LADDERS, KETCHUP, AND MAYONNAISE: THE MATERIALITY OF IRREGULARIZED MOVEMENTS ALONG THE BALKAN ROUTE.
This article explores how ordinary objects -- such as ladders, ketchup, and mayonnaise -- become charged with political significance in the context of irregularized migration along the Balkan route. In two ethnographic case studies conducted at the EU's southeastern borderlands, we examine how these...
| Publicado en: | Croatian Journal of Ethnology & Folklore Research / Narodna Umjetnost Vol. 62; no. 2; pp. 119 - 139 |
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| Autores principales: | , |
| Formato: | Artículo |
| Publicado: |
Institute of Ethnology & Folklore Research
2025
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| Materias: | |
| Acceso en línea: | Ver este registro en EBSCOhost |
| Sumario: | This article explores how ordinary objects -- such as ladders, ketchup, and mayonnaise -- become charged with political significance in the context of irregularized migration along the Balkan route. In two ethnographic case studies conducted at the EU's southeastern borderlands, we examine how these mundane items acquire new functions and meanings in connection with border violence. Ladders, used by migrants to scale fences at the Serbia--Hungary border, circulate through informal networks and become both tools of mobility and mediators of physical harm to border crossers. Ketchup and mayonnaise, distributed as part of survival kits by solidarity networks, reappear grotesquely in instances of sadistic violence during Croatian police pushbacks. Migrants' creative and tactical use of everyday, makeshift objects reflects the codes of structural violence, as these items become embedded in complex regimes of control and resistance. This dual appropriation -- from below and from above -- highlights material entanglements of humanitarianism, repression, and embodied agency. Drawing on theoretical frameworks of materiality, migration regime, and critical border studies, and by tracing their circulations and transformations, we uncover how borders are negotiated not only through policy or protest, but through the everyday use and redefinition of things. U ovom se članku istražuje kako obični predmeti -- poput ljestava, kečapa i majoneze -- poprimaju političku dimenziju u kontekstu iregulariziranih migracija duž balkanske rute. Na temelju dviju etnografskih studija slučaja provedenih na jugoistočnim granicama Europske unije analizira se kako ti svakodnevni predmeti dobivaju nove funkcije i značenja u vezi s graničnim nasiljem. Ljestve, kojima se migranti služe pri prelasku ograde na srpsko-mađarskoj granici, cirkuliraju kroz neformalne mreže te postaju i sredstvo mobilnosti i sredstvo nanošenja tjelesnih ozljeda. Kečap i majoneza, koji se distribuiraju kao dio paketa za preživljavanje u sklopu mreža solidarnosti, izranjaju i u grotesknom kontekstu sadističkog nasilja tijekom pušbekova koje provodi hrvatska policija. Kreativna i taktička upotreba svakodnevnih, improviziranih predmeta od strane migranata odražava kodove strukturnog nasilja, budući da ti predmeti postaju ugrađeni u kompleksne režime kontrole i otpora. Ova dvostruka aproprijacija -- odozdo i odozgo -- ističe materijalne međuodnose humanitarnosti, represije i utjelovljene agensnosti. Oslanjajući se na teorijske okvire materijalnosti, migracijskog režima i kritičkih studija granica, te prateći cirkulaciju i transformaciju tih objekata, pokazuje se kako se granice pregovaraju ne samo kroz politike i proteste već i kroz svakodnevnu uporabu i preoblikovanje predmeta. |
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