BORDER HARMS AND EVERYDAY VIOLENCE : a prison island in europe

The Greek island of Lesvos is frequently the subject of news reports on the refugee ‘crisis’, but they only occasionally focus on the dire living conditions of asylum seekers already present on the island. Through direct experience as an activist in Lesvos refugee camps and detention centres, Iliadou gives voice to those with lived experiences of state violence. The author considers the escalation of EU border regime and deterrence policies seen in the past decade alongside their present impacts. Asking why the social harm and suffering border crossers experience is normalised and rendered invisible, the book highlights the collective, global responsibility for safeguarding refugees’ human rights. Front Cover Half-title Border Harms and Everyday Violence: A Prison Island in Europe Copyright information Dedication Table of Contents Series Editors’ Preface List of Figures Acknowledgements Introduction Aims of this book Painful injustices: understanding violence, social harm and social suffering A heartfelt ethnography of borders The metaphor of ‘prison island’ Positionality, power, ethics The organization of the book 1 The Politics of Deterrence and Closed Borders The externalization of EU borders The harms of externalization Violence en route Financial debt Labour debt Sexual debt Other coerced choices The internalization of EU borders The hotspot approach The closure of the Balkan route The EU–Turkey statement The geographical restriction regime Conclusion 2 Intergenerational Harms: Border Memories and Genealogies of Harm Regimes of border violence and control Genealogies of immigration detention centres Special sites of residency for foreigners First reception centres or screening centres Conclusion 3 Quarantine Continuum: Medicalization of Borders and the Securitization of Migration and Health The enemy within The enemy at the borders Conclusion 4 Mundane Surrealism: Bureaucratic Deterrence, Violence and Suffering First stage: screening and identification procedures Second stage: asylum procedures Restricted access to asylum procedures Restricted access to information Restricted access to legal aid The fast-track and inadmissibility procedure Administrative vulnerability Third stage: Emergency Relocation Scheme Fourth stage: Family Reunification Scheme Fifth stage: Assisted Voluntary Return and Reintegration Juma Sixth stage: coerced deportations Seventh stage: irregular travel Conclusion 5 Necroharms: Obscene and Grotesque Violence The politics of abandonment Necroharms The Moria camp as a graveyard Moria as a site of violence Conclusion 6 Thanatoharms: Governing Migration through Violence and Death Frozen death Deterring-killing: the thanatopolitical border regime Thanatoharms Violence after death Conclusion Conclusion References Index