The Hungarian Border Spectacle: The Politics of Visibility and Negligence in the Government of Migrants in Hungary

This paper reflects on the politics of spectacularisation that underpin the government of migrants and refugees by Hungarian authorities, and on the extent to which solidarity initiatives can challenge dominant anti-migrant narratives in the country. First, I examine the deployment of a ‘border spectacle’ by the Hungarian government, with a focus on the series of anti-migrant campaigns and the construction of border fences over the last two years. I explore the way in which this hypervisibilisation of migration produces particular representations of the Hungarian state as protector of a national public and articulates a discourse of desirability and order that justifies an exclusionary agenda. Second, I reflect on the way in which these spectacular ‘events’ also authorise the deployment of more quiet processes of negligence and destitution towards refugees and asylum-seekers. Indeed, while the spectacle produced by the Hungarian government presents itself as a series of isolated ‘performances’, they in fact stand in continuum with a range of less visible practices that directly contribute to the unweaving of the social, economic and political ties migrants and refugees may build in the country. Third, I examine instances of solidarity initiatives with migrants, and assess the extent to which they undermine the political frames put forward by the Hungarian government and allow the emergence of common spaces between migrants and other social groups. Ultimately, this paper sets out to contribute to our understanding of processes of disintegration and resistance surrounding migrants and refugees in Hungary. It does so by, on the one hand, studying how the dialectical relation linking the ‘Hungarian border spectacle’ to quieter practices of neglect participates in the complex government of migrants in Hungary today, and, on the other hand, by exploring the way in which these discourses and practices are contested.