Ege Denizi'nde göçün kontrolü, sınırın yönetimi: Pratiklerin, öznelliklerin ve anlatıların etnografik analizi

This dissertation, by taking into account unauthorized migration as a constitutive force, aims to deconstruct the political space of the Aegean Sea through unveiling multiplicity of actors, practices, and discourses in two countries located on both sides of the sea, Greece and Turkey. The research particularly covers the post-2015 period in which the massive movement of refugees from Turkey into Europe has shaped and transformed the Aegean border space and accordingly the governance of mobility in an intensified manner. This study indicates that the ever-increasingly militarized border habitus results in the ambiguity of roles and actions among military and humanitarian actors while it blurs civilian and military spaces and rationales in border governance. Building on the conceptual basis of security-humanitarian nexus, the research firstly demonstrates that Turkish border practitioners utilize the narratives of humanitarian norms and professional capacity in order to challenge the "superior" position of their European counterparts. Secondly, a minimalist and managerial humanitarian imagination of "saving lives" blurs the military and civilian space in the sea that provides Greek military actors with political technology to degrade rescue humanitarians. Thirdly, due to the distinctive geophysicality of the Aegean Sea, the mode of border governance turns into a politics of interception in the name of rescue through which various military techniques are legitimized. The mixed methods approach of the study is based on a triumvirate: participant observation (in Search and Rescue operations), semi/open-structured interviews, and policy/discourse analysis in 2015-2018.