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ID: 117436

Carl Schmitt and the concept of the border / Minca, Claudio; Vaughan-Williams, Nick

Vaughan-Williams, Nick	Journal Article
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2012.

Summary/Abstract

The paper investigates the promise of Carl Schmitt's concept of 'nomos' for developing new spatial imaginaries apposite to the study of 'the border' in contemporary political life, as per the aims of the 'Lines in the Sand' research agenda. Schmitt introduced the idea of a 'nomos of the earth' to refer to the fundamental relation between space and political order. There have been various historical expressions of the nomos, from the Respublica Christiana, to the jus publicum Europaeum, to a post-World War II (dis)order yet to be adequately theorised. We aim to explore the relatively overlooked spatial ontology of Schmitt's work and suggest ways in which it might prompt alternative ways of thinking about borders and bordering practices as representative of broader dynamics in the relation between space and political order.

Key Words

Political Order ; Carl Schmitt ; Political Life ; Concept of the Border

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ID: 189383

Of Werewolves, Jungles, and Refugees: More-than-human Figures along the Balkan Route / Minca, Claudio

Minca, Claudio	Journal Article
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Summary/Abstract

Drawing from Giorgio Agamben’s conceptualisation of the werewolf as a more-than-human figure, this article investigates how this figure may help in analysing the ‘animalisation’ of the refugees banned to the forest along the so-called Balkan Route. After briefly discussing how the werewolf has historically been a recurrent motif in European folkloric accounts and popular narratives depicting the stranger and the abnormal, the article examines how the werewolf has been presented by Agamben as a key figure in his conceptualisation of the sovereign ban. The article then proposed a reading of the Balkan Route and its informal refugee mobilities focussed on their unruly spatialities, made of makeshift camps but also forests and bushes converted into temporarily inhabited ‘jungles’ by banned individuals-on-the-move. The final section illustrates the violence at the border by engaging with Rita Sakr’s analysis of two shorts stories written by Iraqi former refugee Hassan Blasim and based on a more-than-human refugee journey across the Balkan Route. The article concludes by suggesting that the figure of the werewolf-refugee may help in understanding the condition of refugees along the Balkan Route and the violence they are exposed to during their more-than-human journeys across this corner of Europe.

Key Words

Refugees ; Werewolves ; Jungles ; More-than-human Figures along the Balkan Route

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