At the borders of power. Producing and resisting bare life in a state of exception on Lesvos, Greece
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2018-01-17
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en
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As a result of the Eu-Turkey deal, thousands of migrants are stuck on the Greek island of Lesvos. This research investigates how biopolitical strategies are applied to manage migrants at the Greek-Turkish border, as well as the way in which these strategies and powers are resisted. Through an Agambian perspective, this research first examines how Lesvos has become an exceptional space where conventional rule of law is suspended. Then I present how through sovereign bio-political strategies like politics of encampment, sovereign power produces migrants into ‘bare life beings’. This research shows how through a strategy of encampment, migrants are simultaneously concentrated under sovereign rule, as that they are abandoned by sovereign power. Forced to live inside the camp, migrants are isolated from the (political) community but captured under its rule, where they are exposed to -and vulnerable for - arbitrary sovereign violence. Finally, detention and deportation are used as the ultimate tools of sovereignty, performing the politics of in- and exclusion. However, Sovereign power proves not to be absolute, for some migrants succeed to resist these powers. The resistance against a bare life existence is performed through political organisation, autonomous mobility, the reconfiguration of (public)space, and the construction of community.
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Faculteit der Managementwetenschappen