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The Geopolitics of Fear

From Security to Solidarity at Europe's Racial Borders
  • Berna Turam
Language: English
Published/Copyright: 2025
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About this book

The intensified securitization of the borderlands between Europe and the Middle East/North Africa over the past decade has turned the Mediterranean Sea into a graveyard. This book delves into the most vulnerable, yet understudied, area of the EU's anti-immigrant security regime: the port cities in border zones on major refugee routes. Turam shifts the predominant focus from the global scale of fear to the urban scale of native–migrant solidarity in Greece and Sicily—Europe's two major entrance points in the East and Central Mediterranean. Building upon a rapidly growing scholarship on emotional geographies and affective geopolitics, Turam brings emotions to the center and emphasizes their role in forming, transforming, contesting, interrupting, and even evading the securitization of migration. Within the context of rising racism, nativism, and Islamophobia, readers will discover surprising and inspiring acts of day-to-day resistance to securitization empowered by a sense of safety and local trust, as well as cooperation between municipalities, pro-migrant locals, and asylum-seekers. Uncovering how racialized migrants become the catalyst of transformation from the violent legacy of borderlands to peaceful resistance, the ethnography reveals how intense emotions affect pro-migrant practices, contribute to the formation of safe places, and open the way for dynamic Black and Muslim migrant activism and solidarity at Europe's racial borders.

Author / Editor information

Berna Turam is Professor of Sociology and International Affairs at Northeastern University. This is her fourth book.

Reviews

"As migrations—often forced by violence—have increased in recent years, and as border policing—fueled by nationalist discourses—has become harsher, local forms of solidarity have blossomed in many places. It is this little-studied resistance to states' repression that Berna Turam's multi-sited research illuminates through vivid depictions and scrupulous analysis." —Didier Fassin, co-author of Exile: Chronicle of the Border --- "Exuding passion and care, this rich ethnographic study provides comparative insights into migrant solidarities in Athens and Palermo and sheds important light on the role of emotions in everyday (geo)politics." —Vicki Squire, author of Europe's Migration Crisis: Border Deaths and Human Dignity --- "From Athens to Palermo, Berna Turam takes the reader on a journey to the front lines of resistance to Europe's racial borders. Deeply researched and artfully written, The Geopolitics of Fear shows how everyday solidarity work can contest violence at the border." —Reece Jones, author of White Borders: The History of Race and Immigration in the United States from Chinese Exclusion to the Border Wall

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    Frontmatter

    i
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    CONTENTS

    vii
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    PREFACE

    ix
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    ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

    xix
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    Introduction

    1
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  • PART ONE Athens, the Eastern Mediterranean
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    ONE Safe Places Versus Securitization

    35
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    TWO The Geopolitics of Fear Versus Solidarity

    65
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  • PART TWO Palermo, the Central Mediterranean
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    THREE On Decriminalization— Contesting Legality, Memory, or Emotions?

    91
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    FOUR From Local Insecurities to Black Migrant Activism

    121
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    Conclusions

    169
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    Notes

    189
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    Bibliography

    205
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    Index

    227
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Publishing information
Pages and Images/Illustrations in book
eBook published on:
October 7, 2025
eBook ISBN:
9781503643710
Pages and Images/Illustrations in book
Main content:
266
https://doi.org/10.1515/9781503643710
eBook ISBN: 9781503643710
Keywords for this book
borders; geopolitical emotions; securitization; migration; refugees; asylum-seekers; Islamophobia; racism; migrant activism; Black spaces
Audience(s) for this book
For an expert adult audience, including professional development and academic research
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