Border dispositifs and border effects. Exploring the nexus between transnationalism and border studies

ABSTRACT

The article argues that transnationalism and border studies offer complementary perspectives where each can inspire the other. Based on two case studies, the notions of border dispositifs and border effects are developed as analytical lenses for researching and conceptualising the nexus between transnational migration and border regimes. While the border dispositifs perspective facilitates a de-reification of borders and shifts the focus on how inequalities are produced by specific border locations and situations, the border effects perspectives reifies the notion of border in order to capture structural effects which border regimes have on transnational migrants’ lives. Finally, the article introduces the notion of border capital to theorise effects that borders have on resources of persons who are mobile across borders. It aims at capturing the impact of borders on inequalities between mobile and sedentary persons.

KEYWORDS:

• Border studies
• transnational migration
• global inequality
• border capital
• border effects

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes

1. The Dublin process refers to the Europeanisation of the border and asylum regime since the 1990s.

2. In English, Foucault’s term dispositif is also translated as ‘apparatus’. In order to avoid mechanical connotations, I prefer to use the original French word. Moreover, I use the term in a more specific way than Foucault. Although generally the border dispositif includes territorialized and deterritorialised as well as materialised and non-material aspects of power, the article focuses in particular on concrete as well as typical aspects of localised and localising ensembles of border power, such as border in the airport transit zone.

3. I encountered the airport transit zone in the context of my fieldwork in a clearing house for unaccompanied minor refugees, which I did part-time over a period of ten months starting in 2013 and ending in 2014. Some cases concerned unaccompanied minors who were detained in the transit zone and I accompanied the social workers to conduct interviews.

4. Translated from German to English by the author.

Additional information

Funding

This work was financially supported by the Max Planck Society and the University of Tübingen.