The Emergence of Urban Border Spaces in Europe
Final Report Abstract
Migrants no longer encounter the border exclusively at the gates of the state territory, and thus at the moment of their entry. Their encounter with the border occurs long before, and increasingly very long after they crossed the physical border line as it is drawn on a map. Hence, this project follows the recent shift in the European border regime from the borderline toward diverse sites and actors within the territory of the state and explores the border’s still neglected local turn to city and urban space. While studies on migration and border control have been focusing primarily on national and, increasingly, European scales, current shifts include the increased policing of city streets and urban spaces; the involvement of diverse local state and non-state actors into the operations of territorial stay, entry, and removal; and the practices of administrative and welfare bordering by urban actors, that implement and produce migrants’ legal status, rights, and entitlements. Thus, a plethora of urban actors has become involved in the making and unmaking of the border. This has placed to border in the everyday life of migrants, but also of non-migrant ‘others’. The project considers the Urban Border Space as the contested situation in which multiple social groups and actors negotiate the differential inclusions and exclusions in the city. It examines the border as a crucial mechanism of ordering and othering that represents, enacts, and creates the line between insiders and outsiders, legal citizens and non-citizens, further shaped by intersecting categorisations of socio-symbolic bordering operating on divisions of racialization and ethnicization, class, gender, or health through practices on the ground. Empirical research is conducted in various cities to reveal and to compare how multiple state and non-state actor negotiate the border and engage in re- and debordering, focusing on the fields of work, family, and health. Yet, rather than understanding the city as bounded space, the project proposes studying the border through the city, that is within a multiscalar and relational framework that uses the city as an entry point. In doing so, the project contributes to the empirical and theoretical understanding of the relationship of the border and the city, and thus of the changing spatial organization of the European border regime. Rather than seeing the border as mere external, territorial filtering and selection, it brings to the fore the internal border’s function of socio-symbolic differentiation and fragmentation through the interconnected and differential dynamics of territorial, legal, and social inclusion and exclusion, of (urban) citizenship and control.
Publications
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The Emergence of Urban Border Spaces in Europe. Journal of Borderlands Studies, 34(4), 605-622.
Fauser, Margit
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Migrations and Borders: Practices and Politics of Inclusion and Exclusion in Europe from the Nineteenth to the Twenty-first Century. Journal of Borderlands Studies, 34(4), 483-488.
Fauser, Margit; Friedrichs, Anne & Harders, Levke
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Special Issue “Migrations and Border Processes: Practices and Politics of Inclusion and Exclusion in Europe from theNineteenth to the Twenty-first Century”, Journal of Borderlands Studies, 34(4)
Fauser, Margit; Friedrichs, Anne & Harders, Levke
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Grenzen aus Papier. Einblicke in die Erforschung lokaler Erfahrungen von Migrant*innen im europäischen Grenzregime, unter Mitarbeit von Nathale Melo Martins und Sarah von Querfurth, in: Migration and Belonging, 02/11/2020,
Fauser, Margit
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Migrations and Border Pro-cesses. Practices and Politics of Belonging and Exclusion in Europe from the Nineteenth tothe Twenty-First Century, London: Routledge.
Fauser, Margit, Anne Friedrichs & Levke Harders
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Erwerbstätigkeit von Migrant*innen zwischen Privileg und Pflicht, Konferenzpaper, 41. Kongress der Deutschen Gesellschaft für Soziologie "Polarisierte Welten“, Ad-hoc Gruppe “Erwerbslosigkeitsnorm”
Fauser, Margit & Elena Fattorelli
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Healthcare access in the urban border space, Konferenzpaper, IMISCOE Annual Conference, Panel: “Health care for precarious migrants – exploring contradictions“
Fauser, Margit & Corinna Di Stefano
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Multiple Facets of Borderwork. Urban Actors Between Migrants’ Struggles and State Control. Journal of Intercultural Studies, 44(1), 61-76.
Fauser, Margit; Di Stefano Corinna, A. & Fattorelli, Elena
