), the implications of security for migration (Bigo 2002; Guild 2009; Bigo, Carrera and Guild 2013), and migrants as the subject of security (Johnson 2014; Innes 2015). In this study, I ask how security is at stake in the everyday politics of migration. I employ ontological security theory to understand how identity is concomitant to security, foregrounding how security is made in fluid and relational identities that are performed in social contexts. I use the vehicle of British soaps to access the everyday, arguing that soaps are an important genre for the study of politics manifest in everyday life. British soaps are overtly political in design; they breach the divide between the private and public spheres; and they represent, reproduce, and give rise to public debate on topical social and political themes. Four British soaps have run storylines, of varying length, that involved migration: Coronation Street, EastEnders, Emmerdale, and Hollyoaks. These storylines have coincided, for the most part, with migration dominating headlines and politics in Britain. In this paper, I analyze Coronation Street and Emmerdale, both of which featured forms of undocumented migration, as well as the coverage the immigration storylines subsequently generated in the media, to offer a layered and intersectional view of emotional reactions to international migration at both the level of an abstracted individual and the level of the nation-as-viewer. I argue that an analysis of soaps permits theorization of an ontological security that can account for fluid identities and fluid and hybrid subjectivities and reveals the importance of emotional encounters and affective ties for security. Ontological Security, Subjectivity, and Fluid Identities Ontological security, initially conceptualized by psychologist R. D. Laing and most extensively developed by sociologist Anthony Giddens, refers to an internally held feeling of security that is produced by belonging—by a sense of stable identity and continuity in one's place in the world (Giddens 1990). The ontologically secure actor can rely on stable expectations based on a body of shared, social, mutual knowledge of the world (Giddens 1984). The ontological security literature in IR has been largely interested in the importance of identity and memory for the production of security, focusing on the way identity and memory are produced and reproduced at the state level, for nation or society. Ontological security theory always engages affect as a component, although this isn't always the central focus of the theory. For Brent Steele (2005, 2008), the fragility of the state's autobiographical narrative guides foreign policy decisions in a way that reproduces this narrative or, at times, rewrites the narrative to cope with trauma or rupture to the narrative and, therefore, to state identity. Understanding the importance of identity as part of state security can, then, explain what might otherwise appear to be counterintuitive security decisions. Security and insecurity are made affectively in this way although affect is not the central focus of Steele's work. Yet, the role of emotional experiences, such as guilt and shame, guide the production and reproduction of identity narratives. While critically oriented, this work reproduces the dominant narrative of the state in international relations and totalizes security production as the state project by embedding state identity into security. This is a critique that has been leveled at ontological security theory in IR. For example, Rossdale (2015) focuses on the totalization of political subjectivity as his point of critique of the ontological security literature, yet there is some elusiveness as to who (or what) holds that subjectivity and whether the subject of security, particularly whether it is an individual or collective subject, is important. While state narratives of identity permit some change in content in Steele's work, the state itself remains the subject of security. Kinnvall, on the other hand, seeks to understand the way ontological security works for groups without a state-based identity, examining how minority collectives generate a nonstate security through producing an autobiographical identity narrative that creates an ontological security, which is often in opposition to the state. In this context, ontological security again requires a stable identity narrative, to the extent that groups which might experience hybrid identities will “securitize subjectivity, which means an intensified search for one stable identity” (Kinnvall 2004, 749, emphasis in original). Kinnvall's work, then, has the capacity to recognize fluid and intersectional identities; yet, understood in this way, ontological security for a collective subject requires a single, stable identity. Stuart Croft (2012) provides the closest engagement with the individual level in terms of what is at stake for IR in the roots of ontological security theory in psychology and sociology. Rather than upscaling for the state-as-actor, Croft asks how the state makes individual experiences of security and how individual experiences of security are implicit in state policies. Identity in this case might manifest differently in different settings (for example, in public, such as in the workplace, versus in private, such as in the home). Why and how identity changes in this way is at the heart of my argument. Similarly, Agius (2016) considers the othering power of discourses of ontological security, although she, like Kinnvall, places particular emphasis on the desire for a stable and consistent idea of self. Here, the emphasis on stability overwrites the possibility for hybridity of identity, something that particularly comes into play for intergenerational migration, postcolonial identity politics, and the complexity of religious sects, ethnic groups, and racial and gender identities, which often overlap and produce hybrid identities that are not stable nor yearning for stability. I argue instead that different facets of hybrid identities manifest in different situations but can all be concurrently held by a single person whose consistent idea of self does not need a stable narrative. To fully understand how these facets of identity work, they must be understood within the fluid social environments in which identities are formed and performed. Ty Solomon (forthcoming) draws our attention to the importance of attending to environment, examining affect as it is transmitted amongst collectives, corporate actors, and groups in a way that manifests as an environmental phenomenon through performance that disperses and circulates. Where emotions are the display of a specific feeling, affects are states of experience of varying intensity and potential that circulate and shape environments (Massumi 1987). Thus, as the subject's environment changes, so the feeling and the performance of ontological security also changes. Affective ties to place, group, or idea mean different identities take precedence in different contexts. In this way, ontological security does not require a fixed or stable identity. In disciplines that are situated more comfortably at the individual level, such as sociology and psychology, a single stable identity is not necessary for ontological security; for example, Nunn, McMichael, Gifford, and Correa-Velez (2016) look to hybrid identities amongst refugees who have naturalized in Australia, where the very duality of identity produces ontological security. This problematizes, to some extent, Kinnvall's (2004) argument (and Rossdale's 2015 critique of that argument), whereby securitization for one group relies on exclusion and, therefore, creates an ontological security dilemma where security for some produces insecurity for others, who will act to produce security, thus producing exclusions and making insecurity, so the cycle continues. Kinnvall prioritizes ontological security-seeking relationships, and these relationships require that groups and the individuals that compose them achieve security by subscribing to linear and singular identities. Rossdale (2015) engages in some compelling critiques of the ontological security literature—advancing that it is totalizing, not just in the state security orientation but also in the experience of identity in so far as it constitutes the subject in a closed way. Drawing on Butler and Haraway, he argues that the focus on a group identity narrative precludes the possibility of hybrid identities and open subjectivities. Rossdale ultimately makes an ethicopolitical argument that ontological security-seeking is often violent or othering. He argues that it is in the absence of ontological security—the discontinuities—that ethical and political obligations emerge and that theories mobilizing ontological security in international relations are implicated in the reproduction of security-based exclusion, precluding resistance. In contradistinction to Rossdale, I propose that the concept of ontological security can circumvent the problem of totalizing the state or of totalizing identity and subjectivities. It can provide insight into an experiential security that can engage hybridity and replicate lived experiences that are almost never, in a globalized world, simple linear attachments to a state. Transnational, diasporic, and migrant identities often foreground security experiences, particularly when diasporas have been produced following trauma or when migration has been forced (Budryte 2013; Nunn et al. 2016). I argue that focusing on a performative ontological security, as opposed to a historical or linear narrative of ontological security, offers space to understand identity becoming and the role of ontological security in security experiences in the everyday, not just of transnational, diasporic, and migrant identities but permitting other forms of complex identity, such as race, class, religion, ethnicity, age, gender, and so on. To do so, I draw on Kimberley Crenshaw's (1991) concept of intersectionality. For Crenshaw, when identities intersect and are held simultaneously, identity politics are problematized. In Crenshaw's example, identity as a black woman is neither accounted for in black identity politics (that default to the black male) or in feminist identity politics (that default to the white, middle class female). Thus, identity politics as a project becomes potentially oppressive, further writing the intersectional identity of “black woman” out of the dominant narrative and effectively silencing the experiences of black women that are made by being both black and female at once. In this way, acknowledging intersectional identities gives scope to understand belonging to more than one identity group simultaneously; here I attend to how this belonging manifests in ontological security in everyday life. Identity is not a simple linear and complete narrative; drawing on Butler, identity can be understood to be made as it is performed and as it enters relational and structural contexts (Butler 2005). All identities are plural and/or hybrid and are made and remade as they rub up against other identities in social and environmental interactions. Thus, to understand an ontological security it is necessary to examine performances of identity as they are both made and constituted in context and in relation to other identities. A fixed identity narrative is a single reading of a given identity that assumes either consistency or development over time but does not allow for shifts and changes in the everyday. I seek to look at the complexity of interactions and relationships on the micro level to understand how ontological security works for identities not characterized by the state, with an acknowledgement that identity is constantly being remade as it is performed in social contexts. This focus draws on sociological literature in migration studies. Some identity formations that are largely absent from the IR literature on ontological security have been more thoroughly explored in the sociological literature. For example, Skey (2010) looks to ethnic majorities, with a particular focus on classed identity in the United Kingdom. Understanding ontological insecurities that are attached to class identities can offer compelling insight into how ontological security is made and produced for others outside of that particular group. For a national narrative of identity, the composite narratives of identity made in various parts must come together in a logical national narrative if the interest lies at the state level. The main antagonists of the white British working class identity (and, of course, this is not an identity narrative that is true of all white British working class people) are migrants who are “coming to steal our jobs, coming to take our benefits, coming to use our NHS” (headlines of this type have been ubiquitous in the conservative tabloid media. A sample includes The Express October 17, 2015, July 21, 2015, July 9, 2014; Daily Mail June 11, 2011, January 2, 2009; The Sun August 6, 2009, April 22, 2009). A counter-narrative, largely adopted by grassroots and migrant advocacy organizations, does not necessarily focus just on migrant identity but also on British identity, suggesting that Britain has a long history of migration and refugee resettlement. These positions are generally reconciled by demonizing “economic” migrants while romanticizing “refugees” as victims. Both actions, then, are problematic for the experience of identity for refugee and migrant populations. The experiences of migrant populations become more complex over generations but remain linked to social relations. One might ask during what generation of “migrant” does a person become British and have a “right” to jobs and welfare benefits, yet the answer will always be constituted in social contexts. Do working class British black and minority ethnic communities share British and working-class identity with white working-class counterparts? Again, the answer will vary by social contexts and lived experiences. Nevertheless, race is a meaningful criterion of identity production, as a visible marker of difference that has historically been policed in immigration policy (for example, see Turner 2015). The particular problem racism causes for identity is manifest in racist events; for example, black and Asian British citizens might be told to “go back to your own country” when they self-identify fully as British. Thus, there is an evident potential rupture in identity experience. Experience of racism potentially impacts ontological security and identity, shifting identity and subjectivity for any given individual in any given place at any given time, belying the notion of a stable and singular identity. As Nunn et al. clarify, people often hold hybrid or plural identities, the holding of which is equally important for their ontological security: take, for example, Sudanese and Eritrean refugees in Australia who acquire Australian citizenship and equally “feel” Australian and Sudanese or Eritrean. The idea of “feeling” identity in a way that produces security thus permits an affective dimension to the understanding of the security-identity nexus. The multiplicity of identities and interactions that produce ontological security and insecurity can offer nuanced insight into how those security experiences impact political actions and decisions. I argue that ontological security is not a linear narrative but is produced in complex interactions amongst identity groups and amongst individuals and hybrid experiences of identity. Neta Crawford (2000) argued that emotion is at the heart of all international relations: love, nationalism, hate, othering, fear, insecurity, and so on. In the same way, ontological security is always affective (Giddens 1990) and, of course, offered a means of incorporating emotion into the study of IR as discussed in some detail above. Yet in assuming state ontological security, the dominant narrative of the state, or of elites in power, is emphasized. By incorporating an affective ontological security as experienced in different interactions—amongst groups or individuals in the world—the story necessarily becomes more complex. Moments of heightened emotion are fleeting but also provoke change, perhaps requiring a rewriting or a reaffirmation of an identity narrative but also perhaps shifting the boundaries and contours of one identity that overlaps or merges into another, if we accept that identities are not singular and static. A performative ontological security can circumvent the problem of the state and can account for multiplicity, plurality, and process of identity that is not fixed, static, or linear and that happens in everyday experiences rather than in extraordinary experiences. A performative ontological security highlights the affective experience of identity (and in/security) becoming or constantly being remade rather than the historical narrative that maintains it. This affective focus can then explain interactions and the international level in different contexts, such as Solomon emphasizes in his study of the Arab Spring cited above (forthcoming). While the ontological security literature has successfully explained particular state and group actions based on historical narratives, an affective and performative aspect of identity is arguably overlooked in the ontological security literature in IR, with the notable exception of Croft's (2012) work on British Muslim securitization, Steele's (2016) work on organizational processes, and Solomon's aforementioned research. In what follows I foreground popular culture, in the form of British soaps, as a means of accessing performative and affective identity as it interacts with ontological security. Why Soaps? Interest in soaps is situated in a broader trend in IR to consider the position of popular culture in the analysis of international politics (Neumann and Nexon 2006; Grayson, Davies and Philpott 2009). While much of the IR work on popular culture focuses on the high politics of war and conflict as played out in popular culture (Bousquet 2006; Power 2007; Dodds 2008), there has also been some attention to everyday forms of popular low-brow culture (Dixit 2012; Pusca 2015). In a similar way to the reality TV show that forms part of Pusca's 2015 study, soaps are often dismissed, arguably because, in their construction and thematic content, they are concerned with domestic spaces rather than political or public spaces: soap narratives are designed to be consumed amid domestic interruption, with stories repeated multiple times as news is conveyed from character to character. Efforts to recognize the importance of the everyday, the personal and the private, have of course been at the heart of feminist scholarship for decades, notably drawing on Carol Hanisch's 1969 (2000) essay that argues that personal problems experienced by women require political solutions, ergo they are political problems. In IR more specifically, attending to the domestic, the private, and the experiences of women has formed an important part of feminist scholarship (Enloe 1989; Stern 1998; Sylvester 2011). Soaps attend to everyday life and are also often gendered female due to both their historical associations and storylines that often focus on family and relationships. The characterization of soaps as female and domestic is generated by their American history: indeed, it is well known that the first American soaps were radio serials broadcast during the day, aimed at housewives, sponsored by and advertising cleaning products and other household goods, thus establishing the female bias associated with the genre. This is, of course, no reason to dismiss soaps as political phenomena, as the division depends on patriarchal gender hierarchies. Rather, the domestic and the private are component parts of the political. Nevertheless, British soaps have been consciously political from their inception. In fact, the first British soap, Front Line Family, had international, political moral suasion as its primary objective. The serial was produced by the BBC in 1941 but was initially only broadcast on American shortwave radio with the overtly political intention of encouraging US participation in World War II (Cull 1995; McNicholas 2016). The thematic content was family-based, portraying a middle class British family suffering the hardships of war; it used the accessibility of family life to sway political opinions. The soap proved immensely popular and a similar tactic was adopted in the production of The Archers, well known for being the longest-running soap. The Archers was intended to be educational and informational in addition to entertaining. It was designed, with collaboration from the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries, and Food to give information about efficient farming methods for farmers and smallholders in the era of post–World War II rationing and food shortages (Donavan 1991; McNicholas 2016). It explained rationing policies to avoid disgruntlement among the population. One might argue, then, that The Archers had not just a political interest but also a security interest. For such a historically political genre, it is surprising that so little attention has been paid to (British) soaps in the study of politics. Coronation Street, the longest running television soap, also had politics at the core of its inception although not necessarily in its overt themes. Directly influenced by Richard Hoggart's The Uses of Literacy, it aimed to portray a culturally proximate account of life in the working-class North, something that had been absent from the BBC (Dyer, Geraghty, Jordan, Lovell, and Stewart, 1981). Coronation Street predominantly explored themes of socioeconomic class dynamics and identities, and gender dynamics, and was famous for its portrayal of strong Northern women, a notable impact of Hoggart's text (Dyer et al. 1981). Given their political roots, British soaps provide a unique vehicle with which to explore themes of migration, identity, and ontological security. Coronation Street and Emmerdale, the soaps under consideration here, deal with working-class life in a way designed to be recognizable to those who live it. They attempt to be culturally proximate to their viewers, the hallmark of the British genre. Yet, it is not simply a representational reading of soap plotlines that is sought but rather an understanding that the soap represents but also makes and produces. For example, soaps regularly take storylines and thematic issues directly from the headlines: a variety of characters take a stance on a range of sociopolitical issues, often getting into heated arguments; such is the melodramatic nature of the genre. In this way, soaps invite the audience to consider the issues, both through exposure to the storyline, which might put a particular issue in the context of a well-loved character, and also through the judgement of the characters (Innes and Topinka 2016). The anxieties of the characters are a reflection of, and an outlet for, social anxieties. In this way, attending to soaps allows us to access structural threat and affective insecurity at an experiential level. Accessing the experiential in this way follows feminist IR in recognizing that emotion infuses social relationships and interactions (Ackerley and True 2008; Marshall 2011). Indeed, part of the feminist project has been to examine how emotion transcends the gap between researcher and research subjects and how it can be harnessed to better inform academic outputs (Sylvester 2011; Dauphinee 2013; Auchter 2014). Turning to soaps similarly seeks to access an international politics that recognizes the role of emotion and the personal via everyday politics. Reception studies have explored how publics have consumed media in their everyday lives, with some emphasis on soaps or popular television productions (Morley 1980; Ang 1985). However, as Radway (2008) establishes, the reception of culture cannot be studied and understood in isolation from broader contexts. Here, I do not pursue the sole objective of examining how particular soap storylines have been received, rather I seek to focus on the performative aspects of ontological security and identity as they are produced—both represented and performed—in the soaps. The storylines provide insight into a variety of positions, perspectives, identities, and relationships that were presented for viewers to consume and reflect on. The consumption and reflection is also widely reported in the tabloids and is widely discussed on social media, in addition to user-generated archiving of the show's history on blogs and wikis such as “Corriepedia.” As Innes and Topinka (2016, 11–12) argue, a soap is no “hypodermic needle” injecting a particular vision of working-class life into the ideological veins of the British public; it is an everyday site of contestation of characters and culture, plotlines and politics.” These contestations, both on and off screen, perform the identity interactions that rub up against one another, making and unmaking, producing and contesting security and identity. Drawing on Butler, identity is performed within relational, cultural, and structural contexts, involving the expectations of others and the presence of cultural knowledge, norms, and social mores. Soaps, because they form part of that cultural milieu, making it as they represent it, and because they simultaneously produce characters that are intended to be culturally proximate and perform storylines that are relatable and current, are an appropriate site for the analysis of performative ontological security. Of course, there are limitations to the scope for analysis. Soaps are contrived environments in which predetermined scripted events take place. Nevertheless, as is illustrated in the next section, soaps provide a starting point from which to examine how identities interact, how subjectivities can be hybrid and fluid, and, therefore, how ontological security in international relations might incorporate a more complex reading of identity. Analysis of the Storylines Context in Migration Politics Soaps, as discussed above, often draw their storylines directly from the headlines, and the particular migration storylines selected are no exception. The two storylines were selected for analysis on the basis of their substance and reach: Coronation Street and Emmerdale integrated migration storylines into a limited time span that involved multiple characters and which, at times, created moral dilemmas. Identity can be considered central to the plot. Both the storylines can be clearly related to topical issues from the media. The Coronation Street storyline involved Polish workers who joined the employees of the Underworld factory. In 2007, Polish immigrant workers were receiving much media coverage following Poland's accession to the European Union and the corresponding right to live and work in other EU countries. This coverage grew over time: in 2008, Conservative MP Daniel Kawczynski reproached the BBC for focusing on white Christian Polish immigrants in order to portray the problems of immigration without running the risk of being accused of racism or religious intolerance. The question of immigrant workers, and particularly Polish workers, was in the headlines, with coverage reaching a peak in 2007, the year the storyline aired (Figure 1).1 Figure 1. Open in new tabDownload slide Number of articles in UK media on Polish and immigrant workers, by year, plotted with the number of Polish immigrants by year. Figure 1. Open in new tabDownload slide Number of articles in UK media on Polish and immigrant workers, by year, plotted with the number of Polish immigrants by year. Looking at the media coverage of the storyline and the media coverage more generally situates the storyline in its broader context. Themes of security reflect the concerns of the public—particularly people in low skilled work who felt their jobs to be threatened—and produce, through the storyline, a performance of security and insecurity as they intersect amongst different groups. The Emmerdale storyline is not as explicit as that of Coronation Street, which drew its commentary directly from the headlines, but nevertheless involved an issue that had generated media attention. This storyline focused on a single undocumented migrant who stows away in a truck belonging to the local haulage company, then resides and works without immigration status in the village setting of Emmerdale. The issue of undocumented journeys and lorry stowaways was one of national concern in 2009–2010 and has since resurged, particularly following the 2015 so-called Calais Crisis in the United Kingdom. While carrier sanctions were implemented in the United Kingdom as early as 1987, in 2004 an EU directive compelled all air carriers to begin to share passenger data. Air carriers began to verify immigration documents before boarding. This directive coincided with other EU restrictions on visas and travel, measures that corresponded to a rise in irregular journeys toward Europe over time, a link that has been made in the literature on migrant journeys (Gammeltoft-Hansen and Gammeltoft-Hansen 2008; Moreno-Lax 2008; Innes and Topinka 2016). As undocumented journeys increased, so did attention to the nature of undocumented border crossing. Particular attention was focused on Calais, where the UNHCR ran a refugee center until 2002. The Dublin II Regulation in 2002 coincided with the UNHCR closing the Sangatte centre; nevertheless, irregular camps known as “The Jungle” remained. The French authorities periodically bulldozed parts of these camps, which were unfailingly re-established elsewhere. Media attention focused on the intention of people in the Jungle to reach the United Kingdom in 2009, following the destruction of a major section of the camp and the announcement that the UNHCR would re-establish operations. Since one must be undetected and unfingerprinted elsewhere in Europe in order to make a UK asylum application, irregular journeys are an integral part of the story and media data shows that this was of particular interest at the time the Emmerdale storyline aired (Figure 2).2 Figure 2. Open in new tabDownload slide Number of articles in UK media on “illegal immigrants” and stowaways, by year. Figure 2. Open in new tabDownload slide Number of articles in UK media on “illegal immigrants” and stowaways, by year. Again, the media data situates the Emmerdale storyline in its broader cultural context. The themes of security focus on how the experiences of Olena, the immigrant, intersect with other characters and the ways in which her lack of status ultimately makes her vulnerable. Storyline Content: Coronation Street The Coronation Street storyline ran in 2007, when a group of Polish workers, Wiki, Judy and Kasia, moved from the nightshift to join the locals working on the dayshift at the textile factory on the street. The storyline focused on two local workers, Janice and Joanne, who were disgruntled with the Polish workers coming to “steal our jobs.” The story culminates in Janice calling immigration and immigration officers arriving to find that the Polish workers all have legal work visas. Joanne, however, who had participated in complaints about the Polish women, is revealed to be without status in the United Kingdom as she had been a child refugee from Liberia and her guardian hadn't filed her paperwork. This storyline addresses themes of race and citizenship. Economic insecurity is the motivation both for the Polish workers to be in the United Kingdom and for the local workers to complain about it. The classed nature of economic insecurity is revealed when Wiki, one of the Polish women, points out that Janice, the chief complainer about the migrants, is a hypocrite because her husband and daughter both work abroad. Janice is in an insecure economic position, in which she fears for her job. Her family members take the same path to economic security as the Polish workers. In this way, working-class identity and the corresponding economic insecurity both transcend and reinforce national identity, illustrating why a reified link between national identity and security can be problematic. While the locals who are bullying the Polish workers are denounced as “racist,” pervasive economic insecurity ends up being the determinant, and this dynamic is equally experienced by locals and migrants alike. Nevertheless, nuances of insecurity tied to race emerge when Joanne is detained by the immigration authorities. When she is called in for questioning her coworkers accuse the immigration officer of racism, showing that blackness, a visible marker of difference, sets apart and makes identity. Yet when she is detained, her coworkers decry the unfair treatment, shouting “she's more of a Manc than you are.” In this way, identities rely on context, both the cultural context in which they exist and the momentary context in which they are manifest. Joanne is a local Mancunian, black, working class, and female: precisely because these identities all intersect, none of them alone can accurately account for her experiences. Ontological security does not reside in the continuity of a single aspect of Joanne's identity, but is remade and reasserted as it is threatened and in response to those threats. The identity to which ontological security is attached changes with context. The importance of context for identity is evident in the in/security tied to citizenship and immigration status that is revealed through Joanne's storyline; her bullying of the Polish workers is a consequence of Joanne's own insecurity that results from her lack of citizenship status. A subtler portrayal of this theme is also evident when the immigration authorities arrive at the factory and Wiki is seen sneaking away, not because she doesn't have status (although that is clearly the idea the script-writers want to convey, only to then disrupt) but because she needs to fetch her documents. The immigration officers arrest Joanne, who has a Manchester accent but not documents. In this way, the experience of being in status but the insecurity tied to having an “othered” or different identity is made evident to viewers. This storyline invites viewers to consider and comment on immigration storylines, in the headlines in 2007, regarding the rolling back of restrictions on Polish workers and the corresponding fear that this would negatively impact working-class employment for British citizens. However, it did not do this in a totalizing way: the storyline was not told only from the British perspective, in fact the Polish characters were perhaps more likely to elicit sympathy in the face of Janice's bullying. Nevertheless, the Polish characters, Wiki, Kasia, and Judy, were not portrayed as victims; in fact Wiki retaliated to Janice's insults, at one point delivering her a pointed pint of “bitter.” The characters also did not hold totalizing views but instead considered the context of the situation as it impacted them. Janice regretted calling immigration when her friend was detained: she did not have a problem with migration per se, only with the perceived threat to her job. Roy Cropper, when invited to comment by his wife Hayley, suggested that immigration needed to be controlled somehow. Sally pointed out that the situation wasn't the fault of the Polish women and therefore they shouldn't have to suffer because of it. An uneasy truce was reached between Janice and Wiki after Joanne's detention, with the women all uniting against the immigration authorities who were the immediate symbol of insecurity in their continuous existence. Joanne's local identity functioned as belonging but could not provide her with security, whereas Wiki's legal status but lack