Bulgaria’s Response to Refugee Migration: Institutionalizing the Boundary of Exclusion

Abstract

The consistent securitization of migration in Europe of the past decades has been consequential: one of its most visible aspects is currently displayed in the regulation of asylum in Europe. By constructing migrants as physical and ontological threat, by re-drawing borders as barriers against otherness, by reaffirming the identity-maintenance aspects of citizenship, the securitization of migration and the lumping of asylum together with migration in all key EU regulatory moves has enabled the rationalisation of protection from asylum-seekers. This article takes up a national study of the policy narratives and practices around one of the understudied recent asylum hotspots in the EU: the Bulgarian-Turkish border forming part of the external EU border. The analysis emphasizes how the rebordering dynamics identified in Bulgaria (as a EU member-state) is embedded within similar narratives and practices at all levels of EU asylum politics. It argues that these (re-)bordering narratives and practices undermine the notion of protection, weaken the Europeanization of asylum, and threaten the legitimacy of political communities in the EU. These consequences need to be taken into account when studying the struggle between human rights and democracy in the regulation of asylum, as well as when discussing the strategic direction of EU migration governance.

‘Everyday Bordering’ in England, Sweden and Bulgaria: Social Work Decision-Making Processes When Working with Migrant Family Members

“…SWs in all three countries assume that because David is a migrant, he is not of Christian, European heritage, and they make racialised assumptions that this is likely to influence what he sees to be appropriate relational behaviours (Britton 2019). Here, because migrants entering Europe in 2015 were predominantly Asian, African and Middle Eastern, compounded by increasing xeno-racism (Stone 2016;Nancheva 2016), participants in all countries assume David must be from these areas, and abusive behaviours are positioned as culturally located. Where guidance on working with migrant families and cultural difference is limited, absent and/or contradictory, racialised everyday bordering practices occur to varying degrees and contribute to creating the sense of 'them' and 'us', and who does and does not belong (Anderson 2013;Yuval-Davis et al 2017;Yuval-Davis et al 2019).…”

“…In summary, then, in all three countries, during and since 2015, anti-migrant, promigration-control narratives have amplified and, to varying degrees, conflate with Islamophobic/xeno-racist opinions (Stone 2016;Nancheva 2016). Within this, as previously noted, a range of everyday bordering practices have been introduced (Yuval- Davis et al 2017;Yuval-Davis et al, 2019).…”

“…For Kyuchukov (2015), the combined effect of the weak Bulgarian economy, and an upsurge of anti-migrant, xeno-racist narratives in the Bulgarian national media, led to fears for Bulgarian national security. This, combined with the fact that EU countries did not have harmonised asylum rules, led to Bulgarian authorities (and other countries) physically pushing vulnerable people-predominantly from the Global South-back over borders and tightening evidentiary requirements for those aiming to apply for asylum (Nancheva 2016).…”