(Dis)possessive Borders, (Dis)possessed Bodies: Race and Property at the Postcolonial European Borders

Abstract

There has been a profusion of institutionalized practices of confiscation and destruction of migrants’ belongings during European bordering operations conducted by the police and border authorities. Clothes, shoes, money, food, mobile phones, and even water have been among the items seized by authorities, a practice that exposes migrants to multiple risks. That said, despite the pervasiveness of current (dis)possessive methods, scholars have not yet sufficiently theorized the historical and current links between property, race, and borders. This article argues that such (dis)possessive practices at Europe's borders are not simply another method of governance that emerges at Europe's borderzones. Rather, (dis)possession is seen here as central to the very (post)colonial functioning of the border itself. The argument is, on the one hand, that Europe's borders have been embedded within a (post)colonial and racial capitalist global order predicated upon multifaceted forms of (dis)possession. And, on the other hand, it is claimed that borders themselves have been sites of continual forms of colonial and racial (dis)possession. In so doing, the article shows how (dis)possession has historically allowed Europe to demarcate, reinforce, and police the status of racialized bodies as less than human and property-like, that is, as bodies available for colonial and capitalist consumption.