Bard College Berlin's video: Beg m Ba da Militarization of Migration: Spatial Politics of European Borderlands

In this Global Histories of Migration lecture Dr. Begüm Başdaş will speak about EU border policies in relation to migration- EU policies of externalization of asylum, militarization of border policing and racialized criminalization of refugee bodies produce spaces of physical deterrence at the borderlands of Europe. To prevent people from moving, Frontex turns a blind eye to brutal pushbacks at the borders and EU provides funds to governments for the construction of inhumane camps, where people live without access to basic rights and remain in limbo for long periods of time. Through new configurations of technology, security and violence, these borderlands, such as in Hungary, Croatia, Poland, and Greece are declared as spaces of “emergency” to justify the measures taken to curb migration and send “a message” to people on the move, while “closed controlled” camps on the Greek hotspot islands are built by EU funding. Focusing on the borderlands of Europe, this lecture rethinks what militarization of migration and architecture of deterrence tell us about the future of Europe. Begüm Başdaş (https://www.hertie-school.org/en/research/faculty-and-researchers/profile/person/basdas) is a Postdoctoral Researcher at the Centre for Fundamental Rights at the Hertie School. Her research interests are in the fields of migration, human rights, political theory, gender and sexuality studies with a focus on EU and Turkey. She received her PhD in Geography from the University of California Los Angeles and her MA in Art History from the University of California Riverside. Her BA was in Sociology at Boğaziçi University, Turkey. Before joining the Hertie School, she was an Einstein Fellow at Humboldt University in Berlin at BIM, where she worked on the spatial politics of solidarity and care among Afghan refugees and rights defenders in Greece. She also worked full-time as a human rights campaigner at Amnesty International Turkey for six years. She has a biweekly TV program titled “On the Move with Begüm Başdaş” on Medyascope TV in English and Turkish, where she discusses current issues on migration with different guests. As a critical feminist geographer, her current research titled “In the Making of New Europe: Embodied Politics of Borderlands and Refugee Resilience” aims to contribute to migration and border studies by examining the reconstruction of EU borderlands at multiple scales through the governance of migration particularly in Greece and the Balkan routes. This event is part of the Global Histories of Migration lecture series and funded by the Mellon Consortium on Forced Migration, Displacement and Education.