of belonging equally could not fully provide security. The complexity and fluidity of security as it relates to identity is conveyed and commented upon by the characters, inviting viewers to consider the themes of identity, belonging, and security of immigration status in a local context. Storyline Content: Emmerdale Emmerdale, like Coronation Street, focused on the theme of undocumented workers although in this case they were represented by a single woman, Olena Petrovich. The storyline aired between 2009 and 2010, again reflecting media preoccupation with undocumented workers and with reports of people entering Britain irregularly in the back of lorries. Olena arrived in the village as a stowaway in the back of one of the local haulage company's trucks a little before Christmas and remained in hiding until the New Year. When she was discovered she explained that she needed to earn money to send to her son in Ukraine. The Dingle family offered Olena a place to stay, and Sam Dingle helped her find a job at the local bed and breakfast. Sam fell for Olena, but she was uncomfortable with that. She moved out of the Dingle's home following a fire, and when Sam proposed to her she refused because she feared she would be revealed to the authorities and removed. Sam decided to obtain a fake passport to facilitate their relationship; however, Zak (Sam's father) disapproved and warned Olena away from Sam. In the meantime, Olena developed feelings for Eli Dingle, Sam's cousin. After Sam discovered Olena and Eli kissing, he angrily reported Olena to immigration. Immigration authorities then detained Olena for working illegally in the United Kingdom. The portrayal of the undocumented immigrant as a female character is of particular interest, given that the typical immigrant making the border crossing in the back of a lorry is a male worker. Portraying a female immigrant constructs vulnerability and, coupled with Olena's injury on discovery, primed viewers to be ready to sympathize with the character. Similarly, Olena's role as a mother is meaningful: Olena had chosen to leave her son but also missed him. The difficulties of navigating economic insecurity and family life are apparent in this storyline. The portrayal of Olena as a female undocumented migrant bears on the narrative of security that reflects a gender hierarchical world where the masculine is associated with agency and threat while the feminine is associated with victimhood and vulnerability. Yet it also serves as a tool to rewrite the narrative of undocumented-migrant-as-a-threat into the undocumented-migrant-as-a-victim. This storyline focuses much more on romantic relationships than on immigration politics, yet the romantic relationships in question are infused with immigration politics. As D'Aoust argues, the lack of attention to marriage migration in migration studies betrays a tacit assumption that labor migration and male workers are the “right and proper object and subjects of migration control” (D'Aoust 2013: 259). Nevertheless, marriage migration and cross-national romantic relationships have been of increasing concern to policymakers interested in governing and controlling migration (ibid.). The romantic relationships at the heart of this immigration storyline draw on the theme of a potential marriage of convenience, the lived complexity of personal relationships, and the immigration rules surrounding them. The storyline produced headlines such as “Emmerdale divided” as the inhabitants of the fictional village pitted themselves for or against the irregular migrant (Daily Mail October 21, 2009). Insecurity in this context is tied to both immigration status and human relationships. Olena was initially injured with an infected wound and relied on the support of the Dingle family. Her insecure immigration status made her simultaneously vulnerable to Sam's advances, as she owed him kindness because he helped her, and reluctant to reciprocate. Thus, the complexity of being without status is not manifested just in belonging but in how it permits a person to relate to others, how one discloses oneself. Olena is a fictional character, but she also represents the undocumented migrant stowaway and so discloses this identity to viewers simultaneously. Viewers might not be exposed to ideas of migrants or migrant identities anywhere beyond the media, therefore, Olena's portrayal produces an idea of migrant identity as it invites viewers to comment. The interaction of immigration politics with personal experiences and personal relationships is relevant. Olena is bound in her actions by her identity. Her identity as a migrant produces insecurity in a relationship that depends on that identity, with Sam Dingle. Migrant identity and the insecurities it constructs are communicated through the storyline but are also localized and personalized through the perspective of a long-term local character on the show. Sam's insecurity is also evident. He helps Olena, but he also preys on her. She is vulnerable to his advances, and he is vulnerable in his relationship status: his previous encounters have included euthanizing his wife Alice, since she suffered from terminal cancer, and then misunderstanding advances from a friend Jo, who did not return his affection. Sam was also rejected by Olena. Personal insecurity for Sam then translated into physical insecurity for Olena when Sam realized she did not return his affection and reported her to the immigration authorities. The personal relationship was a fundamental part of the performance of security and insecurity in the storyline; therefore, the personal is produced as part of the debate on immigration politics that is invited by the storyline and that the storyline is simultaneously trying to approximate. The role of other family members in this encounter is meaningful. The Dingles are happy to help Olena, but then when her presence threatens Sam, they are quick to warn her away, replicating the suspicion of the harm brought by “others” to the in-group. Olena obtains employment, but for the duration of the storyline, her employer believes her to be Polish with the relevant documents. However, perhaps unexpectedly, Olena's status as an undocumented worker is not a central part of the storyline. The insecurity theme is central to her experience of relationships and how she is constrained in her interactions with Sam and Eli, yet immigration status is neither the sole cause of, nor the sole solution to, insecurity. Intersectional Identities, Interacting Identities, and Ontological Security Human experiences in everyday life, based in local communities, are central to soap storylines. However, soaps both reflect and reproduce the national discourse. This is designed, particularly in ITV soaps like Coronation Street and Emmerdale, to replicate, address, and contribute to the way nonelites, the working class, and “ordinary people” experience the issues that form national debates. Of course, the soaps are arguably also produced by elites, who create an understanding of working class life. Yet, the consumer demand that they are culturally proximate counters this elitism to some degree: it forces the writers to take working-class experiences seriously. Elite discourse on security has been thoroughly covered in the ontological security literature in the form of national biographical narratives that are made in government documents, political debates, and addresses, as well as recorded history and education materials (Steele 2005; Mitzen 2006). The experiential side of ontological security is less accessible and is particularly difficult to construct as different identities intersect and relate and fluid, changeable experiences of security and insecurity are made and unmade. The soap storylines focus on how the immigrants and the locals interact: how they disclose themselves to one another and, hence, how they make or challenge security and insecurity. These encounters in the mundane interactions of the characters stress the personal and the everyday as political. For example, in the Coronation Street storyline, the initial focus is on economic insecurity. Janice's constant refrain is that the Polish workers are going to “steal our jobs.” This is reflected in media coverage, which uses terms such as “cut-price migrant workers” that are part of the factory owner's attempt to “slash costs” (Mahoney 2007: 3). Janice, as a proxy for low-skilled workers, is concerned that her job will be replaced, and her insecurity is manifested in the threat she then poses to the immigrant workers. Here, the economic insecurity experienced by the British white working class is articulated as constituting a threat—both to the white working class and to the security experiences of incoming migrants. The storyline challenges a simple narrative of xenophobia amongst the white working class and embeds the issue in the local economy of the soap. The local identity and belonging of the white working class is constituted against outsiders and others, incorporating national identity into the performance of security. Local, national, and class identities are prioritized over racial and ethnic identities in the way Joanne adopts Janice's narrative; yet, the discomfort of this is also brought to the foreground in the way other workers challenge Joanne's participation in the discourse of belonging, suggesting her blackness should make her tolerant of “others.” Joanne clearly demarcates a distinction between the performance of national identity and the performance of racial identity, using her race to argue that it's impossible that Janice's reaction to the Polish workers is racist. As the storyline unfolds, Joanne's performance of national and local identity takes on more significance as it becomes clear that she adopted her position in order to ascertain her own security. When that security is threatened by the very position she has adopted when Janice calls the immigration authorities, the local identity is prioritized, with the characters emphasizing that Joanne is “one of us” and “a Manc.” The insecurity wrought by Joanne's intersecting identities (as local, working class, black, female, undocumented immigrant) is at once revealed and resisted by these intersecting identities. The Polish women are not presented as vulnerable, complicating dominant depictions of female migrant vulnerability. Wiki retaliates to Janice's bullying, pointing out (“quite reasonably,” according to the Evening Standard, April 4, 2007: 20) that Janice is hypocritical because her husband and daughter work abroad, simultaneously opening for debate the double standards produced by economic insecurity. Moreover, it is not unusual for women to be the central focus in Coronation Street, a soap known for its strong, Northern women. The portrayal of immigrant workers as equally strong characters both produces a particular rendering of working-class women and rewrites a conventional assumption about migrant workers. First, the migrant women are adopted into the characteristics of working class women, performing a common identity even when in conflict with each other. The workers are equal adversaries, rather than a vulnerable minority subject to the bullying majority. Second, conventionally, immigrant workers are thought of as male, yet here they are women. Female migrants are often thought of as vulnerable or as victims. The women in this context are not constituted as victims. Nevertheless, structural victimization is built into the storyline as Wiki draws attention to the inferior rate of pay that she and the other Polish workers receive, which compels them to work double shifts. The inclusion of the unequal pay dynamic in the storyline received positive recognition from the Equality Society, which praised the soap for bringing the issue to light (Curran 2007). Structural insecurity is performed while characters overturn victim associations and assumptions of female vulnerability. The women then become rounder characters, and the type of economic insecurity they suffer is shown to be systemic and to have commonalities with the economic insecurity of the local workers. The insecurity attached to local and migrant identities surges and recedes, depending on how the women relate to each other in given contexts where their identities and vulnerabilities intersect. Thus, security and insecurity are made in a relational way and the identity in which ontological security is based varies and changes according to circumstance. The construction of local identities outweighs the importance of national identity, despite the national level governing immigration status. The Polish women are, of course, marked by nationality. However, Joanne is emphasized as being local throughout the storyline in which her lack of British citizenship and her identity as a Liberian undocumented immigrant is revealed. Even Janice is not troubled by Joanne's lack of citizenship status, as her local identity as a “Manc” secures her belonging. In this way, identity and the security held therein are not constituted by the law, citizenship, or nationality but are constituted by affective ties. Yet insecurity—Joanne's in this case—is constituted by the law and citizenship. Joanne is rendered insecure because she does not possess legal status in the United Kingdom. These shifts between local belonging and legal belonging reveal a misalignment of security and insecurity as they are understood as relating specifically to national identity. The shift can also be understood as a shift between which performance of identity is the most directly related to ontological security at any given time: something that, as aforementioned, changes in given contexts. Olena's character in Emmerdale is more conventionally “insecure” and vulnerable than the Polish women in Coronation Street. Her motivation for stowing away in the lorry was to earn money to send to her young son, who she has left behind in Ukraine. She is economically insecure, and she is vulnerable without a UK support network other than that offered in the village setting of Emmerdale. The law is evoked in this storyline as producing vulnerability—Olena is constrained by the law. She does not represent an economic or identity threat to other characters, but she does render them vulnerable to the law. She works without legal authorization, yet the consequences of this for her employer are not explored. The national imaginary on the insecurity of being an illegal immigrant is more predominant in the Emmerdale storyline, which focuses on Olena's experiences as opposed to the “shock reveal” of Joanne's lack of status in Coronation Street. Olena is consciously an undocumented worker, unlike Joanne, who was aware of her status but thought it beyond her control. The media expressed some skepticism at the credibility of the storyline; for example, the Nottingham Evening Post commented “an Emmerdale shed is the first place I'd look for an illegal immigrant” (December 4, 2009: 4). Nevertheless, the Daily Record offered some sensitivity toward the situation of undocumented migrants with the somewhat sarcastic analysis, “I wonder if this is part of the new life Olena dreamed of? Being smuggled toast by a couple of children and sleeping on the village idiot's floor? This is the England they don't show you in the British Airways commercials” (Simon and McIver 2009: 29). In this way, the performance of the undocumented immigrant through Olena's character allows the media to tap into the national imaginary of the undocumented migrant coming to “take our jobs.” The media uses the Emmerdale storyline as illustrative of (if not accurately portraying) a more difficult reality and opening scope for debate. Immigration law in the context of the Emmerdale storyline affects the everyday experiences of a wider range of people than the “immigrant,” most of whom are British citizens. For example, when the Dingles first hide Olena, they must circumvent the law on her behalf, such as when Lisa is forced to “take desperate measures” to help Olena escape the police in a traffic stop (Dyke and Begley 2010: 29). Sam is vulnerable, both in his affection for Olena and in his attempt to navigate this affection by acquiring for her a false passport. The power dynamics of this relationship are complex, as the Sunday Mercury (March 21, 2010: 4) observed following Sam's proposal: “he hopes she may agree just to get a British passport, but it seems not even the thought of being deported will get her to say yes.” Sam's character has been historically vulnerable in relationships, yet he wields a form of power in this interaction. Olena's insecure status as an undocumented migrant gives him enough confidence to pursue her affections. Sam's character performs a secure national identity that is produced in relation to Olena's insecurity. Similarly, Eli is made vulnerable by his affection for Olena and Olena's insecure status when she is detained by immigration authorities. The power is retained in the hands of the state and conflicts with experiences of security and vulnerability: Sam quickly regrets his actions as he watches Olena being removed. Ultimately, the state as an actor is able to protect itself from “illegal” immigration, yet both Sam and Eli are left harmed by Olena's lack of status: Sam in a complex way, as her vulnerability affected her ability to disclose herself accurately to him, and Eli because he is prevented from being with her. As governance works to “manage” migration as a means of protecting and remaking the state, it produces insecurity that is made in embarking upon emotional relationships cross-nationally (D'Aoust 2013). Attending to this storyline as performative ontological security underlines state-based identity not as providing security for society but, instead, as making insecurity for a complex population, which interacts with each other in everyday life. Positioning