Stemming the Flow: The Role of Rivers in EU Migration Governance and Strategies of Resistance

Geographical landscapes of deserts, seas, rivers, and mountain passes have been harnessed by states and (intra) state authorities to both prevent and deter the arrivals of people on the move and to obfuscate accountability and responsibility for their deaths (Reineke and Anderson, 2016; Lynn Doty, 2011). In the context of the US/Mexico border, the Sonoran Desert was explicitly built into US border enforcement policy, termed ‘prevention through deterrence’. The use of geographical landscapes in the EU’s external borders acts insidiously. Hidden from view, this makes it harder to resist and renounce the situation at the EU’s borders which requires its own unique study. Situated in the field of critical border studies, using militant research practices, this research will investigate how three rivers at the EU’s external border form a salient part of border control and enforcement policies and have become, in and of themselves, political actants.