Devushka and cigarette: Fluid migrants across the EU border

GRYGAR, Jakub. Devushka and cigarette: Fluid migrants across the EU border. Slovenský národopis : časopis Ústavu etnológie Slovenskej akadémie vied. Bratislava: Slovak Academic Press, 2009, vol. 57, No 5, p. 546-559. ISSN 1335-1303.

Basic information

• Original name: Devushka and cigarette: Fluid migrants across the EU border
• Name in Czech: Děvuška a cigareta. Tekutí migranti přes hranici EU
• Authors: GRYGAR, Jakub (203 Czech Republic, guarantor).
• Edition: Slovenský národopis : časopis Ústavu etnológie Slovenskej akadémie vied, Bratislava, Slovak Academic Press, 2009, 1335-1303.

Other information

• Original language: English
• Type of outcome: Article in a journal
• Field of Study: Archaeology, anthropology, ethnology
• Country of publisher: Slovakia
• Confidentiality degree: is not subject to a state or trade secret
• RIV identification code: RIV/00216224:14230/09:00029743
• Organization unit: Faculty of Social Studies
• Keywords (in Czech): Evropeizace; teritorialita; teorie sítě-aktérů; vnější hranice EU; Polsko; Bělorusko
• Keywords in English: Europeanization; territoriality; actor-network theory; the EU external border; Poland; Belarus
• Tags: ANT, anthropology of borders, Belarus, Europeanization, migration, Poland
• Tags: International impact, Reviewed

Abstract

This article explores the relationship between cross border migration, identity of moving objects, changes of their ontology and political practice. Via ethnography of transborder migration between Poland and Belarus I pursue how are performed and acted both state borders/ borders of the EU and migrants. Methodologically, I use actor-network theory how has been modified by work of John Law, Annemarie Mol, and Susan Star with James Griesemer. Migrations of devushka (a generalization of local transborder petty-traders) and cigarettes (a representative of the most present commodities in the borderland) across external EU border illustrate character and power of social networks, which are the very source of identity. From this I enrich debate of boundary objects, practices of incoherencies, and fluidity in actor-network theory. Analytically, I argue that studying human and non-human migrants as boundary objects reveals how border procedure construct and make intelligible a particular relationship between politics, experience and practice at the external EU border. Treating petty-traders and transferred commodities as methodologically one object therefore has important analytical consequences for how we understand their practical efficacy.

Abstract (in Czech)

This article explores the relationship between cross border migration, identity of moving objects, changes of their ontology and political practice. Via ethnography of transborder migration between Poland and Belarus I pursue how are performed and acted both state borders/ borders of the EU and migrants. Methodologically, I use actor-network theory how has been modified by work of John Law, Annemarie Mol, and Susan Star with James Griesemer. Migrations of devushka (a generalization of local transborder petty-traders) and cigarettes (a representative of the most present commodities in the borderland) across external EU border illustrate character and power of social networks, which are the very source of identity. From this I enrich debate of boundary objects, practices of incoherencies, and fluidity in actor-network theory. Analytically, I argue that studying human and non-human migrants as boundary objects reveals how border procedure construct and make intelligible a particular relationship between politics, experience and practice at the external EU border. Treating petty-traders and transferred commodities as methodologically one object therefore has important analytical consequences for how we understand their practical efficacy.

Links

• GP403/07/P299, research and development project: Name: Uskutečňování EU: mezinárodní hranice a politiky prostoru v polsko-běloruských souvislostech

Investor: Czech Science Foundation, Enacting the EU: international borders and politics of space in Polish-Belarus contexts