Violence, race, and imperialism of the European Union's border regime: implications for the EU theory

Abstract

This paper explores the border regime of the European Union (EU). It examines how the EU’s ‘southern’ border draws new lines of inclusion/exclusion on distant shores in Africa and shapes the political identity of the EU. ‘The paper brings together several academic disciplines. It works within European Studies, where theorizing of the EU takes place. It also draws on critical border studies, migration studies, and post-colonial scholarship, where the views from the South, Africa in particular - migrant experiences, impact of bordering on foreign states, economies and social relations - are explored. The paper historicises the causes behind Europe-bound migration and argues that the EU border regime is driven by colonial logic and racial violence. The EU border/ing has denigrated African states and their populations through policy, discourse, and practice. It has re-enacted the old colonial dynamics of the EU member states, former empires, and re-entrenched them in a hierarchical global order of the present. Theoretically, the paper brings race, violence, hierarchy, and coloniality into the discussion of European integration. These issues, largely ignored by mainstream EU theories, destabilise our understanding of European Union. Hence, the paper offers a more accurate understanding of the EU that can inform scholarship and practice.