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Borders and othering at the fringes of the EU in the times of COVID-19 pandemics, epidemics and othering

In our presentation we will discuss bordering practices during the initial COVID19 lockdown in Croatia and Serbia in the period from mid-March to early May 2020. These states occupy at the same time complementary and antagonistic structural positions toward the EU: while both function as the gates of the EU, Serbia represents an outer space, an antechamber where people are forced to stay and Croatia is an internal space, from which the unwanted people are repelled. The practices of bordering and imposition of mobility control were differently framed, executed and challenged in these two contexts. Framed as potentially detrimental were not only those with confirmed diagnosis of COVID-19 but, according to the official decrees that started to multiply in the first months of 2020, the list included anyone with the most common symptoms, anyone in contact with someone with confirmed diagnosis, as well as those who were considered to be in the particular risk (older persons, with chronical illnesses, immunocompromised persons etc.). Medical reasons were not the only ones that were taken as a basis for compartmentalization of society. The states took extensive measures to surveil and control movement and social interactions of different social categories, by introducing moving schedules, lockdowns, obligatory self-isolation, allocating special sites for quarantine, etc. Drawing from the analysis of legislation, reports, press releases, our individual engagements, interviews and informal personal and online exchanges, we will outline crucial othering narratives and practices which affected daily lives of people on the move in these two states. From exaggerated visualization of the “dangerous migrant” and incarceration in heavily guarded camps in Serbia to invisibilized presence of people on the move and continuation of violent pushbacks in Croatia, we will unravel the interconnectedness and mutual stimulation of anti- pandemic discourses and practices with migration and border policies executed at the fringes of the EU. Starting from the question for whom the borders were closed and for whom bordering was imposed, that is, who were the objects of the bordering strategies, this presentation approaches first responses to corona virus and initial bordering in the name COVID-19 in Croatia and Serbia, from the perspective of the European border regime and its self-produced antagonist: irregular migration. In other words, we will be interested in questions such as: what has been happening with those for whom the same borders had already been closed before the pandemic, how did they experience borders during initial stages of the pandemic and what does their perspective reveal about COVID-19 related bordering?

COVID-19 ; bordering ; othering ; Serbia ; Croatia ; EU ; European border regime

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