Hellenic Observatory Research Seminar series organizes seminar on: "Communication architecture of the border: Constructions of Europe's humanitarian securitization". The seminar will take place on Tuesday 18 October, (18.00-19.30) in London.
The Hellenic Observatory Research Seminar series provides a forum for academic and policy research. Topics cover current economic, public policy and foreign policy issues related to Greece, Cyprus and southeast Europe region but also extent to topics on culture and history.
This presentation draws from research conducted from Dr Myria Georgiou and L. Chouliaraki at the Greek island of Chios and at the peak of the so-called “migration crisis” of 2015-16. The seminar will examine the communication architecture of the border and the ways in which narratives and moralities of securitization and humanitarianism become intrinsically intertwined in the acts of reception of refugees and migrants in Europe's borderland. The communication architecture of the border involves all different actors of reception, who sometimes converge and sometimes compete with each other: border military forces and police; INGOs; networks of solidarity. What will be argued it that this architecture shapes a politics of the border, while at the same time playing a critical role in establishing the conditions of (im-)possibility for migrants and refugees to be accepted in Europe.