Zijt gij dan geen Efraïmiet? Biopolitiek en soevereiniteit op de Nederlandse grens te Schiphol

Abstract

Schiphol Airport, close to Amsterdam, is one of the few national borders still guarded by the Dutch state. Borders at airports demand a peculiar way of guarding if one wishes to control who gets into a country. This thesis concentrates on the filtering and selecting qualities of the Dutch border. For this purpose, the border is considered to be threefold: selection processes take place before, during and after entering a country. The selection after entering the country is however excluded from this research. Through interviews and an in-depth analysis of the Dutch Aliens Act and related legislation, the Dutch border is perceived as a filter, and deconstructed as a biopolitical instrument. In disciplining the people that wish to enter, the border also disciplines the Dutch population and propagates an image of the Netherlands-worthy immigrant. The way Schiphol Airport works as both a large traveller-processing facility and a place where irregular migrants are filtered out of the stream is found to be closely related to Agambens state of exception. At the airport-border, the law is reproduced and rewritten on a daily basis. The concepts of biopolitics and sovereignty seem to work in conjunction at the airport-border. This conjunction produces counterintuitive effects, without diminishing the overall functioning of both biopower and sovereignty, perhaps even increasing their concealment. Further research into the workings of these concepts is recommended, as well as into the discursive abilities of the state.