TY - JOUR
T1 - Push and Back
T2 - the Ripple Effect of EU Border Externalisation from Croatia to Iran
AU - Augustova, Karolina
AU - Farrand Carrapico, Helena
AU - Obradović-Wochnik, Jelena
N1 - Funding information: The author(s) disclosed receipt of the following financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article: This work was supported by the Stiftung Mercator and Aston Prize PhD Studentship.
PY - 2023/8/1
Y1 - 2023/8/1
N2 - Pushbacks have become a key feature of EU migration controls since 2015. As this article argues, practices of pushbacks stretch from EU spaces, such as Croatia, to its external borders and neighbouring countries, reaching as far as Iran. Although pushback tactics and their consequences are widely discussed in public, activist, policy debates, and by refugees themselves; academic literature has a limited engagement with pushbacks and their effects. To address this gap, we set up the concepts of “push” and “back” to question the ripple effect of informal and violent border controls that occurs transversely in multiple geopolitical contexts and timelines of migratory journeys. The article draws on ethnographic fieldwork in two border locations: the Croatian border with Bosnia-Herzegovina and the Turkey-Iran border. We argue that the EU’s governance of its external border encourages identical practices of “push” to different locations. We show that “pushes” generate multi-layered violence enmeshed in the local security (and at times militarized) contexts when people are “back”; or forcibly returned to their starting locations. The analysis of “push” and “back” contributes to the literature on the EU externalisation of migration governance and border violence, which we examine through informal and violent border practices inside and outside of the EU.
AB - Pushbacks have become a key feature of EU migration controls since 2015. As this article argues, practices of pushbacks stretch from EU spaces, such as Croatia, to its external borders and neighbouring countries, reaching as far as Iran. Although pushback tactics and their consequences are widely discussed in public, activist, policy debates, and by refugees themselves; academic literature has a limited engagement with pushbacks and their effects. To address this gap, we set up the concepts of “push” and “back” to question the ripple effect of informal and violent border controls that occurs transversely in multiple geopolitical contexts and timelines of migratory journeys. The article draws on ethnographic fieldwork in two border locations: the Croatian border with Bosnia-Herzegovina and the Turkey-Iran border. We argue that the EU’s governance of its external border encourages identical practices of “push” to different locations. We show that “pushes” generate multi-layered violence enmeshed in the local security (and at times militarized) contexts when people are “back”; or forcibly returned to their starting locations. The analysis of “push” and “back” contributes to the literature on the EU externalisation of migration governance and border violence, which we examine through informal and violent border practices inside and outside of the EU.
KW - EU
KW - Externalisation
KW - border controls
KW - geopolitics
KW - migration
UR - https://www.mendeley.com/catalogue/cc5696ac-bd78-3a23-89eb-d5072ff0236a/
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85150948065&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1177/23996544231163731
DO - 10.1177/23996544231163731
M3 - Article
SN - 2399-6544
VL - 41
SP - 847
EP - 865
JO - Environment and Planning C: Politics and Space
JF - Environment and Planning C: Politics and Space
IS - 5
M1 - 239965442311637
ER -