City Research Online

Abstract

Although a growing body of research highlights the convergence of humanitarianism and border policing, little attention has been paid to the importance of the visual field in constructing these discourses. This paper advances the concept of ‘crimmigrant visuality’ to underline the importance of visual representations in the theatre of border control in the United Kingdom (UK). Drawing on multimodal discourse analysis of the UK Home Office and National Crime Agency’s use of Twitter/X, I argue that visual representations of ‘people smugglers’ and ‘criminal gangs’ make crimmigrant others visible in political discourse as ‘worthy enemies’. To achieve this, I consider how images of the ‘crimmigrant other’ – such as ‘mugshots’ or footage from immigration raids – are juxtaposed with discourses of migrant suffering and vulnerability to provide a humanitarian rationale for border control.

Publication Type:	Article
Additional Information:	© The Author(s) 2025. This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) which permits any use, reproduction and distribution of the work without further permission provided the original work is attributed as specified on the SAGE and Open Access page (https://us.sagepub.com/en-us/nam/open-access-at-sage).
Publisher Keywords:	Crimmigration, visual criminology, crimmigrant, migration, small boat crossings
Subjects:	H Social Sciences > H Social Sciences (General) H Social Sciences > HT Communities. Classes. Races J Political Science > JA Political science (General)
Departments:	School of Policy & Global Affairs School of Policy & Global Affairs > Department of Sociology & Criminology
SWORD Depositor:	Symplectic Administrator

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