engleski

The Forging of the Balkan Route. Contextualizing the Border Regime in the EU Periphery

The article strives to outline the transnational mobility practices in the Balkans in a historical perspective that includes the framework of EU- Balkan relations. With this exercise authors try to historize the events of 2015 which are portrayed in many academic as well as public accounts as ›unexpected‹ and ›new‹. The authors write against the emergency narrative, because it perpetuates old cultural stereotypes about the region and erodes the agency of migration that has not only connected the region with the rest of the globe but is also constantly reinventing new paths for reaching better lives. Not only the history of mobilities, migrations, and flight connecting the region with the rest of Europe and the Middle East can be traced back into the past, but also the history of political interventions and attempts to control these migrations and mobilities by western European states. Especially the EU accession processes produce contexts that made it possible to gradually integrate the (Western) Balkan states into the rationale of EU migration management, thus, setting the ground for today’s border and migration regime. Authors also argue against simplified understandings of the EU border regime that regard its externalization policy as an imperial top-down act.

Balkan route, European border regime, critical migration studies, ethnography

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