individuals as subjects of ontological security must also depend on how those individuals relate to and interact with each other. Therefore, to examine ontological security for given identities, one must take into account how that security is made and unmade as identities interact with each other. While ontological security is attached to identity to represent a more permanent and established form of security, identities are constantly being disclosed and interpreted in different ways. What performance or disclosure of identity is most closely related to ontological security changes with context, circumstance, and relationships. Hence, a performative and relational ontological security is necessary to then understand the fluctuations in relationships, actions, identities, and ideas in everyday life. Conclusion At the experiential level of security, affective environments provide the resources for forming, reforming, and performing identities that, in turn, sustain a feeling of ontological security. Soaps represent performances of the banal and the everyday, but these performances are replete with social and political commentary. The commentary is culturally proximate in that it reflects social life but bears a didactic message and contributes to producing social life and social experiences. To focus on security experiences in this dynamic, while situating soaps within their contextual cultural milieu and within their media environment gives an indication of an experiential and affective ontological security at a level that can breach different identity experiences and intersecting identities, accounting not just for the national, but for gender, class, race, immigration status and nationality amongst other potential facets of identity. Soaps offer insight into the various layers of performing identity, amongst characters, viewer, scriptwriters, and the commenters of various media, including tabloids and online wikis. These experiences intersect and are made in their confrontation and collaboration with each other in the acts of making, performing, consuming, and commenting on the soap. The theory of ontological security in international relations accounts for affect at a national and subnational level. Here I demonstrate that it can account for affect at an intersectional and experiential level while evading the problem of totalizing security production as the domain of the state. A number of identities can be held simultaneously, both producing and resolving insecurity in social interactions as they intersect. Ontological security theory incorporates here the potential for fluid identities that react to environmental, circumstantial, and relational phenomena and, in doing so, produce security. In the Coronation Street storyline, the ties between identity and security shift and change according to the social context, residing between the local identity, which permitted affective ties and belonging, and the national identity, which provided security through the rule of law. In the Emmerdale storyline, ontological security was made and disrupted through relational encounters and affective ties: both for the citizens of Emmerdale who encountered Olena and for Olena as the undocumented migrant. Ultimately, the experience of ontological security is tied to identity experiences in everyday mundane encounters. Drawing attention to the way identity relies on affective ties and to fluid and contextual identities in everyday experiences both complicates and enrichens ontological security theory in IR. Footnotes 1 " The data was generated by a Nexis search of all UK publications, excluding entertainment magazines to avoid cross contamination with the Coronation Street storyline. The search generated appearances of “Polish worker” or “immigrant worker.” Data periods were from July of the preceding year to the end of the labelled year (so “2005” comprised all data from 01/07/2004-31/12/2005). The data relating to numbers of Polish immigrants is taken from the national census. 2 " This data was generated by a Nexis search of all UK publications, again excluding entertainment magazines to avoid cross contamination. The search terms were a little more specific as the use of “illegal immigrant” alone generated tens of thousands of hits, and was not as closely related to the storyline, hence the inclusion of the term “stowaway.” Data periods were in two-year increments, hence 2007-08 includes data from 01/01/2007-31/12/2008. References Ackerley Brooke , True Jacqui. 2008 . “ Reflexivity in Practice: Power and Ethics in Feminist Research on International Relations .” International Studies Review 10 ( 4 ): 693 – 707 . Google Scholar Crossref Search ADS WorldCat Agius Christine . 2016 . “ Drawing the Discourses of Ontological Security: Immigration and Identity in the Danish and Swedish Cartoon Crises .” Cooperation and Conflict 52 ( 1 ): 109 – 25 . Google Scholar Crossref Search ADS WorldCat Ang Ien . 1985 . Watching Dallas: Soap Opera and the Melodramatic Imagination . London : Routledge . Google Scholar Google Preview OpenURL Placeholder Text WorldCat COPAC Auchter Jessica . 2014 . The Politics of Haunting and Memory in International Relations . London : Routledge . Google Scholar Google Preview OpenURL Placeholder Text WorldCat COPAC Bigo Didier , Carrera Sergio, Guild Elspeth, eds. 2013 . Foreigners, Refugees or Minorities: Rethinking People in the Context of Border Controls and Visas . Burlington, VT : Ashgate . Google Scholar Google Preview OpenURL Placeholder Text WorldCat COPAC Bigo Didier . 2002 . “ Security and Immigration: Toward a Critique of the Governmentality of Unease .” Alternatives 27 ( 1 ): 63 – 92 . Google Scholar Crossref Search ADS WorldCat Bousquet Antoine . 2006 . “ Time Zero: Hiroshima, September 11 and Apocalyptic Revelations in Historical Consciousness .” Millennium: Journal of International Studies 34 ( 3 ): 739 – 64 . Google Scholar Crossref Search ADS WorldCat Bubandt Nils . 2005 . “ Vernacular Security: The Politics of Feeling Safe in Global, National and Local Worlds .” Security Dialogue 36 ( 3 ): 275 – 96 . Google Scholar Crossref Search ADS WorldCat Budryte Dovile . 2013 . “ Travelling Trauma: Lithuanian Transnational Memory after World War II .” In Memory and Trauma in International Relations: Theories, Cases, Debates , edited by Resende Erica, Budryte Dovile, 168 – 81 . London : Routledge . Google Scholar Google Preview OpenURL Placeholder Text WorldCat COPAC Butler Judith . 2005 . Giving an Account of Oneself . New York : Fordham University Press . Google Scholar Crossref Search ADS Google Scholar Google Preview WorldCat COPAC Crawford Neta C. 2000 . “ The Passion of World Politics: Propositions on Emotion and Emotional Relationships .” International Security 24 ( 4 ): 116 – 56 . Google Scholar Crossref Search ADS WorldCat Crenshaw Kimberle . 1991 . “ Mapping the Margins: Intersectionality, Identity Politics, and Violence Against Women of Color .” Stanford Law Review 43 ( 6 ): 1241 – 99 . Google Scholar Crossref Search ADS WorldCat Croft Stuart , Vaughn-Williams Nick. 2016 . “ Fit for Purpose? Fitting Ontological Security Studies ‘Into’ the Discipline of International Relations: Towards a Vernacular Turn .” Cooperation and Conflict 52 ( 1 ): 12 – 30 . Google Scholar Crossref Search ADS WorldCat Croft Stuart . 2012 . “ Constructing Ontological Insecurity: The Insecuritization of British Muslims .” Contemporary Security Policy 33 ( 2 ): 219 – 35 . Google Scholar Crossref Search ADS WorldCat Cull Nicholas John . 1995 . Selling War: The British Propaganda Campaign against American “Neutrality” in World War II . Oxford : Oxford University Press . Google Scholar Google Preview OpenURL Placeholder Text WorldCat COPAC Curran Bronagh . 2007 . “ Soap Race Tale Hailed .” The News of the World March 11 . OpenURL Placeholder Text WorldCat D'Aoust Anne-Marie . 2013 . “ In the Name of Love: Marriage Migration, Governmentality, and Technologies of Love .” International Political Sociology 7 ( 3 ): 258 – 74 . Google Scholar Crossref Search ADS WorldCat Dauphinee Elizabeth . 2013 . The Politics of Exile. Interventions . London : Routledge . Google Scholar Google Preview OpenURL Placeholder Text WorldCat COPAC Dixit Priya . 2012 . “ Relating to Difference: Aliens and Alienness in Doctor Who and International Relations .” International Studies Perspectives 13 ( 3 ): 289 – 306 . Google Scholar Crossref Search ADS WorldCat Dodds Klaus . 2008 . “ Screening Terror: Hollywood, the United States and the Construction of Danger .” Critical Studies on Terrorism 1 ( 2 ): 227 – 43 . Google Scholar Crossref Search ADS WorldCat Donovan Paul . 1991 . The Radio Companion . London : Grafton . Google Scholar Google Preview OpenURL Placeholder Text WorldCat COPAC Dyer Richard , Geraghty Christine, Jordan Marion, Lovell Richard Paterson, Stewart John, eds. 1981 . Coronation Street . London : The British Film Institute . Google Scholar Google Preview OpenURL Placeholder Text WorldCat COPAC Dyke Peter , Begley Kate. 2010 . “ Emmerdale; Hot Telly News .” p. 29 . Daily Star February 15 OpenURL Placeholder Text WorldCat Enloe Cynthia . 1989 . Bananas, Beaches, and Bases. Making Feminist Sense of International Politics . Los Angeles, CA : University of California Press . Google Scholar Google Preview OpenURL Placeholder Text WorldCat COPAC Fierke Karin M. 2012 . Political Self-Sacrifice: Agency, Body and Emotion in International Relations . Cambridge Studies in International Relations . Cambridge : Cambridge University Press . Google Scholar Crossref Search ADS Google Scholar Google Preview WorldCat COPAC Gammeltoft-Hansen Thomas , Gammeltoft-Hansen Hans. 2008 . “ The Right to Seek - Revisited. On the UN Human Rights Declaration Article 14 and Access to Asylum Procedures in the EU .” European Journal of Migration and Law 10 : 439 – 59 . Google Scholar Crossref Search ADS Google Scholar Google Preview WorldCat COPAC Giddens Anthony . 1984 . The Constitution of Society . Berkeley : University of California Press . Google Scholar Google Preview OpenURL Placeholder Text WorldCat COPAC Giddens Anthony . 1990 . The Consequences of Modernity . Cambridge : Polity . Google Scholar Google Preview OpenURL Placeholder Text WorldCat COPAC Grayson Kyle , Davies Matt, Philpott Simon. 2009 . “ Pop Goes IR? Research the Popular-Culture World Politics Continuum .” Politics 29 ( 3 ): 155 – 63 . Google Scholar Crossref Search ADS WorldCat Guild Elspeth . 2009 . Security and Migration in the 21st Century . London : Routledge . Google Scholar Google Preview OpenURL Placeholder Text WorldCat COPAC Hanisch Carol. 2000 . “ The Personal Is Political .” In Radical Feminism: A Documentary Reader , edited by Crow Barbara A., 113 – 7 . New York : New York University Press . Google Scholar Google Preview OpenURL Placeholder Text WorldCat COPAC Hansen Lene , Nissenbaum Helen. 2009 . “ Digital Disaster, Cyber Security, and the Copenhagen School .” International Studies Quarterly 53 ( 4 ): 1155 – 75 . Google Scholar Crossref Search ADS WorldCat Hutchinson Emma , Bleiker Roland. 2014 . “ Theorizing Emotions in World Politics .” International Theory 6 ( 3 ): 491 – 514 . Google Scholar Crossref Search ADS WorldCat Huysmans Jef . 2006 . The Politics of Insecurity. Fear, Migration and Asylum in the EU . New York : Routledge . Google Scholar Google Preview OpenURL Placeholder Text WorldCat COPAC Innes Alexandria J , Topinka Robert J.. 2016 . “ The Politics of a Poncy Pillowcase: Migration and Borders in Coronation Street .” Politics Online First (October). doi : https://doi.org/10.1177/0263395716675371 . OpenURL Placeholder Text WorldCat Innes Alexandria J. 2015 . Migration, Citizenship and the Challenge for Security . London : Palgrave . Google Scholar Crossref Search ADS Google Scholar Google Preview WorldCat COPAC Johnson Heather . 2014 . Borders, Asylum and Global Non-Citizenship: The Other Side of the Fence . Cambridge : Cambridge University Press . Google Scholar Crossref Search ADS Google Scholar Google Preview WorldCat COPAC Kinnvall Catarina . 2004 . “ Globalization and Religious Nationalism: Self, Identity, and the Search for Ontological Security .” Political Psychology 25 ( 5 ): 741 – 67 . Google Scholar Crossref Search ADS WorldCat Mackenzie Megan . 2011 . “ Their Personal is Political, Not Mine: Feminism and Emotion .” International Studies Review 13 ( 4 ): 691 – 3 . OpenURL Placeholder Text WorldCat Mahoney John . 2007 . “ Foreign Nation Street!; Up the Pole over Corrie Migrants .” p. 3 . Daily Star March 1 . OpenURL Placeholder Text WorldCat Marshall Sandra . 2011 . “ Super-Human Researchers in Feminist International Relations' Narratives .” International Studies Review 13 ( 4 ): 688 – 90 . OpenURL Placeholder Text WorldCat Massumi Brian . 1987 . “ Notes on the Translation and Acknowledgements .” In A Thousand Plateaus , edited by Deleuze Gilles, Guattari Felix. xvi – xix . Minneapolis : University of Minnesota Press . Google Scholar Google Preview OpenURL Placeholder Text WorldCat COPAC McNicholas Anthony . 2016 . “ Soaps on the BBC: From the Front Line to the Queen Vic .” History of the BBC . Accessed February 26, 2016, http://www.bbc.co.uk/historyofthebbc/research/programming/soaps . OpenURL Placeholder Text WorldCat Mitzen Jennifer . 2006 . “ Anchoring Europe's Civilizing Identity: Habits, Capabilities and Ontological Security .” Journal of European Public Policy 13 ( 2 ): 270 – 85 . Google Scholar Crossref Search ADS WorldCat Moreno Lax Violeta . 2008 . “ Must EU Borders Have Doors for Refugees? On the Compatibility of Schengen Visas and Carriers’ Sanctions with EU Member States’ Obligations to Provide International Protection to Refugees .” European Journal of Migration and Law 10 ( 3 ): 315 – 64 . Google Scholar Crossref Search ADS WorldCat Morley David . 1980 . The Nationwide Audience: Structure and Decoding . London : British Film Institute . Google Scholar Google Preview OpenURL Placeholder Text WorldCat COPAC Neumann Iver B , Nexon Daniel H.. 2006 . Harry Potter and International Relations . Oxford : Rowman and Littlefield . Google Scholar Google Preview OpenURL Placeholder Text WorldCat COPAC Nunn Caitlin , McMichael Celia, Gifford Sandra, Correa-Velez Ignacio. 2016 . “ Mobility and Security: The Perceived Benefits of Citizenship for Resettled Young People from Refugee Backgrounds .” Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies 42 ( 3 ): 382 – 99 . Google Scholar Crossref Search ADS WorldCat Parker Owen . 2012 . “ Roma and the Politics of EU Citizenship in France: Everyday Security and Resistance .” Journal of Common Market Studies 50 ( 3 ): 475 – 91 . Google Scholar Crossref Search ADS WorldCat Power Marcus . 2007 . “ Digitized Virtuosity: Video War Games and Post 9/11 Cyber-Deterrence .” Security Dialogue 38 ( 2 ): 271 – 88 . Google Scholar Crossref Search ADS WorldCat Pusca Anca . 2015 . “ Representing Romani Gypsies and Travelers: Performing Identity from Early Photography to Reality Television .” International Studies Perspectives 16 ( 3 ): 327 – 44 . Google Scholar Crossref Search ADS WorldCat Radway Janice . 2008 . “ What's the Matter with Reception Study: Some Thoughts on the Disciplinary Origins, Conceptual Constraints, and Persistent Viability of a Paradigm .” In New Directions in American Reception Study , edited by Goldstein Philip, Machor James L., 327 – 51 . Oxford : Oxford University Press . Google Scholar Google Preview OpenURL Placeholder Text WorldCat COPAC Rossdale Chris . 2015 . “ Enclosing Critique: The Limits of Ontological Security .” International Political Sociology 9 ( 4 ): 369 – 86 . Google Scholar Crossref Search ADS WorldCat Simon Jane , McIver Brian. 2009 . “ Record TV .” Daily Record December 8 . OpenURL Placeholder Text WorldCat Skey Michael . 2010 . “ ‘A Sense of Where You Belong in the World’: National Belonging, Ontological Security and the Status of the Ethnic Majority in England .” Nations and Nationalism 16 ( 4 ): 715 – 33 . Google Scholar Crossref Search ADS WorldCat Steele Brent J. 2005 . “ Ontological Security and the Power of the Self: British Neutrality and the American Civil War .” Review of International Studies 31 ( 3 ): 519 – 40 . Google Scholar Crossref Search ADS WorldCat Steele Brent J. 2008 . Ontological Security in International Relations . London : Routledge . Google Scholar Google Preview OpenURL Placeholder Text WorldCat COPAC Steele Brent J. 2016 . “ Organizational Processes and Ontological (In)security: Torture, the CIA and the United States .” Cooperation and Conflict 52 ( 1 ): 69 – 89 . Google Scholar Crossref Search ADS WorldCat Stern Maria . 1998 . “ Reading Mayan Women's In/Security .” International Journal of Peace Studies 3 ( 2 ). http://www.gmu.edu/programs/icar/ijps/vol3_2/Petterson.htm . OpenURL Placeholder Text WorldCat Sylvester Christine , ed. 2011 . “ The Forum: Emotion and the Feminist IR Researcher .” International Studies Review 13 ( 4 ): 687 – 708 . Google Scholar Crossref Search ADS WorldCat Turner Joe . 2015 . “ The Family Migration Visa in the History of Marriage Restrictions: Postcolonial Relations and the UK Border .” British Journal of Politics and International Relations 17 ( 4 ): 623 – 43 . Google Scholar Crossref Search ADS WorldCat Zalewski Marysia . 1996 . “ All These Theories and yet the Bodies Keep Piling up .” In International Theory: Positivism and Beyond , edited by Smith Steve, Booth Ken, Zalewski Marysia. Cambridge : Cambridge University Press . Google Scholar Google Preview OpenURL Placeholder Text WorldCat COPAC © The Author (2017). Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the International Studies Association. All rights reserved. For permissions, please e-mail: [email protected] http://www.deepdyve.com/assets/images/DeepDyve-Logo-lg.png International Political Sociology Oxford University Press

Everyday Ontological Security: Emotion and Migration in British Soaps

Download PDF
18 pages

Loading next page...
