Borderwork beyond inside/outside? Frontex, the citizen-detective and the war on terror

Abstract

The article begins by noting Etienne Balibar's insight that the borders of Europe may be vacillating but that they are changing and multiplying rather than simply disappearing. Drawing upon this insight, it seeks to investigate ways in which responses to the threat of terrorism in the EU have involved bordering practices that to some extent challenge commonsensical understandings of what and where the borders of Europe should be according to the conventional 'inside/outside' model. In this context, two cases are examined: the recent surveillance activities of the new EU border management agency Frontex in Africa; and the emergence of surveillance strategies arising from the linking of notions of European citizenship with EU-wide counter-terrorism initiatives following 9/11. It is argued that new border vocabularies are necessary in order for emerging forms of borderwork to be identified and interrogated in the context of the on-going 'war on terror'.