Outsourcing Hotspot Governance within the EU

Cultural Mediators as Humanitarian-Border Workers in Greece

Bibliographic Data

ID2236611
AuthorsAila Spathopoulou (0000-0001-6563-5232, University of London, corresponding author), Kirsi Pauliina Kallio, Christopher Lizotte (0000-0002-8761-1159, Tampere University), Jouni Häkli (0000-0002-3033-2976, Tampere University)
Year2021
Volume15
Issue3
Pages359-377
Publication date2021-07-29
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueInternational Political Sociology (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 1749-5679 • E-ISSN: 1749-5687
PublisherOxford University Press (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1093/ips/olab017
OpenAlexW3185540066
LanguageEN
Citations received16
References cited51

Responding to the self-declared 'Mediterranean migration crisis' in 2015, the European Commission launched a Hotspot Approach to speed up the handling of incoming migrants in the 'frontline states' of Greece and Italy. A key element in this operation is the identification of those eligible for asylum, which requires effective communication across cultural and linguistic difference between the asylum system and the migrants, facilitated by officially designated 'cultural mediators.' We assess the hotspot governance as a form of outsourcing border control within the EU territory. Beyond sorting out and separating migrants into the categories of deservingness and undeservingness, we propose that the hotspot mechanism represents 'governing by communication,' with cultural mediators as key players in this humanitarian-bordering strategy. A focus on how cultural mediators provide the precarious human labor for this governance, offers, we argue, a productive inroad into the ways in which the hotspot economies of deterrence, containment, and care sustain inequalities embedded in race, socioeconomic status, and citizenship

Citizenship · Corporate governance · Economics · Management · Outsourcing · Political economy · Political science · Politics · Sociology · Law · Migration and Labor Dynamics · Migration, Health and Trauma · Migration, Refugees, and Integration

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