The visibility of the border

There is an ever increasing number of images and texts dealing with Europe’s frontiers, especially in the Western media. Indeed, what was once considered invisible has become unusually clear: the often highly dangerous strategies developed by migrants to overcome border control mechanisms and the transnational routes that have arisen in the process.

The invisibility of the border regime

In the Western media, the migration taking place at the European Union’s frontiers (and in particular in the new countries of immigration in Southeast Europe) is portrayed as something that occurs far away from everyday life – in the wilderness, on lonely beaches, in remote forest and mountain regions. However, a closer look reveals that there are manifold control mechanisms in place within European cities and towns, on the streets and in train stations. Indeed, the agents of the border regime not only position themselves behind barriers and fences, but in the very heart of Europe – and in national, European and global politics.

Since the Schengen and Amsterdam treaties, the national borders in the southeast of the continent have become increasingly "Europeanized". Enforcing these borders serves the hegemonic interests of the EU, and officials at the national level – especially those in countries aspiring to become members of the European Union – find themselves obliged to assume the duties of border guards.

At the same time, international non-governmental and other transnational organizations in the West are also increasingly intervening in current migration policies. Like the media images mentioned above, they help determine a new discourse in which migrants appear both as "perpetrators" and "victims" in relation to the border – both roles reflecting the manner in which migration tends to be criminalized and scandalized. It is hardly surprising that the most people associate the external border of the EU with police, human trafficking and smuggling rings.

The autonomy of migration

It is thus easy to forget that migrants are acting individuals who develop their own strategies to adapt to the conditions at the borders, and that the practices of the border regimes themselves are closely intertwined with these strategies. Indeed, while the border regimes may make ostensible attempts to keep the borders shut by criminalizing migration, they nevertheless reckon with, and even depend on, the fact that a certain number of individuals will make their way through. More and more it is the transnational, illegal immigrants who are becoming the pawns of the increasingly flexible and globalized economies of Southeast and Western Europe. However, at the same time the political and economic self-interest of these economies provides migrants with certain opportunities to develop tactics of their own and shape their own destines – leading to the unexpected effects of an autonomy of migration which extend beyond the limits of what can be controlled through planning.