Conclusion

Abstract

In this book, I argue that the multiple border policies and practices that have been enforced in light of the so-called ‘refugee crisis’ inaugurated the interference of actors who semi-settled and operated in Greece by turning Lesvos into a securitized and militarized place. On the one hand, all these agents not only enabled the border policies and practices, but also made the dystopia of borders possible by becoming complicit in border violence. In other words, the violent border policies would not be possible without the complicity of key security actors, professionals and street-level bureaucrats as well as ‘ordinary citizens’. On the other hand, these border policies and interventions led to a strengthening and expansion of intervening actors’ power and promoted and expanded, legitimized and normalized their capacity for violence (Massaro and Boyce, 2021). These multiple intervening actors as well as the ordinary citizens who are located within the border play a significant role in ‘the production and performance of borders’ (Pickering, 2014, p 188). I showed that the capacity for violence of each of these actors creeps into the various stages of border crossers’ perilous journeys across borders and the registration, identification, asylum and deportation procedures, in the Moria hotspot and beyond, on the island of Lesvos and in the port and the city centre, in the streets through stop and search, sweep operations, policing and criminalization. This capacity for violence and impunity has produced a suffocating and intimidating reality from which border crossers cannot escape.