 
/lp/oxford-university-press/everyday-ontological-security-emotion-and-migration-in-british-soaps-lmrFPamKd2

References (81)

Publisher
Oxford University Press
Copyright
© The Author (2017). Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the International Studies Association. All rights reserved. For permissions, please e-mail: [email protected]
ISSN
1749-5679
eISSN
1749-5687
DOI
10.1093/ips/olx018
Publisher site
See Article on Publisher Site

Abstract

Abstract Work on affect has made significant contributions to how international relations (IR) scholars understand the high politics of international affairs, capturing political reactions to the horrific, the spectacular, and the exceptional. However, the turn to affect has been less inclined to offer comprehensive insight into the importance of emotion in banal or everyday international politics. The theory of ontological security can offer such insight as it attends to experiences of the everyday, particularly through the discursive production of identity. Identity might be disrupted at moments of spectacular or exceptional events that call it into question but is equally made and remade in the discursive production of everyday life. This research focuses on the latter, analyzing the reproduction of the international in the everyday through the vehicle of British soap operas Coronation Street and Emmerdale, both of which introduced storylines about migrant workers in the late 2000s. British soaps are designed to be culturally proximate and incorporate didactic messages. Analysis of soaps offers a layered and intersectional view of emotional reactions to international migration at the level of an abstracted individual and the level of the nation-as-viewer. Work on affect has made significant contributions to how IR scholars understand the high politics of international affairs, capturing political reactions to the horrific, the spectacular, and the exceptional (Fierke 2012; Auchter 2014; Hutchinson and Bleiker 2014). However, the turn to affect has been less inclined to offer comprehensive insight into the importance of emotion in banal or everyday international politics. Feminists in IR are, of course, the exception to this rule, variously focusing on the importance of emotion in encounters with international phenomena (Stern 1998; Ackerley and True 2008; MacKenzie 2011; Dauphinee 2013). Notable feminists such as Cynthia Enloe (1989) and Marysia Zalewski (1996) turned attention away from elites and patriarchal structures to attend to everybody and the everyday of international relations. Further, work on everyday experiences of security has made inroads into understanding the politics of resistance and the importance of identity (Parker 2012; Hansen and Niessenbaum 2009). Similarly, work on vernacular security has incorporated an experiential security and seeks to learn from the everyday (Bubandt 2005; Croft and Vaughn Williams 2016). I suggest here that the theory of ontological security can offer insight into the role of emotion in everyday international relations as it attends to the discursive production and, I argue, the performative production of identity. Identity might be disrupted at moments of spectacular or exceptional events that call it into question but is equally made and remade in everyday life. This research focuses on the latter, analyzing the reproduction of the international in the everyday. To explore the security/identity nexus, I focus on migration in the United Kingdom. Studies at the intersection of migration and security have explored variously the securitization of migration (Huysmans 2006), the implications of security for migration (Bigo 2002; Guild 2009; Bigo, Carrera and Guild 2013), and migrants as the subject of security (Johnson 2014; Innes 2015). In this study, I ask how security is at stake in the everyday politics of migration. I employ ontological security theory to understand how identity is concomitant to security, foregrounding how security is made in fluid and relational identities that are performed in social contexts. I use the vehicle of British soaps to access the everyday, arguing that soaps are an important genre for the study of politics manifest in everyday life. British soaps are overtly political in design; they breach the divide between the private and public spheres; and they represent, reproduce, and give rise to public debate on topical social and political themes. Four British soaps have run storylines, of varying length, that involved migration: Coronation Street, EastEnders, Emmerdale, and Hollyoaks. These storylines have coincided, for the most part, with migration dominating headlines and politics in Britain. In this paper, I analyze Coronation Street and Emmerdale, both of which featured forms of undocumented migration, as well as the coverage the immigration storylines subsequently generated in the media, to offer a layered and intersectional view of emotional reactions to international migration at both the level of an abstracted individual and the level of the nation-as-viewer. I argue that an analysis of soaps permits theorization of an ontological security that can account for fluid identities and fluid and hybrid subjectivities and reveals the importance of emotional encounters and affective ties for security. Ontological Security, Subjectivity, and Fluid Identities Ontological security, initially conceptualized by psychologist R. D. Laing and most extensively developed by sociologist Anthony Giddens, refers to an internally held feeling of security that is produced by belonging—by a sense of stable identity and continuity in one's place in the world (Giddens 1990). The ontologically secure actor can rely on stable expectations based on a body of shared, social, mutual knowledge of the world (Giddens 1984). The ontological security literature in IR has been largely interested in the importance of identity and memory for the production of security, focusing on the way identity and memory are produced and reproduced at the state level, for nation or society. Ontological security theory always engages affect as a component, although this isn't always the central focus of the theory. For Brent Steele (2005, 2008), the fragility of the state's autobiographical narrative guides foreign policy decisions in a way that reproduces this narrative or, at times, rewrites the narrative to cope with trauma or rupture to the narrative and, therefore, to state identity. Understanding the importance of identity as part of state security can, then, explain what might otherwise appear to be counterintuitive security decisions. Security and insecurity are made affectively in this way although affect is not the central focus of Steele's work. Yet, the role of emotional experiences, such as guilt and shame, guide the production and reproduction of identity narratives. While critically oriented, this work reproduces the dominant narrative of the state in international relations and totalizes security production as the state project by embedding state identity into security. This is a critique that has been leveled at ontological security theory in IR. For example, Rossdale (2015) focuses on the totalization of political subjectivity as his point of critique of the ontological security literature, yet there is some elusiveness as to who (or what) holds that subjectivity and whether the subject of security, particularly whether it is an individual or collective subject, is important. While state narratives of identity permit some change in content in Steele's work, the state itself remains the subject of security. Kinnvall, on the other hand, seeks to understand the way ontological security works for groups without a state-based identity, examining how minority collectives generate a nonstate security through producing an autobiographical identity narrative that creates an ontological security, which is often in opposition to the state. In this context, ontological security again requires a stable identity narrative, to the extent that groups which might experience hybrid identities will “securitize subjectivity, which means an intensified search for one stable identity” (Kinnvall 2004, 749, emphasis in original). Kinnvall's work, then, has the capacity to recognize fluid and intersectional identities; yet, understood in this way, ontological security for a collective subject requires a single, stable identity. Stuart Croft (2012) provides the closest engagement with the individual level in terms of what is at stake for IR in the roots of ontological security theory in psychology and sociology. Rather than upscaling for the state-as-actor, Croft asks how the state makes individual experiences of security and how individual experiences of security are implicit in state policies. Identity in this case might manifest differently in different settings (for example, in public, such as in the workplace, versus in private, such as in the home). Why and how identity changes in this way is at the heart of my argument. Similarly, Agius (2016) considers the othering power of discourses of ontological security, although she, like Kinnvall, places particular emphasis on the desire for a stable and consistent idea of self. Here, the emphasis on stability overwrites the possibility for hybridity of identity, something that particularly comes into play for intergenerational migration, postcolonial identity politics, and the complexity of religious sects, ethnic groups, and racial and gender identities, which often overlap and produce hybrid identities that are not stable nor yearning for stability. I argue instead that different facets of hybrid identities manifest in different situations but can all be concurrently held by a single person whose consistent idea of self does not need a stable narrative. To fully understand how these facets of identity work, they must be understood within the fluid social environments in which identities are formed and performed. Ty Solomon (forthcoming) draws our attention to the importance of attending to environment, examining affect as it is transmitted amongst collectives, corporate actors, and groups in a way that manifests as an environmental phenomenon through performance that disperses and circulates. Where emotions are the display of a specific feeling, affects are states of experience of varying intensity and potential that circulate and shape environments (Massumi 1987). Thus, as the subject's environment changes, so the feeling and the performance of ontological security also changes. Affective ties to place, group, or idea mean different identities take precedence in different contexts. In this way, ontological security does not require a fixed or stable identity. In disciplines that are situated more comfortably at the individual level, such as sociology and psychology, a single stable identity is not necessary for ontological security; for example, Nunn, McMichael, Gifford, and Correa-Velez (2016) look to hybrid identities amongst refugees who have naturalized in Australia, where the very duality of identity produces ontological security. This problematizes, to some extent, Kinnvall's (2004) argument (and Rossdale's 2015 critique of that argument), whereby securitization for one group relies on exclusion and, therefore, creates an ontological security dilemma where security for some produces insecurity for others, who will act to produce security, thus producing exclusions and making insecurity, so the cycle continues. Kinnvall prioritizes ontological security-seeking relationships, and these relationships require that groups and the individuals that compose them achieve security by subscribing to linear and singular identities. Rossdale (2015) engages in some compelling critiques of the ontological security literature—advancing that it is totalizing, not just in the state security orientation but also in the experience of identity in so far as it constitutes the subject in a closed way. Drawing on Butler and Haraway, he argues that the focus on a group identity narrative precludes the possibility of hybrid identities and open subjectivities. Rossdale ultimately makes an ethicopolitical argument that ontological security-seeking is often violent or othering. He argues that it is in the absence of ontological security—the discontinuities—that ethical and political obligations emerge and that theories mobilizing ontological security in international relations are implicated in the reproduction of security-based exclusion, precluding resistance. In contradistinction to Rossdale, I propose that the concept of ontological security can circumvent the problem of totalizing the state or of totalizing identity and subjectivities. It can provide insight into an experiential security that can engage hybridity and replicate lived experiences that are almost never, in a globalized world, simple linear attachments to a state. Transnational, diasporic, and migrant identities often foreground security experiences, particularly when diasporas have been produced following trauma or when migration has been forced (Budryte 2013; Nunn et al. 2016). I argue that focusing on a performative ontological security, as opposed to a historical or linear narrative of ontological security, offers space to understand identity becoming and the role of ontological security in security experiences in the everyday, not just of transnational, diasporic, and migrant identities but permitting other forms of complex identity, such as race, class, religion, ethnicity, age, gender, and so on. To do so, I draw on Kimberley Crenshaw's (1991) concept of intersectionality. For Crenshaw, when identities intersect and are held simultaneously, identity politics are problematized. In Crenshaw's example, identity as a black woman is neither accounted for in black identity politics (that default to the black male) or in feminist identity politics (that default to the white, middle class female). Thus, identity politics as a project becomes potentially oppressive, further writing the intersectional identity of “black woman” out of the dominant narrative and effectively silencing the experiences of black women that are made by being both black and female at once. In this way, acknowledging intersectional identities gives scope to understand belonging to more than one identity group simultaneously; here I attend to how this belonging manifests in ontological security in everyday life. Identity is not a simple linear and complete narrative; drawing on Butler, identity can be understood to be made as it is performed and as it enters relational and structural contexts (Butler 2005). All identities are plural and/or hybrid and are made and remade as they rub up against other identities in social and environmental interactions. Thus, to understand an ontological security it is necessary to examine performances of identity as they are both made and constituted in context and in relation to other identities. A fixed identity narrative is a single reading of a given identity that assumes either consistency or development over time but does not allow for shifts and changes in the everyday. I seek to look at the complexity of interactions and relationships on the micro level to understand how ontological security works for identities not characterized by the state, with an acknowledgement that identity is constantly being remade as it is performed in social contexts. This focus draws on sociological literature in migration studies. Some identity formations that are largely absent from the IR literature on ontological security have been more thoroughly explored in the sociological literature. For example, Skey (2010) looks to ethnic majorities, with a particular focus on classed identity in the United Kingdom. Understanding ontological insecurities that are attached to class identities can offer compelling insight into how ontological security is made and produced for others outside of that particular group. For a national narrative of identity, the composite narratives of identity made in various parts must come together in a logical national narrative if the interest lies at the state level. The main antagonists of the white British working class identity (and, of course, this is not an identity narrative that is true of all white British working class people) are migrants who are “coming to steal our jobs, coming to take our benefits, coming to use our NHS” (headlines of this type have been ubiquitous in the conservative tabloid media. A sample includes The Express October 17, 2015, July 21, 2015, July 9, 2014; Daily Mail June 11, 2011, January 2, 2009; The Sun August 6, 2009, April 22, 2009). A counter-narrative, largely adopted by grassroots and migrant advocacy organizations, does not necessarily focus just on migrant identity but also on British identity, suggesting that Britain has a long history of migration and refugee resettlement. These positions are generally reconciled by demonizing “economic” migrants while romanticizing “refugees” as victims. Both actions, then, are problematic for the experience of identity for refugee and migrant populations. The experiences of migrant populations become more complex over generations but remain linked to social relations. One might ask during what generation of “migrant” does a person become British and have a “right” to jobs and welfare benefits, yet the answer will always be constituted in social contexts. Do working class British black and minority ethnic communities share British and working-class identity with white working-class counterparts? Again, the answer will vary by social contexts and lived experiences. Nevertheless, race is a meaningful criterion of identity production, as a visible marker of difference that has historically been policed in immigration policy (for example, see Turner 2015). The particular problem racism causes for identity is manifest in racist events; for example, black and Asian British citizens might be told to “go back to your own country” when they self-identify fully as British. Thus, there is an evident potential rupture in identity experience. Experience of racism potentially impacts ontological security and identity, shifting identity and subjectivity for any given individual in any given place at any given time, belying the notion of a stable and singular identity. As Nunn et al. clarify, people often hold hybrid or plural identities, the holding of which is equally important for their ontological security: take, for example, Sudanese and Eritrean refugees in Australia who acquire Australian citizenship and equally “feel” Australian and Sudanese or Eritrean. The idea of “feeling” identity in a way that produces security thus permits an affective dimension to the understanding of the