Greece-Türkiye land border: Locals' experiences and perspectives at the Turkish borderland

Greece-Türkiye land border is a sui generis case with its unilaterally "open" border regime within the context of European external border management. This thesis analyzes the role of Turkish borderland residents' daily practices and discourses in the sustenance and transformation of this border. The findings indicate that the mobility patterns and ownership regimes in the area and the moral narratives justifying locals' practices are inherent elements of the border and that the sudden change in the structural features of the border caused by the 2020 Edirne Events transformed these features of everyday life. In the current status quo, locals benefit from the economic opportunities of smuggling industry and their economic and humanitarian endeavors enable the migrants to travel in an unfamiliar landscape. Yet, the events also increased the feeling of insecurity and forced a form of co-habitation onto locals in which they unwillingly share their private and common spaces with migrants. These opportunities and insecurities are reframed in a moral narrative that positions locals as moral border workers, justifying their actions through representations of migrants' sufferings. Locals' discourses generating categories of "others" are by and large in rapport with this moral framework.