Content Type: Journal Article / Publication Year: within 10 Years / Topic: Border Control

Author:: Paolo Cuttitta
Publication Date:: 09-2015
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: Cultures & Conflits
Institution:: Cultures & Conflits
Abstract:: This paper presents the island of Lampedusa as the theatre stage on which the “border play” of immigration control is performed. The paper first introduces the performers and spectators of the play, outlining their roles and places with respect to the architecture of the theatre space as well as the dramaturgy of the play. Next, the paper analyses the five acts of the play, notably examining the time period in which each of them transpires and the most marking or spectacular events. Each act is analysed with regard to its dominant narratives. The war against irregular migration is waged and justified in resorting to two different narratives: one being security, and the other humanitarian. On the Lampedusa stage, while both narratives take turns commanding the scene, they both are in fact always present. The two rhetorics are intertwined with one another, and together they contribute to constituting and strengthening the policies and practices of migration and border control.
Topic:: Security, Humanitarian Aid, Immigration, Border Control, and Borders
Political Geography:: Europe, Italy, and Lampedusa

Author:: Lorenzo Gabrielli
Publication Date:: 09-2015
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: Cultures & Conflits
Institution:: Cultures & Conflits
Abstract:: This article analyses the “bordering” process in Spain, notably with regard to its relation to ever-reoccurring “migration crises” at certain areas of the border. More specifically, it addresses the ways in which a structural phenomenon such as illegal immigration is politicized and managed as “exceptional” at the Spanish border. To better understand this dynamic, it analyses, on the one hand, the case of Ceuta and Melilla as pivotal sites of the execution of emergency, and, on the other hand, the Canary Islands as a temporary hotspot. Then, it decodes the elements hidden by the Spanish “bordering by crises” approach and its consequences. In particular, it exposes the way in which emergency management produces a de facto state of exception and excess at segments of the border carrying particular symbolic significance. Finally, it addresses the reasons behind this constant emergency management, namely asking whether emergency management provides an escape from the constraints imposed by fundamental and basic rights.
Topic:: Migration, Governance, Border Control, and Borders
Political Geography:: Europe, Spain, and Canary Islands

Author:: Laurence Pillant and Louise Tassin
Publication Date:: 09-2015
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: Cultures & Conflits
Institution:: Cultures & Conflits
Abstract:: Based on two separate studies in sociology and geography, this article emphasizes the effects of “armour-plating” borders in the European Union through a focus on the confinement measures used on migrants at the Greece-Turkey border. Analysing both the construction and contention of detention centres on Lesbos Island, this paper shows that migration control is situated in a myriad of formal as well as informal sites, therefore going beyond the walls of official centres and sanctioning the immobilization or locking up of migrants. Consequently, this article places official detention centres and spaces created by civil society in a wider continuum. While the latter provide an alternative form of detention, in extending and reproducing logics of confinement, in the end, they too build barriers.
Topic:: Migration, Sociology, Border Control, Refugees, and Geography
Political Geography:: Europe, Turkey, and Greece

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