security-identity nexus. The multiplicity of identities and interactions that produce ontological security and insecurity can offer nuanced insight into how those security experiences impact political actions and decisions. I argue that ontological security is not a linear narrative but is produced in complex interactions amongst identity groups and amongst individuals and hybrid experiences of identity. Neta Crawford (2000) argued that emotion is at the heart of all international relations: love, nationalism, hate, othering, fear, insecurity, and so on. In the same way, ontological security is always affective (Giddens 1990) and, of course, offered a means of incorporating emotion into the study of IR as discussed in some detail above. Yet in assuming state ontological security, the dominant narrative of the state, or of elites in power, is emphasized. By incorporating an affective ontological security as experienced in different interactions—amongst groups or individuals in the world—the story necessarily becomes more complex. Moments of heightened emotion are fleeting but also provoke change, perhaps requiring a rewriting or a reaffirmation of an identity narrative but also perhaps shifting the boundaries and contours of one identity that overlaps or merges into another, if we accept that identities are not singular and static. A performative ontological security can circumvent the problem of the state and can account for multiplicity, plurality, and process of identity that is not fixed, static, or linear and that happens in everyday experiences rather than in extraordinary experiences. A performative ontological security highlights the affective experience of identity (and in/security) becoming or constantly being remade rather than the historical narrative that maintains it. This affective focus can then explain interactions and the international level in different contexts, such as Solomon emphasizes in his study of the Arab Spring cited above (forthcoming). While the ontological security literature has successfully explained particular state and group actions based on historical narratives, an affective and performative aspect of identity is arguably overlooked in the ontological security literature in IR, with the notable exception of Croft's (2012) work on British Muslim securitization, Steele's (2016) work on organizational processes, and Solomon's aforementioned research. In what follows I foreground popular culture, in the form of British soaps, as a means of accessing performative and affective identity as it interacts with ontological security. Why Soaps? Interest in soaps is situated in a broader trend in IR to consider the position of popular culture in the analysis of international politics (Neumann and Nexon 2006; Grayson, Davies and Philpott 2009). While much of the IR work on popular culture focuses on the high politics of war and conflict as played out in popular culture (Bousquet 2006; Power 2007; Dodds 2008), there has also been some attention to everyday forms of popular low-brow culture (Dixit 2012; Pusca 2015). In a similar way to the reality TV show that forms part of Pusca's 2015 study, soaps are often dismissed, arguably because, in their construction and thematic content, they are concerned with domestic spaces rather than political or public spaces: soap narratives are designed to be consumed amid domestic interruption, with stories repeated multiple times as news is conveyed from character to character. Efforts to recognize the importance of the everyday, the personal and the private, have of course been at the heart of feminist scholarship for decades, notably drawing on Carol Hanisch's 1969 (2000) essay that argues that personal problems experienced by women require political solutions, ergo they are political problems. In IR more specifically, attending to the domestic, the private, and the experiences of women has formed an important part of feminist scholarship (Enloe 1989; Stern 1998; Sylvester 2011). Soaps attend to everyday life and are also often gendered female due to both their historical associations and storylines that often focus on family and relationships. The characterization of soaps as female and domestic is generated by their American history: indeed, it is well known that the first American soaps were radio serials broadcast during the day, aimed at housewives, sponsored by and advertising cleaning products and other household goods, thus establishing the female bias associated with the genre. This is, of course, no reason to dismiss soaps as political phenomena, as the division depends on patriarchal gender hierarchies. Rather, the domestic and the private are component parts of the political. Nevertheless, British soaps have been consciously political from their inception. In fact, the first British soap, Front Line Family, had international, political moral suasion as its primary objective. The serial was produced by the BBC in 1941 but was initially only broadcast on American shortwave radio with the overtly political intention of encouraging US participation in World War II (Cull 1995; McNicholas 2016). The thematic content was family-based, portraying a middle class British family suffering the hardships of war; it used the accessibility of family life to sway political opinions. The soap proved immensely popular and a similar tactic was adopted in the production of The Archers, well known for being the longest-running soap. The Archers was intended to be educational and informational in addition to entertaining. It was designed, with collaboration from the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries, and Food to give information about efficient farming methods for farmers and smallholders in the era of post–World War II rationing and food shortages (Donavan 1991; McNicholas 2016). It explained rationing policies to avoid disgruntlement among the population. One might argue, then, that The Archers had not just a political interest but also a security interest. For such a historically political genre, it is surprising that so little attention has been paid to (British) soaps in the study of politics. Coronation Street, the longest running television soap, also had politics at the core of its inception although not necessarily in its overt themes. Directly influenced by Richard Hoggart's The Uses of Literacy, it aimed to portray a culturally proximate account of life in the working-class North, something that had been absent from the BBC (Dyer, Geraghty, Jordan, Lovell, and Stewart, 1981). Coronation Street predominantly explored themes of socioeconomic class dynamics and identities, and gender dynamics, and was famous for its portrayal of strong Northern women, a notable impact of Hoggart's text (Dyer et al. 1981). Given their political roots, British soaps provide a unique vehicle with which to explore themes of migration, identity, and ontological security. Coronation Street and Emmerdale, the soaps under consideration here, deal with working-class life in a way designed to be recognizable to those who live it. They attempt to be culturally proximate to their viewers, the hallmark of the British genre. Yet, it is not simply a representational reading of soap plotlines that is sought but rather an understanding that the soap represents but also makes and produces. For example, soaps regularly take storylines and thematic issues directly from the headlines: a variety of characters take a stance on a range of sociopolitical issues, often getting into heated arguments; such is the melodramatic nature of the genre. In this way, soaps invite the audience to consider the issues, both through exposure to the storyline, which might put a particular issue in the context of a well-loved character, and also through the judgement of the characters (Innes and Topinka 2016). The anxieties of the characters are a reflection of, and an outlet for, social anxieties. In this way, attending to soaps allows us to access structural threat and affective insecurity at an experiential level. Accessing the experiential in this way follows feminist IR in recognizing that emotion infuses social relationships and interactions (Ackerley and True 2008; Marshall 2011). Indeed, part of the feminist project has been to examine how emotion transcends the gap between researcher and research subjects and how it can be harnessed to better inform academic outputs (Sylvester 2011; Dauphinee 2013; Auchter 2014). Turning to soaps similarly seeks to access an international politics that recognizes the role of emotion and the personal via everyday politics. Reception studies have explored how publics have consumed media in their everyday lives, with some emphasis on soaps or popular television productions (Morley 1980; Ang 1985). However, as Radway (2008) establishes, the reception of culture cannot be studied and understood in isolation from broader contexts. Here, I do not pursue the sole objective of examining how particular soap storylines have been received, rather I seek to focus on the performative aspects of ontological security and identity as they are produced—both represented and performed—in the soaps. The storylines provide insight into a variety of positions, perspectives, identities, and relationships that were presented for viewers to consume and reflect on. The consumption and reflection is also widely reported in the tabloids and is widely discussed on social media, in addition to user-generated archiving of the show's history on blogs and wikis such as “Corriepedia.” As Innes and Topinka (2016, 11–12) argue, a soap is no “hypodermic needle” injecting a particular vision of working-class life into the ideological veins of the British public; it is an everyday site of contestation of characters and culture, plotlines and politics.” These contestations, both on and off screen, perform the identity interactions that rub up against one another, making and unmaking, producing and contesting security and identity. Drawing on Butler, identity is performed within relational, cultural, and structural contexts, involving the expectations of others and the presence of cultural knowledge, norms, and social mores. Soaps, because they form part of that cultural milieu, making it as they represent it, and because they simultaneously produce characters that are intended to be culturally proximate and perform storylines that are relatable and current, are an appropriate site for the analysis of performative ontological security. Of course, there are limitations to the scope for analysis. Soaps are contrived environments in which predetermined scripted events take place. Nevertheless, as is illustrated in the next section, soaps provide a starting point from which to examine how identities interact, how subjectivities can be hybrid and fluid, and, therefore, how ontological security in international relations might incorporate a more complex reading of identity. Analysis of the Storylines Context in Migration Politics Soaps, as discussed above, often draw their storylines directly from the headlines, and the particular migration storylines selected are no exception. The two storylines were selected for analysis on the basis of their substance and reach: Coronation Street and Emmerdale integrated migration storylines into a limited time span that involved multiple characters and which, at times, created moral dilemmas. Identity can be considered central to the plot. Both the storylines can be clearly related to topical issues from the media. The Coronation Street storyline involved Polish workers who joined the employees of the Underworld factory. In 2007, Polish immigrant workers were receiving much media coverage following Poland's accession to the European Union and the corresponding right to live and work in other EU countries. This coverage grew over time: in 2008, Conservative MP Daniel Kawczynski reproached the BBC for focusing on white Christian Polish immigrants in order to portray the problems of immigration without running the risk of being accused of racism or religious intolerance. The question of immigrant workers, and particularly Polish workers, was in the headlines, with coverage reaching a peak in 2007, the year the storyline aired (Figure 1).1 Figure 1. Open in new tabDownload slide Number of articles in UK media on Polish and immigrant workers, by year, plotted with the number of Polish immigrants by year. Figure 1. Open in new tabDownload slide Number of articles in UK media on Polish and immigrant workers, by year, plotted with the number of Polish immigrants by year. Looking at the media coverage of the storyline and the media coverage more generally situates the storyline in its broader context. Themes of security reflect the concerns of the public—particularly people in low skilled work who felt their jobs to be threatened—and produce, through the storyline, a performance of security and insecurity as they intersect amongst different groups. The Emmerdale storyline is not as explicit as that of Coronation Street, which drew its commentary directly from the headlines, but nevertheless involved an issue that had generated media attention. This storyline focused on a single undocumented migrant who stows away in a truck belonging to the local haulage company, then resides and works without immigration status in the village setting of Emmerdale. The issue of undocumented journeys and lorry stowaways was one of national concern in 2009–2010 and has since resurged, particularly following the 2015 so-called Calais Crisis in the United Kingdom. While carrier sanctions were implemented in the United Kingdom as early as 1987, in 2004 an EU directive compelled all air carriers to begin to share passenger data. Air carriers began to verify immigration documents before boarding. This directive coincided with other EU restrictions on visas and travel, measures that corresponded to a rise in irregular journeys toward Europe over time, a link that has been made in the literature on migrant journeys (Gammeltoft-Hansen and Gammeltoft-Hansen 2008; Moreno-Lax 2008; Innes and Topinka 2016). As undocumented journeys increased, so did attention to the nature of undocumented border crossing. Particular attention was focused on Calais, where the UNHCR ran a refugee center until 2002. The Dublin II Regulation in 2002 coincided with the UNHCR closing the Sangatte centre; nevertheless, irregular camps known as “The Jungle” remained. The French authorities periodically bulldozed parts of these camps, which were unfailingly re-established elsewhere. Media attention focused on the intention of people in the Jungle to reach the United Kingdom in 2009, following the destruction of a major section of the camp and the announcement that the UNHCR would re-establish operations. Since one must be undetected and unfingerprinted elsewhere in Europe in order to make a UK asylum application, irregular journeys are an integral part of the story and media data shows that this was of particular interest at the time the Emmerdale storyline aired (Figure 2).2 Figure 2. Open in new tabDownload slide Number of articles in UK media on “illegal immigrants” and stowaways, by year. Figure 2. Open in new tabDownload slide Number of articles in UK media on “illegal immigrants” and stowaways, by year. Again, the media data situates the Emmerdale storyline in its broader cultural context. The themes of security focus on how the experiences of Olena, the immigrant, intersect with other characters and the ways in which her lack of status ultimately makes her vulnerable. Storyline Content: Coronation Street The Coronation Street storyline ran in 2007, when a group of Polish workers, Wiki, Judy and Kasia, moved from the nightshift to join the locals working on the dayshift at the textile factory on the street. The storyline focused on two local workers, Janice and Joanne, who were disgruntled with the Polish workers coming to “steal our jobs.” The story culminates in Janice calling immigration and immigration officers arriving to find that the Polish workers all have legal work visas. Joanne, however, who had participated in complaints about the Polish women, is revealed to be without status in the United Kingdom as she had been a child refugee from Liberia and her guardian hadn't filed her paperwork. This storyline addresses themes of race and citizenship. Economic insecurity is the motivation both for the Polish workers to be in the United Kingdom and for the local workers to complain about it. The classed nature of economic insecurity is revealed when Wiki, one of the Polish women, points out that Janice, the chief complainer about the migrants, is a hypocrite because her husband and daughter both work abroad. Janice is in an insecure economic position, in which she fears for her job. Her family members take the same path to economic security as the Polish workers. In this way, working-class identity and the corresponding economic insecurity both transcend and reinforce national identity, illustrating why a reified link between national identity and security can be problematic. While the locals who are bullying the Polish workers are denounced as “racist,” pervasive economic insecurity ends up being the determinant, and this dynamic is equally experienced by locals and migrants alike. Nevertheless, nuances of insecurity tied to race emerge when Joanne is detained by the immigration authorities. When she is called in for questioning her coworkers accuse the immigration officer of racism, showing that blackness, a visible marker of difference, sets apart and makes identity. Yet when she is detained, her coworkers decry the unfair treatment, shouting “she's more of a Manc than you are.” In this way, identities rely on context, both the cultural context in which they exist and the momentary context in which they are manifest. Joanne is a local Mancunian, black, working class, and female: precisely because these identities all intersect, none of them alone can accurately account for her experiences. Ontological security does not reside in the continuity of a single aspect of Joanne's identity, but is remade and reasserted as it is threatened and in response to those threats. The identity to which ontological security is attached changes with context. The importance of context for identity is evident in the in/security tied to citizenship and immigration status that is revealed through Joanne's storyline; her bullying of the Polish workers is a consequence of Joanne's own insecurity that results from her lack of citizenship status. A subtler portrayal of this theme is also evident when the immigration authorities arrive at the factory and Wiki is seen sneaking away, not because she doesn't have status (although that is clearly the idea the script-writers want to