Between Securitisation and Unsafety: A Scaled Analysis of Policing and Structural Vulnerabilisation on the EU Hotspot Samos
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Goethe University Frankfurt
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Goethe University Frankfurt Germany
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Goethe University Frankfurt Germany
Abstract
The European Union (EU) hotspot system bases itself on securitisation strategies, surrounded by discursive humanitarian promises. In September 2021, the EU opened its first Closed Controlled Access Centre (CCAC) on the Aegean hotspot island of Samos. The EU pledged that the vast securitisation infrastructure, including a police station, would provide safety to asylum seekers. Based on psycho-geographical counter-mappings of forced camp residents (n = 26) and semi-structured interviews with human rights defenders (n = 5), this article investigates the relations between policing, security, safety and vulnerability on different geographical scales. These scales include the border regime, the hotspot island and the camp. The counter-mappings show how the CCAC renders asylum-seeking people more vulnerable, with their safety being played off against border security. Testimonies of police violence and racism indicate that the intentionality of harm reaches a necropolitical dimension beyond the safety–security nexus. Therefore, we call for reflection on the colonial legacy of border policing and its decolonisation.
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Author Biographies
Julia Manek is a human rights activist and researcher in the department of psychology at Goethe University, Frankfurt/Main. She holds master’s degrees in clinical psychology (MSc) and human geography (MA). Her research focuses on immigration detention, torture, trauma and intersectional studies as part of different human rights research networks and organizations.
Sophia Popp completed her bachelor’s degree in Governance and Public Policy at the University of Passau. She is currently finishing her master’s degree in International Studies and Peace and Conflict Studies at the Goethe University Frankfurt am Main. She spent a semester abroad at Linköpings University in Sweden where she successfully completed courses in the master's programme "Ethnic and Migration studies".
Amanda Oiza Bucknor is a master’s student in Science and Technology Studies at Goethe University, with an academic background in Cultural Anthropology, European Ethnology, and Southeast Asian Studies. She spent a year at ISCTE University in Lisbon and focuses her research on postcolonial studies, exploring the intersection of colonial history and decolonial storytelling through urban memory.