The scaling of the 'invasion': a geopolitics of immigration narratives in France and the Netherlands

This paper analyses narratives about immigration and immigration policies as geopolitical discourses. It focuses on the diverse geopolitical imaginations and representations of the immigrant "invasion" in Western Europe. It builds upon insights from critical geopolitics, especially Ó Tuathail's grammar of geopolitics (2002), and adapts this framework for analysing geopolitical reasoning about specific flows of people. It distinguishes three main storylines of the "invasion" at three scales: Invaded Neighbourhood, Nation at Risk, Western Europe under Siege. Although each shares the "invasion" storyline, these complementary and at times competing discourses of fear target different groups of immigrants and call for different type of policies.