Migration and Border Governance in the EUropean Border Regime during and after 2015

The so-called ‘summer of migration’ 2015 is widely regarded as a turning point for the EUropean border regime. The large number of border crossings towards and through EUrope at that time has brought to the surface a profound crisis of migration governance and border security of the EU and its member states. The policies and practices of re-stabilizing the border regime after the “long summer” are characterized by severe policy restrictivations and at the same time continue differential in- and exclusions. The panel sets out to examine the discourses and practices of governing migration and borders during and after the “summer of migration”, thus picking up on a central topic of our individual and collective research in the PhD program “Boundary formations in migration societies”. It invites contributions that analyze different dimensions and spaces of migration and border governance. Accordingly, presentations may focus on, e.g., the EU’s externalization politics with regard to neighboring states, conflicts within the EU and its member states concerning the Common European Asylum System, discursive struggles articulated in representations ranging from images, visual artefacts or texts to the local materializations of the EUropean border regime through infrastructures (e.g. at what is commonly referred to as ‘hotspots’ of migration at external borders). Putting different disciplinary perspectives in dialogue, we want to shed light on interruptions, transformations as well as continuities of the policies of differential inclusion and exclusion since 2015.

Panel presentations by:

Karl Heyer (Osnabrück), Laura Holderied (Oldenburg), Judith Kopp (Kassel), David Niebauer (Göttingen),  Simon Sperling (Osnabrück)

Panel organizers:

Karl Heyer (Osnabrück), Laura Holderied (Oldenburg), David Niebauer (Göttingen), Simon Sperling (Osnabrück)

Comment by:

Bernd Kasparek (Göttingen)