Abstract ‘The Game’ is how many refugees describe their attempts to informally travel to Western ... more Abstract ‘The Game’ is how many refugees describe their attempts to informally travel to Western Europe via the so-called Balkan Route. This article conceptualises The Game as a spatial tactic implemented by refugees as a response to the impossibility of legally entering the EU and as a gray area in the governance of informal migrant mobilities. It does so by engaging with the recent literature on the Balkan Route to analyse how The Game has been performed and ‘managed’ in Serbia, a key ‘buffer state’ along this corridor. Drawing from Tazzioli's work on ‘The Making of Migration’, and in particular on her understanding of refugee forced mobility as a form of ‘migrant management’ on the part of the authorities, this article shows how the ambivalent connotations of The Game reveal the troubling configurations of EU border politics and of its formal and informal geopolitical arrangements. At the same time, it argues that the practices related to The Game ultimately reflect the extraordinary determination of the refugees in creating new itineraries, spatial interstices, invisible networks and ‘holes in the border walls’ that allow them, despite all the difficulties, to challenge such border politics. We conclude by proposing to understand The Game as part of the biopolitics of migration and by suggesting that it represents a powerful manifestation of the condition (and the field of possibility) of thousands of refugees along the Balkan Route today.
This chapter is focussed on the ways in which Serbia has responded to th refugee crises in 2015 ,... more This chapter is focussed on the ways in which Serbia has responded to th refugee crises in 2015 , and in particular on how its archipelago of refugee camps has played, and continues to play at present, a fundamental role in the country\u2019s provision of humanitarian aid to the flow of migrants entering from its southern borders in their attempt to move to the European Union. Serbia, during the time in which the Balkan informal route was open, has become a key transit country, with its capital Belgrade playing the role of major transportation hub in this new geography of mobility across the Balkan region
This chapter reflects on the management of the “refugee crisis” along the Balkan Route on the par... more This chapter reflects on the management of the “refugee crisis” along the Balkan Route on the part of the Serbian authorities by highlighting how, with the exception of the dramatic months of the second part of 2015, when over 800,000 refugees crossed with largely no opposition the entire region to reach the rest of Europe, the presence of refugees in Serbia and their related mobility has been somehow normalized. Serbia has been long prepared to provide humanitarian support to the refugees using the informal Balkan Route, since their presence is not considered contingent but rather constitutive of the mutated European geographies of irregular migrations. The “refugee crisis” also has put Serbia under a positive light internationally thanks to the relatively unconditional humanitarian support that guides its policy toward these families and individuals on the move. While this may place Serbia in a stronger position when negotiating its relationship with the European Union, the chapte...
In 1932, the Tourism Syndicate of the French Protectorate government in Morocco published a guide... more In 1932, the Tourism Syndicate of the French Protectorate government in Morocco published a guidebook for French tourists to follow the ‘ Route des Kasbas’ through southern Morocco. The trajectory described is still in many ways reproduced by contemporary guiding materials, delineating specific routes where this ‘heritage’ might be found in Morocco and what sorts of mobilities are necessary to seek it. Using these guiding resources from ‘the field’, along with our own ethnographic experiences as travelling researchers, we trace how colonial cartographical rationalities structured in this region along its ‘road’, through promotion by the French Protectorate government as a mobile site for tourism, and how that infrastructural and economic sedimentation persists in contemporary mobilities through it – including our own mobilities as tourism researchers. We question when and how it might be possible to escape this cartographic specificity for other spatialities of this road.
Marrakech is today the most important tourist destination in Morocco. Marrakech, however, is not ... more Marrakech is today the most important tourist destination in Morocco. Marrakech, however, is not only a key reference point for mass international tourism, but also the preferred choice for those hunting for an “authentic” experience in this North African country. The “Red City” is indeed often presented in literature and advertising alike as a place out of modern time where the real “soul” of Morocco can be found and unveiled (Minca, 2006). This chapter investigates how this “soul” was established—and is now, in Marrakech, constantly reenacted—through layers of colonial and postcolonial interactions between Europe and Morocco.
This paper is about the strategic forgetting of the Humboldtian ‘compromise’. The analysis looks ... more This paper is about the strategic forgetting of the Humboldtian ‘compromise’. The analysis looks to the ways in which the concept of landscape entered geography as a device uniquely able to match the Romantic imaginary of the emergent European bourgeoisie and this latter’s need for a scientific (and a-political) theory of knowledge. Humboldt’s geographical idea of landscape was precisely the ‘compromise’ that would provide the bourgeoisie with a new spatial theory. What I claim in this paper, following Franco Farinelli’s critical rewriting of the history of European geography, is that the nature of Humboldt’s attempt has been essentially cancelled from canonical disciplinary accounts, for a number of historical-political reasons. This accounts for why, even today, despite the achievements of the new cultural geography and the influence of nonrepresentational theories, landscapes all too often continue to be read either as texts or, worse still, as ‘real’ spaces and/or built environm...
