1st Edition
The Balkan Route Hope, Migration and Europeanisation in Liminal Spaces
This book is an ethnography of the people migrating through the Balkan route and the reaction of the local communities who witnessed their struggle to reach the European Union (EU). Based on extensive fieldwork conducted in North Macedonia and Serbia, it pays special attention to the “refugee crisis” that gave birth to a new border regime based on a permanent suspension of laws, normalisation of violence and the entrapment of migrants stranded in a liminal space at the gates to the EU, able to go neither further nor back.
The book will appeal to an international audience of academics of migration studies, social and political science, and the wider public interested in migration and social and political changes in Southeast Europe.
Introduction
The Movement Before the Border Closure
New Border Regime
Doing Migration Research in Serbia
A Note on Terminology
Understanding Liminality
Book structure
1. Chaos of Liminality
New Beginning
Contradicting Developments
Transformations
Self-Organisation in Disorder
Distrust and Naivety
Re-bordering
Synchronising Gate Closure
Liminal Hotspots
Facing Uncertainty
Conclusions
2. Solidarity in Abandonment
Albanians as the Other
A Sense of Disenfranchisement
Europeanization of the Borders
Paving the Balkan Route
Liminality as a Bonding Experience
The Goldmine
The Weight of Migrant Reception
State Abandonment
An Imperative for Solidarity
Conclusions
3. Europeanisation of Migration
Externalising Border Control
The Balkan Route
Migrations in the Shadow of the EU
Subjugation to the EU
The Migration Control Trade-off
State Exploitation of Welcoming Attitudes
Conclusions
4. Waiting: The Strain of Liminality
Creating Structuralised Waiting
Depicting Waiting Infrastructure
Subordinating Queuing
Delaying
Boredom
The Burden of Waiting
Seeking Asylum in Serbia
Conclusions
5. Migrant Movement as In-betweenness
Defining Migrant Movements
The Reaction to Uncertainty
Violence as Border Deterrence
New Constraints and Opportunities
In Search of Hope in Liminality
Conclusions
Summary: I Must Keep Going
Biography
Robert Rydzewski defended his Ph.D. in Anthropology and Cultural Studies at Adam Mickiewicz University in Poznań, Poland, in 2020. Currently he is Assistant Professor in the Department of Anthropology and Ethnology at the same university.
