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-biopolitical-border-in-practice-surveillance-and-death-at-the-greece-turkey-borderzones/ Mon, 04 May 2020 23:24:39 +0000 https://toarcheio.org/items/the-biopolitical-border-in-practice-surveillance-and-death-at-the-greece-turkey-borderzones/ Continued]]> This paper examines biopolitical control practices at the Greece–Turkey borders and addresses current debates in the study of borders and biopolitics. The Greek and Frontex authorities have established diverse surveillance mechanisms to control the borderzone space and to monitor, intercept, apprehend, and push back migrants or to block their passage. The location of contemporary borders has been much debated in the literature. This paper provides a nuanced understanding of borders by demonstrating that while borders are diffusing beyond and inside state territories, their practices and effects are concentrated at the edges of state territories—ie, borderzones. Borderzones are biopolitical spaces in which surveillance is most intense and migrants suffer the direct threat of injury and death. Applying biopolitics in the context of borderzones also prompts us to revisit the concept. While Foucault posits that biopolitics is the product of the historical transition away from sovereign powers controlling territory and imposing practices of death towards governmental powers managing population mainly through pastoral, productive, and deterritorialized techniques, the case of the Greece–Turkey borderzones demonstrates that biopolitics operates through sovereign territorial controls and surveillance, practices of death and exclusion, and suspension of rights. This study also highlights the fact that, despite the biopolitical realities, migrants continue to cross the borders.

]]> https://toarcheio.org/items/migrant-protest-in-times-of-crisis-politics-ethics-and-the-sacred-from-below/ Tue, 16 Apr 2019 22:25:52 +0000 http://arc.local/items/migrant-protest-in-times-of-crisis-politics-ethics-and-the-sacred-from-below/ Continued]]> This paper focuses on the 300 Migrant Hunger Strikers event in Greece to explore the material conditions of possibility for migrant politics in times of crisis. It identifies three elements that played determinant roles in the articulation of the event: the politics of equality enacted by migrants, the ethics of hospitality and witnessing enacted by the Greek activists and host populations and the sacredness of the event. Critically engaging with the theories of Rancière, Derrida, Agamben and Durkheim, this paper demonstrates how these elements encountered and how their encounter helped migrants to achieve rights, albeit limited and temporary. Moving beyond the particularity of the event, this paper also highlights the event’s importance for migrant politics in times of austerity, and increased surveillance and racism against migrants. Despite its limited and temporary success, the event demonstrates how a politics of equality, ethical openness and respect for human life can form the basis of true cosmopolitan universality. The event also demonstrates how cosmopolitan universality is constructed from below by the migrants, who despite their undocumented status, engaged in an act of citizenship to demand equality.

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