Abstract ‘The Game’ is how many refugees describe their attempts to informally travel to Western ... more Abstract ‘The Game’ is how many refugees describe their attempts to informally travel to Western Europe via the so-called Balkan Route. This article conceptualises The Game as a spatial tactic implemented by refugees as a response to the impossibility of legally entering the EU and as a gray area in the governance of informal migrant mobilities. It does so by engaging with the recent literature on the Balkan Route to analyse how The Game has been performed and ‘managed’ in Serbia, a key ‘buffer state’ along this corridor. Drawing from Tazzioli's work on ‘The Making of Migration’, and in particular on her understanding of refugee forced mobility as a form of ‘migrant management’ on the part of the authorities, this article shows how the ambivalent connotations of The Game reveal the troubling configurations of EU border politics and of its formal and informal geopolitical arrangements. At the same time, it argues that the practices related to The Game ultimately reflect the extraordinary determination of the refugees in creating new itineraries, spatial interstices, invisible networks and ‘holes in the border walls’ that allow them, despite all the difficulties, to challenge such border politics. We conclude by proposing to understand The Game as part of the biopolitics of migration and by suggesting that it represents a powerful manifestation of the condition (and the field of possibility) of thousands of refugees along the Balkan Route today.
This chapter is focussed on the ways in which Serbia has responded to th refugee crises in 2015 ,... more This chapter is focussed on the ways in which Serbia has responded to th refugee crises in 2015 , and in particular on how its archipelago of refugee camps has played, and continues to play at present, a fundamental role in the country\u2019s provision of humanitarian aid to the flow of migrants entering from its southern borders in their attempt to move to the European Union. Serbia, during the time in which the Balkan informal route was open, has become a key transit country, with its capital Belgrade playing the role of major transportation hub in this new geography of mobility across the Balkan region
This chapter reflects on the management of the “refugee crisis” along the Balkan Route on the par... more This chapter reflects on the management of the “refugee crisis” along the Balkan Route on the part of the Serbian authorities by highlighting how, with the exception of the dramatic months of the second part of 2015, when over 800,000 refugees crossed with largely no opposition the entire region to reach the rest of Europe, the presence of refugees in Serbia and their related mobility has been somehow normalized. Serbia has been long prepared to provide humanitarian support to the refugees using the informal Balkan Route, since their presence is not considered contingent but rather constitutive of the mutated European geographies of irregular migrations. The “refugee crisis” also has put Serbia under a positive light internationally thanks to the relatively unconditional humanitarian support that guides its policy toward these families and individuals on the move. While this may place Serbia in a stronger position when negotiating its relationship with the European Union, the chapte...
In 1932, the Tourism Syndicate of the French Protectorate government in Morocco published a guide... more In 1932, the Tourism Syndicate of the French Protectorate government in Morocco published a guidebook for French tourists to follow the ‘ Route des Kasbas’ through southern Morocco. The trajectory described is still in many ways reproduced by contemporary guiding materials, delineating specific routes where this ‘heritage’ might be found in Morocco and what sorts of mobilities are necessary to seek it. Using these guiding resources from ‘the field’, along with our own ethnographic experiences as travelling researchers, we trace how colonial cartographical rationalities structured in this region along its ‘road’, through promotion by the French Protectorate government as a mobile site for tourism, and how that infrastructural and economic sedimentation persists in contemporary mobilities through it – including our own mobilities as tourism researchers. We question when and how it might be possible to escape this cartographic specificity for other spatialities of this road.
Marrakech is today the most important tourist destination in Morocco. Marrakech, however, is not ... more Marrakech is today the most important tourist destination in Morocco. Marrakech, however, is not only a key reference point for mass international tourism, but also the preferred choice for those hunting for an “authentic” experience in this North African country. The “Red City” is indeed often presented in literature and advertising alike as a place out of modern time where the real “soul” of Morocco can be found and unveiled (Minca, 2006). This chapter investigates how this “soul” was established—and is now, in Marrakech, constantly reenacted—through layers of colonial and postcolonial interactions between Europe and Morocco.
This paper is about the strategic forgetting of the Humboldtian ‘compromise’. The analysis looks ... more This paper is about the strategic forgetting of the Humboldtian ‘compromise’. The analysis looks to the ways in which the concept of landscape entered geography as a device uniquely able to match the Romantic imaginary of the emergent European bourgeoisie and this latter’s need for a scientific (and a-political) theory of knowledge. Humboldt’s geographical idea of landscape was precisely the ‘compromise’ that would provide the bourgeoisie with a new spatial theory. What I claim in this paper, following Franco Farinelli’s critical rewriting of the history of European geography, is that the nature of Humboldt’s attempt has been essentially cancelled from canonical disciplinary accounts, for a number of historical-political reasons. This accounts for why, even today, despite the achievements of the new cultural geography and the influence of nonrepresentational theories, landscapes all too often continue to be read either as texts or, worse still, as ‘real’ spaces and/or built environm...
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