To See and be Seen: Multilayered Field Ethnography in the Evros Region

Abstract The Evros/Meriç region constitutes a critical site in the articulation of hegemonic narratives of "extra-legal normality", deeply embedded in the nation-building processes of Greece and Turkey. Historically a zone of fluid cross-border interaction, this borderland—once unified under Ottoman rule—has been reconfigured since the 2000s by increasingly securitized migration governance, shaped in part by EU externalization policies. The Evros border has since become the most violent land frontier in the European Union, marked by systematic pushbacks, the weaponization of the natural landscape, and high migrant mortality rates. Official statistics and independent reports document thousands of informal forced returns and the prevention of hundreds of thousands from crossing, revealing the extent of human rights violations under this regime. In this context, our fieldwork traces a route along the Evros River—from Edirne to Enez—offering a grounded account of contemporary border governance. Through local knowledge and linguistic access, we engage with the materiality of the border and its contradictory framing as both a natural obstacle and a symbolic ‘shield of Europe’, exposing the interplay between mobility, violence, and the spatial politics of exclusion.