Ignorance, (in)security and Europe’s ‘migration crisis’: Vernacular (non)knowledge among citizens

Abstract The insights of agnotology – or ignorance studies – have been applied to several controversies in critical studies of security. While path-breaking, these studies explore the social production of (non)knowledge in the restricted context of elite (in)securitization; little attention has been paid to ‘political geographies of ignorance’ among ‘diverse publics’ from the perspectives of those publics. Vernacular security studies offer resources to address this gap but have not engaged with literatures on ignorance; this perpetuates elitism in agnotology and is also a limitation of vernacular security studies because of the relationship between ignorance and (in)security. This article advances a research agenda that ‘vernacularizes’ the study of ignorance with reference to border security and people on the move in the aftermath of Europe’s so-called 2015 ‘migration crisis’. Drawing on the original findings of 24 focus groups, the analysis identifies four logics of ‘vernacular (non)knowledge’: (1) unknown (non)knowledge; (2) known (non)knowledge; (3) strategic (non)knowledge; and (4) critique beyond ‘white ignorance’. The discussion examines the role that these different forms of (non)knowledge played in vernacular narratives of the ‘migration crisis’ and argues that the fourth logic disrupts the (re)production of ignorance in Europe today.