https://toarcheio.org To Archeio project site Mon, 04 May 2020 23:24:39 +0000 en-GB hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=5.4.1 https://toarcheio.org/items/a-comparative-analysis-of-migration-control-strategies-along-the-western-and-eastern-mediterranean-routes-sovereign-interventions-through-militarization-and-deportation/ Mon, 04 May 2020 23:24:39 +0000 https://toarcheio.org/items/a-comparative-analysis-of-migration-control-strategies-along-the-western-and-eastern-mediterranean-routes-sovereign-interventions-through-militarization-and-deportation/ Continued]]> This paper is a historically informed comparative study of militarization and deportation efforts along the Western (Spain–Morocco) and Eastern (Greece–Turkey) Mediterranean migratory routes from 2005 to 2017. Based on extensive fieldwork on both sites, we argue that these two policy instruments go hand-in-hand in the construction of the European Union’s anti-immigration border and examine the continuities in their implementation along the two extremes of the Mediterranean basin. Our findings indicate that the origins of current militarization and deportation efforts in the Eastern Mediterranean (such as the EUROSUR system and the ‘Hot Spots’ approach) can be traced back to the Western Mediterranean and that they have been gradually expanded eastwards. Finally, the paper also demonstrates how militarization and deportation initiatives were implemented jointly by sovereign entities (the EU and member states), and by doing so it addresses the recent debates on the status of sovereignty. We provide evidence to support the argument that, rather than disappearing, sovereignty is re-articulated through cooperation among sovereign entities, despite occasional disagreements among them.

]]> https://toarcheio.org/items/the-refugee-crisis-from-athensto-lesvos-and-back-a-dialogical-account/ Tue, 16 Apr 2019 22:25:53 +0000 http://arc.local/items/the-refugee-crisis-from-athensto-lesvos-and-back-a-dialogical-account/ Continued]]> Our grandparents, refugees Our parents, immigrants We, racists? 1 The slogan that prefaces the paper provides the theoretical caveat for the tensions, limitations, and contradictions of academic discourses in conjuring the daily realities of the era of the ‘refugee crisis’ in Greece. This paper has the form of a dialogue between a sociologist and photographer (Myrto) and a political theorist and activist (Anna) who investigate different forms of the ways the ‘refugee crisis’ is changing the socio-political landscapes in Greece. The multiple aspects of our identities provide valuable tools with which we unpack the multiple and contradictory narratives of researching, learning, and disseminating in the current milieu. In particular, we are interested in the ways we shape knowledge and the tension between the episte-mological and the ontological ways of knowing. In other words, by moving from theory to praxis and back, we are attempting to reconcile the problem of knowing and the problem of being part of a specific crisis milieu. For example, how can we use crisis as a research methodology? What can we learn from the ongoing ‘refugee crisis’ in relation to issues of citizenship, belonging, and the future of the European project? Furthermore, the paper attempts to transcend discursive borders between social sciences and the humanities by analysing the deeply performative, situated and embodied practices of doing research in moments of crisis. For example, how to navigate multiple, and at times contradictory, aspects of one’s identity without returning to outmoded discourses of positivism and objectivity?

]]> https://toarcheio.org/items/nonrecording-the-european-refugee-crisis-in-greece-navigating-through-irregular-bureaucracy/ Tue, 16 Apr 2019 22:25:51 +0000 http://arc.local/items/nonrecording-the-european-refugee-crisis-in-greece-navigating-through-irregular-bureaucracy/ Continued]]> This article explores nonrecording on the borders of Europe during the “European refugee crisis” in 2015. It examines the ambiguous practices of border control and the diverse actors involved. Taking the island of Lesvos as its starting point, the article interrogates how state functionaries manage an “irregular” bureaucracy. Irregular bureaucracy is approached as an essential element of state-craft , rather than an indication of state failure. Nonrecording is thus a crucial site of contestation between the state, nonstate agents, and the government, as well as between Greece and “Europe.” Nevertheless, despite the prevalence of irregularity, the imagery associated with ideal bureaucracy—a system of absolute knowledge, control, and governance of populations—is powerful; and yet, the actors are fully aware that it is a fantasy.

]]> https://toarcheio.org/items/europes-last-frontier-the-spatialities-of-the-refugee-crisis/ Tue, 16 Apr 2019 22:25:40 +0000 http://arc.local/items/europes-last-frontier-the-spatialities-of-the-refugee-crisis/ Continued]]> The Post-Cold War period has brought forth new conditions for the dominant European spatialities. First, that period signified a new condition for real estate and land ownership, second a radical transformation and increase of the built environment and third the securitization of a privileged European territory. As the European economy slows and the construction and real estate sectors are further deregulated, together with the promises that the post-Cold War period brought, what we observe coming to the surface in the context of the current refugee crisis is the manifestation of Europe’s most ugly and discriminatory spatiality—the preservation at all costs of its border security.

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