White Fragility at the European Borders: The “Refugee Crisis” and the Reconfiguration of European Identities

Abstract

Migrants and refugees trigger intense public reactions in European societies which range from denial to confusion, from open violence to humanitarianism, and constitute the discourse of the “refugee crisis”. This paper applies Robin DiAngelo's term White Fragility to European discourses on migration and refugees and to the European border regime for developing an understanding of the border spectacle and its moral panics as a defensive reaction to racial stress. Although European reactions are contradictory in many ways, the “refugee crisis” performs a stabilizing function in the European border regime: Instead of listening to the political arms of refugee and migrant movements, European societies fight about their own identities and values. Considering this, there is still also a possibility to deal with fragility as a source of knowledge and understand it as a possible terrain for radical solidarity.