convey, only to then disrupt) but because she needs to fetch her documents. The immigration officers arrest Joanne, who has a Manchester accent but not documents. In this way, the experience of being in status but the insecurity tied to having an “othered” or different identity is made evident to viewers. This storyline invites viewers to consider and comment on immigration storylines, in the headlines in 2007, regarding the rolling back of restrictions on Polish workers and the corresponding fear that this would negatively impact working-class employment for British citizens. However, it did not do this in a totalizing way: the storyline was not told only from the British perspective, in fact the Polish characters were perhaps more likely to elicit sympathy in the face of Janice's bullying. Nevertheless, the Polish characters, Wiki, Kasia, and Judy, were not portrayed as victims; in fact Wiki retaliated to Janice's insults, at one point delivering her a pointed pint of “bitter.” The characters also did not hold totalizing views but instead considered the context of the situation as it impacted them. Janice regretted calling immigration when her friend was detained: she did not have a problem with migration per se, only with the perceived threat to her job. Roy Cropper, when invited to comment by his wife Hayley, suggested that immigration needed to be controlled somehow. Sally pointed out that the situation wasn't the fault of the Polish women and therefore they shouldn't have to suffer because of it. An uneasy truce was reached between Janice and Wiki after Joanne's detention, with the women all uniting against the immigration authorities who were the immediate symbol of insecurity in their continuous existence. Joanne's local identity functioned as belonging but could not provide her with security, whereas Wiki's legal status but lack of belonging equally could not fully provide security. The complexity and fluidity of security as it relates to identity is conveyed and commented upon by the characters, inviting viewers to consider the themes of identity, belonging, and security of immigration status in a local context. Storyline Content: Emmerdale Emmerdale, like Coronation Street, focused on the theme of undocumented workers although in this case they were represented by a single woman, Olena Petrovich. The storyline aired between 2009 and 2010, again reflecting media preoccupation with undocumented workers and with reports of people entering Britain irregularly in the back of lorries. Olena arrived in the village as a stowaway in the back of one of the local haulage company's trucks a little before Christmas and remained in hiding until the New Year. When she was discovered she explained that she needed to earn money to send to her son in Ukraine. The Dingle family offered Olena a place to stay, and Sam Dingle helped her find a job at the local bed and breakfast. Sam fell for Olena, but she was uncomfortable with that. She moved out of the Dingle's home following a fire, and when Sam proposed to her she refused because she feared she would be revealed to the authorities and removed. Sam decided to obtain a fake passport to facilitate their relationship; however, Zak (Sam's father) disapproved and warned Olena away from Sam. In the meantime, Olena developed feelings for Eli Dingle, Sam's cousin. After Sam discovered Olena and Eli kissing, he angrily reported Olena to immigration. Immigration authorities then detained Olena for working illegally in the United Kingdom. The portrayal of the undocumented immigrant as a female character is of particular interest, given that the typical immigrant making the border crossing in the back of a lorry is a male worker. Portraying a female immigrant constructs vulnerability and, coupled with Olena's injury on discovery, primed viewers to be ready to sympathize with the character. Similarly, Olena's role as a mother is meaningful: Olena had chosen to leave her son but also missed him. The difficulties of navigating economic insecurity and family life are apparent in this storyline. The portrayal of Olena as a female undocumented migrant bears on the narrative of security that reflects a gender hierarchical world where the masculine is associated with agency and threat while the feminine is associated with victimhood and vulnerability. Yet it also serves as a tool to rewrite the narrative of undocumented-migrant-as-a-threat into the undocumented-migrant-as-a-victim. This storyline focuses much more on romantic relationships than on immigration politics, yet the romantic relationships in question are infused with immigration politics. As D'Aoust argues, the lack of attention to marriage migration in migration studies betrays a tacit assumption that labor migration and male workers are the “right and proper object and subjects of migration control” (D'Aoust 2013: 259). Nevertheless, marriage migration and cross-national romantic relationships have been of increasing concern to policymakers interested in governing and controlling migration (ibid.). The romantic relationships at the heart of this immigration storyline draw on the theme of a potential marriage of convenience, the lived complexity of personal relationships, and the immigration rules surrounding them. The storyline produced headlines such as “Emmerdale divided” as the inhabitants of the fictional village pitted themselves for or against the irregular migrant (Daily Mail October 21, 2009). Insecurity in this context is tied to both immigration status and human relationships. Olena was initially injured with an infected wound and relied on the support of the Dingle family. Her insecure immigration status made her simultaneously vulnerable to Sam's advances, as she owed him kindness because he helped her, and reluctant to reciprocate. Thus, the complexity of being without status is not manifested just in belonging but in how it permits a person to relate to others, how one discloses oneself. Olena is a fictional character, but she also represents the undocumented migrant stowaway and so discloses this identity to viewers simultaneously. Viewers might not be exposed to ideas of migrants or migrant identities anywhere beyond the media, therefore, Olena's portrayal produces an idea of migrant identity as it invites viewers to comment. The interaction of immigration politics with personal experiences and personal relationships is relevant. Olena is bound in her actions by her identity. Her identity as a migrant produces insecurity in a relationship that depends on that identity, with Sam Dingle. Migrant identity and the insecurities it constructs are communicated through the storyline but are also localized and personalized through the perspective of a long-term local character on the show. Sam's insecurity is also evident. He helps Olena, but he also preys on her. She is vulnerable to his advances, and he is vulnerable in his relationship status: his previous encounters have included euthanizing his wife Alice, since she suffered from terminal cancer, and then misunderstanding advances from a friend Jo, who did not return his affection. Sam was also rejected by Olena. Personal insecurity for Sam then translated into physical insecurity for Olena when Sam realized she did not return his affection and reported her to the immigration authorities. The personal relationship was a fundamental part of the performance of security and insecurity in the storyline; therefore, the personal is produced as part of the debate on immigration politics that is invited by the storyline and that the storyline is simultaneously trying to approximate. The role of other family members in this encounter is meaningful. The Dingles are happy to help Olena, but then when her presence threatens Sam, they are quick to warn her away, replicating the suspicion of the harm brought by “others” to the in-group. Olena obtains employment, but for the duration of the storyline, her employer believes her to be Polish with the relevant documents. However, perhaps unexpectedly, Olena's status as an undocumented worker is not a central part of the storyline. The insecurity theme is central to her experience of relationships and how she is constrained in her interactions with Sam and Eli, yet immigration status is neither the sole cause of, nor the sole solution to, insecurity. Intersectional Identities, Interacting Identities, and Ontological Security Human experiences in everyday life, based in local communities, are central to soap storylines. However, soaps both reflect and reproduce the national discourse. This is designed, particularly in ITV soaps like Coronation Street and Emmerdale, to replicate, address, and contribute to the way nonelites, the working class, and “ordinary people” experience the issues that form national debates. Of course, the soaps are arguably also produced by elites, who create an understanding of working class life. Yet, the consumer demand that they are culturally proximate counters this elitism to some degree: it forces the writers to take working-class experiences seriously. Elite discourse on security has been thoroughly covered in the ontological security literature in the form of national biographical narratives that are made in government documents, political debates, and addresses, as well as recorded history and education materials (Steele 2005; Mitzen 2006). The experiential side of ontological security is less accessible and is particularly difficult to construct as different identities intersect and relate and fluid, changeable experiences of security and insecurity are made and unmade. The soap storylines focus on how the immigrants and the locals interact: how they disclose themselves to one another and, hence, how they make or challenge security and insecurity. These encounters in the mundane interactions of the characters stress the personal and the everyday as political. For example, in the Coronation Street storyline, the initial focus is on economic insecurity. Janice's constant refrain is that the Polish workers are going to “steal our jobs.” This is reflected in media coverage, which uses terms such as “cut-price migrant workers” that are part of the factory owner's attempt to “slash costs” (Mahoney 2007: 3). Janice, as a proxy for low-skilled workers, is concerned that her job will be replaced, and her insecurity is manifested in the threat she then poses to the immigrant workers. Here, the economic insecurity experienced by the British white working class is articulated as constituting a threat—both to the white working class and to the security experiences of incoming migrants. The storyline challenges a simple narrative of xenophobia amongst the white working class and embeds the issue in the local economy of the soap. The local identity and belonging of the white working class is constituted against outsiders and others, incorporating national identity into the performance of security. Local, national, and class identities are prioritized over racial and ethnic identities in the way Joanne adopts Janice's narrative; yet, the discomfort of this is also brought to the foreground in the way other workers challenge Joanne's participation in the discourse of belonging, suggesting her blackness should make her tolerant of “others.” Joanne clearly demarcates a distinction between the performance of national identity and the performance of racial identity, using her race to argue that it's impossible that Janice's reaction to the Polish workers is racist. As the storyline unfolds, Joanne's performance of national and local identity takes on more significance as it becomes clear that she adopted her position in order to ascertain her own security. When that security is threatened by the very position she has adopted when Janice calls the immigration authorities, the local identity is prioritized, with the characters emphasizing that Joanne is “one of us” and “a Manc.” The insecurity wrought by Joanne's intersecting identities (as local, working class, black, female, undocumented immigrant) is at once revealed and resisted by these intersecting identities. The Polish women are not presented as vulnerable, complicating dominant depictions of female migrant vulnerability. Wiki retaliates to Janice's bullying, pointing out (“quite reasonably,” according to the Evening Standard, April 4, 2007: 20) that Janice is hypocritical because her husband and daughter work abroad, simultaneously opening for debate the double standards produced by economic insecurity. Moreover, it is not unusual for women to be the central focus in Coronation Street, a soap known for its strong, Northern women. The portrayal of immigrant workers as equally strong characters both produces a particular rendering of working-class women and rewrites a conventional assumption about migrant workers. First, the migrant women are adopted into the characteristics of working class women, performing a common identity even when in conflict with each other. The workers are equal adversaries, rather than a vulnerable minority subject to the bullying majority. Second, conventionally, immigrant workers are thought of as male, yet here they are women. Female migrants are often thought of as vulnerable or as victims. The women in this context are not constituted as victims. Nevertheless, structural victimization is built into the storyline as Wiki draws attention to the inferior rate of pay that she and the other Polish workers receive, which compels them to work double shifts. The inclusion of the unequal pay dynamic in the storyline received positive recognition from the Equality Society, which praised the soap for bringing the issue to light (Curran 2007). Structural insecurity is performed while characters overturn victim associations and assumptions of female vulnerability. The women then become rounder characters, and the type of economic insecurity they suffer is shown to be systemic and to have commonalities with the economic insecurity of the local workers. The insecurity attached to local and migrant identities surges and recedes, depending on how the women relate to each other in given contexts where their identities and vulnerabilities intersect. Thus, security and insecurity are made in a relational way and the identity in which ontological security is based varies and changes according to circumstance. The construction of local identities outweighs the importance of national identity, despite the national level governing immigration status. The Polish women are, of course, marked by nationality. However, Joanne is emphasized as being local throughout the storyline in which her lack of British citizenship and her identity as a Liberian undocumented immigrant is revealed. Even Janice is not troubled by Joanne's lack of citizenship status, as her local identity as a “Manc” secures her belonging. In this way, identity and the security held therein are not constituted by the law, citizenship, or nationality but are constituted by affective ties. Yet insecurity—Joanne's in this case—is constituted by the law and citizenship. Joanne is rendered insecure because she does not possess legal status in the United Kingdom. These shifts between local belonging and legal belonging reveal a misalignment of security and insecurity as they are understood as relating specifically to national identity. The shift can also be understood as a shift between which performance of identity is the most directly related to ontological security at any given time: something that, as aforementioned, changes in given contexts. Olena's character in Emmerdale is more conventionally “insecure” and vulnerable than the Polish women in Coronation Street. Her motivation for stowing away in the lorry was to earn money to send to her young son, who she has left behind in Ukraine. She is economically insecure, and she is vulnerable without a UK support network other than that offered in the village setting of Emmerdale. The law is evoked in this storyline as producing vulnerability—Olena is constrained by the law. She does not represent an economic or identity threat to other characters, but she does render them vulnerable to the law. She works without legal authorization, yet the consequences of this for her employer are not explored. The national imaginary on the insecurity of being an illegal immigrant is more predominant in the Emmerdale storyline, which focuses on Olena's experiences as opposed to the “shock reveal” of Joanne's lack of status in Coronation Street. Olena is consciously an undocumented worker, unlike Joanne, who was aware of her status but thought it beyond her control. The media expressed some skepticism at the credibility of the storyline; for example, the Nottingham Evening Post commented “an Emmerdale shed is the first place I'd look for an illegal immigrant” (December 4, 2009: 4). Nevertheless, the Daily Record offered some sensitivity toward the situation of undocumented migrants with the somewhat sarcastic analysis, “I wonder if this is part of the new life Olena dreamed of? Being smuggled toast by a couple of children and sleeping on the village idiot's floor? This is the England they don't show you in the British Airways commercials” (Simon and McIver 2009: 29). In this way, the performance of the undocumented immigrant through Olena's character allows the media to tap into the national imaginary of the undocumented migrant coming to “take our jobs.” The media uses the Emmerdale storyline as illustrative of (if not accurately portraying) a more difficult reality and opening scope for debate. Immigration law in the context of the Emmerdale storyline affects the everyday experiences of a wider range of people than the “immigrant,” most of whom are British citizens. For example, when the Dingles first hide Olena, they must circumvent the law on her behalf, such as when Lisa is forced to “take desperate measures” to help Olena escape the police in a traffic stop (Dyke and Begley 2010: 29). Sam is vulnerable, both in his affection for Olena and in his attempt to navigate this affection by acquiring for her a false passport. The power dynamics of this relationship are complex, as the Sunday Mercury (March 21, 2010: 4) observed following Sam's proposal: “he hopes she may agree just to get a British passport, but it seems not even the thought of being deported will get her to say yes.” Sam's character has been historically vulnerable in relationships, yet he wields a form of power in this interaction. Olena's insecure status as an undocumented migrant gives him enough confidence to pursue her affections. Sam's character performs a secure national identity that is produced in relation to Olena's insecurity. Similarly, Eli is made vulnerable by his affection for Olena and Olena's insecure status when she is