Migration Control and Securitization on the EU Eastern Border

This collection responds to the renewed focus on the EU Eastern border and contributes to the developing scholarship on the Global East. The volume aims to understand and conceptualise the recent developments at that border that have so far gathered little academic attention beyond the legal analysis of pushbacks.

The book analyses migratory paths, migration control and bordering practices, as well as responses to discourses, politics, perceptions and imaginations of migration on the Eastern border from legal, social, material, historical and discursive perspectives. It focuses on Eastern EU border countries, particularly those bordering Russia or Belarus. In addition, it examines Germany’s border externalisation policies, and Romania, which has so far been excluded from border studies.

The chapters critically examine the processes leading to border fortification, highlighting post-2021 events that accelerated warfare discourse in media and politics (on “hybrid war”) and the “weaponisation” of people on the move. The main analytical lines include the progressive securitisation and rapid militarisation of the EU’s Eastern border, and the criminalisation not only of migration and people on the move themselves, but also of solidarity, activism, and different forms of resistance to these developments.

This book will be a useful resource for students and scholars of criminology, border studies, migration and asylum law, as well as for policymakers and practitioners working in these areas.