Infrastructural clashes: Induced scarcity and governing refugees through depletion

Abstract

This paper deals with the repeated infrastructural breakdowns in Greek refugee camps. It introduces the concept of “infrastructural clashes” to highlight the apparent clash between, on the one hand, high-tech control systems and, on the other, the failures and scarcity of basic infrastructures in camps - such as electricity, running water and food. It argues that infrastructural clashes are not side-effects but, rather, constitutive components of modes of governing by debilitating refugees. The article starts by developing the concept of infrastructural clashes, grounding it in the literature on camp geographies and migration infrastructures. It moves on by exploring the nexus between infrastructural clashes and politics of induced scarcity in Greece, illustrating how this depletes refugees and extracts value from their vitality. It contends that they enhance carcerality beyond detention. The last section engages with refugees’ mobilisations against induced scarcity: their claims foreground that infrastructural clashes enhance protracted dependency. The depletion strengthened through infrastructural clashes shows that refugees are not only obstructed in their mobility but also in their attempt to re-build their lives and to engage in autonomous social reproduction activities.