detained by immigration authorities. The power is retained in the hands of the state and conflicts with experiences of security and vulnerability: Sam quickly regrets his actions as he watches Olena being removed. Ultimately, the state as an actor is able to protect itself from “illegal” immigration, yet both Sam and Eli are left harmed by Olena's lack of status: Sam in a complex way, as her vulnerability affected her ability to disclose herself accurately to him, and Eli because he is prevented from being with her. As governance works to “manage” migration as a means of protecting and remaking the state, it produces insecurity that is made in embarking upon emotional relationships cross-nationally (D'Aoust 2013). Attending to this storyline as performative ontological security underlines state-based identity not as providing security for society but, instead, as making insecurity for a complex population, which interacts with each other in everyday life. Positioning individuals as subjects of ontological security must also depend on how those individuals relate to and interact with each other. Therefore, to examine ontological security for given identities, one must take into account how that security is made and unmade as identities interact with each other. While ontological security is attached to identity to represent a more permanent and established form of security, identities are constantly being disclosed and interpreted in different ways. What performance or disclosure of identity is most closely related to ontological security changes with context, circumstance, and relationships. Hence, a performative and relational ontological security is necessary to then understand the fluctuations in relationships, actions, identities, and ideas in everyday life. Conclusion At the experiential level of security, affective environments provide the resources for forming, reforming, and performing identities that, in turn, sustain a feeling of ontological security. Soaps represent performances of the banal and the everyday, but these performances are replete with social and political commentary. The commentary is culturally proximate in that it reflects social life but bears a didactic message and contributes to producing social life and social experiences. To focus on security experiences in this dynamic, while situating soaps within their contextual cultural milieu and within their media environment gives an indication of an experiential and affective ontological security at a level that can breach different identity experiences and intersecting identities, accounting not just for the national, but for gender, class, race, immigration status and nationality amongst other potential facets of identity. Soaps offer insight into the various layers of performing identity, amongst characters, viewer, scriptwriters, and the commenters of various media, including tabloids and online wikis. These experiences intersect and are made in their confrontation and collaboration with each other in the acts of making, performing, consuming, and commenting on the soap. The theory of ontological security in international relations accounts for affect at a national and subnational level. Here I demonstrate that it can account for affect at an intersectional and experiential level while evading the problem of totalizing security production as the domain of the state. A number of identities can be held simultaneously, both producing and resolving insecurity in social interactions as they intersect. Ontological security theory incorporates here the potential for fluid identities that react to environmental, circumstantial, and relational phenomena and, in doing so, produce security. In the Coronation Street storyline, the ties between identity and security shift and change according to the social context, residing between the local identity, which permitted affective ties and belonging, and the national identity, which provided security through the rule of law. In the Emmerdale storyline, ontological security was made and disrupted through relational encounters and affective ties: both for the citizens of Emmerdale who encountered Olena and for Olena as the undocumented migrant. Ultimately, the experience of ontological security is tied to identity experiences in everyday mundane encounters. Drawing attention to the way identity relies on affective ties and to fluid and contextual identities in everyday experiences both complicates and enrichens ontological security theory in IR. Footnotes 1 " The data was generated by a Nexis search of all UK publications, excluding entertainment magazines to avoid cross contamination with the Coronation Street storyline. The search generated appearances of “Polish worker” or “immigrant worker.” Data periods were from July of the preceding year to the end of the labelled year (so “2005” comprised all data from 01/07/2004-31/12/2005). The data relating to numbers of Polish immigrants is taken from the national census. 2 " This data was generated by a Nexis search of all UK publications, again excluding entertainment magazines to avoid cross contamination. The search terms were a little more specific as the use of “illegal immigrant” alone generated tens of thousands of hits, and was not as closely related to the storyline, hence the inclusion of the term “stowaway.” Data periods were in two-year increments, hence 2007-08 includes data from 01/01/2007-31/12/2008. References Ackerley Brooke , True Jacqui. 2008 . “ Reflexivity in Practice: Power and Ethics in Feminist Research on International Relations .” International Studies Review 10 ( 4 ): 693 – 707 . Google Scholar Crossref Search ADS WorldCat Agius Christine . 2016 . “ Drawing the Discourses of Ontological Security: Immigration and Identity in the Danish and Swedish Cartoon Crises .” Cooperation and Conflict 52 ( 1 ): 109 – 25 . Google Scholar Crossref Search ADS WorldCat Ang Ien . 1985 . Watching Dallas: Soap Opera and the Melodramatic Imagination . London : Routledge . Google Scholar Google Preview OpenURL Placeholder Text WorldCat COPAC Auchter Jessica . 2014 . The Politics of Haunting and Memory in International Relations . London : Routledge . Google Scholar Google Preview OpenURL Placeholder Text WorldCat COPAC Bigo Didier , Carrera Sergio, Guild Elspeth, eds. 2013 . Foreigners, Refugees or Minorities: Rethinking People in the Context of Border Controls and Visas . Burlington, VT : Ashgate . Google Scholar Google Preview OpenURL Placeholder Text WorldCat COPAC Bigo Didier . 2002 . “ Security and Immigration: Toward a Critique of the Governmentality of Unease .” Alternatives 27 ( 1 ): 63 – 92 . Google Scholar Crossref Search ADS WorldCat Bousquet Antoine . 2006 . “ Time Zero: Hiroshima, September 11 and Apocalyptic Revelations in Historical Consciousness .” Millennium: Journal of International Studies 34 ( 3 ): 739 – 64 . Google Scholar Crossref Search ADS WorldCat Bubandt Nils . 2005 . “ Vernacular Security: The Politics of Feeling Safe in Global, National and Local Worlds .” Security Dialogue 36 ( 3 ): 275 – 96 . Google Scholar Crossref Search ADS WorldCat Budryte Dovile . 2013 . “ Travelling Trauma: Lithuanian Transnational Memory after World War II .” In Memory and Trauma in International Relations: Theories, Cases, Debates , edited by Resende Erica, Budryte Dovile, 168 – 81 . London : Routledge . Google Scholar Google Preview OpenURL Placeholder Text WorldCat COPAC Butler Judith . 2005 . Giving an Account of Oneself . New York : Fordham University Press . Google Scholar Crossref Search ADS Google Scholar Google Preview WorldCat COPAC Crawford Neta C. 2000 . “ The Passion of World Politics: Propositions on Emotion and Emotional Relationships .” International Security 24 ( 4 ): 116 – 56 . Google Scholar Crossref Search ADS WorldCat Crenshaw Kimberle . 1991 . “ Mapping the Margins: Intersectionality, Identity Politics, and Violence Against Women of Color .” Stanford Law Review 43 ( 6 ): 1241 – 99 . Google Scholar Crossref Search ADS WorldCat Croft Stuart , Vaughn-Williams Nick. 2016 . “ Fit for Purpose? Fitting Ontological Security Studies ‘Into’ the Discipline of International Relations: Towards a Vernacular Turn .” Cooperation and Conflict 52 ( 1 ): 12 – 30 . Google Scholar Crossref Search ADS WorldCat Croft Stuart . 2012 . “ Constructing Ontological Insecurity: The Insecuritization of British Muslims .” Contemporary Security Policy 33 ( 2 ): 219 – 35 . Google Scholar Crossref Search ADS WorldCat Cull Nicholas John . 1995 . Selling War: The British Propaganda Campaign against American “Neutrality” in World War II . Oxford : Oxford University Press . Google Scholar Google Preview OpenURL Placeholder Text WorldCat COPAC Curran Bronagh . 2007 . “ Soap Race Tale Hailed .” The News of the World March 11 . OpenURL Placeholder Text WorldCat D'Aoust Anne-Marie . 2013 . “ In the Name of Love: Marriage Migration, Governmentality, and Technologies of Love .” International Political Sociology 7 ( 3 ): 258 – 74 . Google Scholar Crossref Search ADS WorldCat Dauphinee Elizabeth . 2013 . The Politics of Exile. Interventions . London : Routledge . Google Scholar Google Preview OpenURL Placeholder Text WorldCat COPAC Dixit Priya . 2012 . “ Relating to Difference: Aliens and Alienness in Doctor Who and International Relations .” International Studies Perspectives 13 ( 3 ): 289 – 306 . Google Scholar Crossref Search ADS WorldCat Dodds Klaus . 2008 . “ Screening Terror: Hollywood, the United States and the Construction of Danger .” Critical Studies on Terrorism 1 ( 2 ): 227 – 43 . Google Scholar Crossref Search ADS WorldCat Donovan Paul . 1991 . The Radio Companion . London : Grafton . Google Scholar Google Preview OpenURL Placeholder Text WorldCat COPAC Dyer Richard , Geraghty Christine, Jordan Marion, Lovell Richard Paterson, Stewart John, eds. 1981 . Coronation Street . London : The British Film Institute . Google Scholar Google Preview OpenURL Placeholder Text WorldCat COPAC Dyke Peter , Begley Kate. 2010 . “ Emmerdale; Hot Telly News .” p. 29 . Daily Star February 15 OpenURL Placeholder Text WorldCat Enloe Cynthia . 1989 . Bananas, Beaches, and Bases. Making Feminist Sense of International Politics . Los Angeles, CA : University of California Press . Google Scholar Google Preview OpenURL Placeholder Text WorldCat COPAC Fierke Karin M. 2012 . Political Self-Sacrifice: Agency, Body and Emotion in International Relations . Cambridge Studies in International Relations . Cambridge : Cambridge University Press . Google Scholar Crossref Search ADS Google Scholar Google Preview WorldCat COPAC Gammeltoft-Hansen Thomas , Gammeltoft-Hansen Hans. 2008 . “ The Right to Seek - Revisited. On the UN Human Rights Declaration Article 14 and Access to Asylum Procedures in the EU .” European Journal of Migration and Law 10 : 439 – 59 . Google Scholar Crossref Search ADS Google Scholar Google Preview WorldCat COPAC Giddens Anthony . 1984 . The Constitution of Society . Berkeley : University of California Press . Google Scholar Google Preview OpenURL Placeholder Text WorldCat COPAC Giddens Anthony . 1990 . The Consequences of Modernity . Cambridge : Polity . Google Scholar Google Preview OpenURL Placeholder Text WorldCat COPAC Grayson Kyle , Davies Matt, Philpott Simon. 2009 . “ Pop Goes IR? Research the Popular-Culture World Politics Continuum .” Politics 29 ( 3 ): 155 – 63 . Google Scholar Crossref Search ADS WorldCat Guild Elspeth . 2009 . Security and Migration in the 21st Century . London : Routledge . Google Scholar Google Preview OpenURL Placeholder Text WorldCat COPAC Hanisch Carol. 2000 . “ The Personal Is Political .” In Radical Feminism: A Documentary Reader , edited by Crow Barbara A., 113 – 7 . New York : New York University Press . Google Scholar Google Preview OpenURL Placeholder Text WorldCat COPAC Hansen Lene , Nissenbaum Helen. 2009 . “ Digital Disaster, Cyber Security, and the Copenhagen School .” International Studies Quarterly 53 ( 4 ): 1155 – 75 . Google Scholar Crossref Search ADS WorldCat Hutchinson Emma , Bleiker Roland. 2014 . “ Theorizing Emotions in World Politics .” International Theory 6 ( 3 ): 491 – 514 . Google Scholar Crossref Search ADS WorldCat Huysmans Jef . 2006 . The Politics of Insecurity. Fear, Migration and Asylum in the EU . New York : Routledge . Google Scholar Google Preview OpenURL Placeholder Text WorldCat COPAC Innes Alexandria J , Topinka Robert J.. 2016 . “ The Politics of a Poncy Pillowcase: Migration and Borders in Coronation Street .” Politics Online First (October). doi : https://doi.org/10.1177/0263395716675371 . OpenURL Placeholder Text WorldCat Innes Alexandria J. 2015 . Migration, Citizenship and the Challenge for Security . London : Palgrave . Google Scholar Crossref Search ADS Google Scholar Google Preview WorldCat COPAC Johnson Heather . 2014 . Borders, Asylum and Global Non-Citizenship: The Other Side of the Fence . Cambridge : Cambridge University Press . Google Scholar Crossref Search ADS Google Scholar Google Preview WorldCat COPAC Kinnvall Catarina . 2004 . “ Globalization and Religious Nationalism: Self, Identity, and the Search for Ontological Security .” Political Psychology 25 ( 5 ): 741 – 67 . Google Scholar Crossref Search ADS WorldCat Mackenzie Megan . 2011 . “ Their Personal is Political, Not Mine: Feminism and Emotion .” International Studies Review 13 ( 4 ): 691 – 3 . OpenURL Placeholder Text WorldCat Mahoney John . 2007 . “ Foreign Nation Street!; Up the Pole over Corrie Migrants .” p. 3 . Daily Star March 1 . OpenURL Placeholder Text WorldCat Marshall Sandra . 2011 . “ Super-Human Researchers in Feminist International Relations' Narratives .” International Studies Review 13 ( 4 ): 688 – 90 . OpenURL Placeholder Text WorldCat Massumi Brian . 1987 . “ Notes on the Translation and Acknowledgements .” In A Thousand Plateaus , edited by Deleuze Gilles, Guattari Felix. xvi – xix . Minneapolis : University of Minnesota Press . Google Scholar Google Preview OpenURL Placeholder Text WorldCat COPAC McNicholas Anthony . 2016 . “ Soaps on the BBC: From the Front Line to the Queen Vic .” History of the BBC . Accessed February 26, 2016, http://www.bbc.co.uk/historyofthebbc/research/programming/soaps . OpenURL Placeholder Text WorldCat Mitzen Jennifer . 2006 . “ Anchoring Europe's Civilizing Identity: Habits, Capabilities and Ontological Security .” Journal of European Public Policy 13 ( 2 ): 270 – 85 . Google Scholar Crossref Search ADS WorldCat Moreno Lax Violeta . 2008 . “ Must EU Borders Have Doors for Refugees? On the Compatibility of Schengen Visas and Carriers’ Sanctions with EU Member States’ Obligations to Provide International Protection to Refugees .” European Journal of Migration and Law 10 ( 3 ): 315 – 64 . Google Scholar Crossref Search ADS WorldCat Morley David . 1980 . The Nationwide Audience: Structure and Decoding . London : British Film Institute . Google Scholar Google Preview OpenURL Placeholder Text WorldCat COPAC Neumann Iver B , Nexon Daniel H.. 2006 . Harry Potter and International Relations . Oxford : Rowman and Littlefield . Google Scholar Google Preview OpenURL Placeholder Text WorldCat COPAC Nunn Caitlin , McMichael Celia, Gifford Sandra, Correa-Velez Ignacio. 2016 . “ Mobility and Security: The Perceived Benefits of Citizenship for Resettled Young People from Refugee Backgrounds .” Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies 42 ( 3 ): 382 – 99 . Google Scholar Crossref Search ADS WorldCat Parker Owen . 2012 . “ Roma and the Politics of EU Citizenship in France: Everyday Security and Resistance .” Journal of Common Market Studies 50 ( 3 ): 475 – 91 . Google Scholar Crossref Search ADS WorldCat Power Marcus . 2007 . “ Digitized Virtuosity: Video War Games and Post 9/11 Cyber-Deterrence .” Security Dialogue 38 ( 2 ): 271 – 88 . Google Scholar Crossref Search ADS WorldCat Pusca Anca . 2015 . “ Representing Romani Gypsies and Travelers: Performing Identity from Early Photography to Reality Television .” International Studies Perspectives 16 ( 3 ): 327 – 44 . Google Scholar Crossref Search ADS WorldCat Radway Janice . 2008 . “ What's the Matter with Reception Study: Some Thoughts on the Disciplinary Origins, Conceptual Constraints, and Persistent Viability of a Paradigm .” In New Directions in American Reception Study , edited by Goldstein Philip, Machor James L., 327 – 51 . Oxford : Oxford University Press . Google Scholar Google Preview OpenURL Placeholder Text WorldCat COPAC Rossdale Chris . 2015 . “ Enclosing Critique: The Limits of Ontological Security .” International Political Sociology 9 ( 4 ): 369 – 86 . Google Scholar Crossref Search ADS WorldCat Simon Jane , McIver Brian. 2009 . “ Record TV .” Daily Record December 8 . OpenURL Placeholder Text WorldCat Skey Michael . 2010 . “ ‘A Sense of Where You Belong in the World’: National Belonging, Ontological Security and the Status of the Ethnic Majority in England .” Nations and Nationalism 16 ( 4 ): 715 – 33 . Google Scholar Crossref Search ADS WorldCat Steele Brent J. 2005 . “ Ontological Security and the Power of the Self: British Neutrality and the American Civil War .” Review of International Studies 31 ( 3 ): 519 – 40 . Google Scholar Crossref Search ADS WorldCat Steele Brent J. 2008 . Ontological Security in International Relations . London : Routledge . Google Scholar Google Preview OpenURL Placeholder Text WorldCat COPAC Steele Brent J. 2016 . “ Organizational Processes and Ontological (In)security: Torture, the CIA and the United States .” Cooperation and Conflict 52 ( 1 ): 69 – 89 . Google Scholar Crossref Search ADS WorldCat Stern Maria . 1998 . “ Reading Mayan Women's In/Security .” International Journal of Peace Studies 3 ( 2 ). http://www.gmu.edu/programs/icar/ijps/vol3_2/Petterson.htm . OpenURL Placeholder Text WorldCat Sylvester Christine , ed. 2011 . “ The Forum: Emotion and the Feminist IR Researcher .” International Studies Review 13 ( 4 ): 687 – 708 . Google Scholar Crossref Search ADS WorldCat Turner Joe . 2015 . “ The Family Migration Visa in the History of Marriage Restrictions: Postcolonial Relations and the UK Border .” British Journal of Politics and International Relations 17 ( 4 ): 623 – 43 . Google Scholar Crossref Search ADS WorldCat Zalewski Marysia . 1996 . “ All These Theories and yet the Bodies Keep Piling up .” In International Theory: Positivism and Beyond , edited by Smith Steve, Booth Ken, Zalewski Marysia. Cambridge : Cambridge University Press . Google Scholar Google Preview OpenURL Placeholder Text WorldCat COPAC © The Author (2017). Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the International Studies Association. All rights reserved. For permissions, please e-mail: [email protected]

Journal

International Political Sociology – Oxford University Press

Published: Dec 1, 2017

There are no references for this article.