Pushbacks as the new normal and the management of mobility at the Greek-Turkish border

Relying on the normalisation of pushbacks occurring at the Evros/Meriç land border between Greece and Turkey, the article scrutinizes how the EU migration regime affects those remote zones where the (in)visibility of pushbacks and attempted crossings occur. In order to parse these transit zones of (im)mobility, the article draws on semi-structured interviews and ethnographic observations conducted between 2021 and 2023 with local, national and international actors operating in Turkey’s Edirne province where migrants are pushed-back from Greece. It outlines how the instrument of pushbacks expands the definition of the border beyond to the territorial limit of the state to include the management practices directed at as "where" and "when" the migrant is. Since the 1990s, Turkey has been largely affected by the externalization of the EU’s borders and migration management. However, the containment of a vast number of migrants and refugees as the result of the EU’s goal to stem migration entered a new phase in the light of the 2016 EU-Turkey Statement. This contributed to readdress the implications of the EU externalization practices on various human rights violations (in primis on the right of asylum) and to cast a much-needed light on the illegal pushbacks employed as an unofficial tool of migrant deterrent policy.