Refugees and Solidarity in the ‘Mud of the Balkans’

From the early spring 2015 on, the Eastern and Southern European borders have been experiencing consistent pressure due to the growing flows of asylum seekers, refugees and migrants, largely (but not only) of Syrian and Afghanistan origins, that have been following the so-called Eastern Mediterranean, and the more recent Western Balkans’ routes. In this part of Europe redefinition of borders and boundaries has been ongoing from the late 1980s, and the memory of forced migration flows due to the Yugoslav wars in 1990s is still vivid, witnessing the persistence of rightlessness in the ‘age of rights’ (Gundogdu 2015). Fences and walls growing up in the last two years seems to be the consequence of a deep political crisis of the European Union integration and unification project. We will explore here the dynamics of shifting from ‘migrant question’ to the ‘refugee crises’, analyse the interaction of institutional and civil society actors involved in a ‘Western Balkan route’ segment of the crises, and problematize the new meaning of solidarity principle, that this ‘escaping humanity’ in limbo will bring to the future integration process of Europe.