The Politics of Infrastructural Ruination. (Re)bordering Practices in Time of ‘Emergency’ In Trieste, Italy

In recent years, an increasing number of studies on migration and borders have adopted an infrastructural approach to conceptualising bordering processes. These studies suggest that considering borders as infrastructures emphasises the ever-changing interplay between the various actors, institutions, technologies and scales affecting migration management and control. However, the influence of place-specific social environments on the formation of border infrastructures has remained partly unexplored. This article addresses this issue by exploring the intersection of literature on border infrastructures and research on ruins and ruination. Based on fieldwork conducted at the Italian-Slovenian border in Trieste, we introduce the concept of the politics of infrastructural ruination to shed light on the evolving material nature of border infrastructures, i.e. how they are deeply embedded in local social contexts and shaped by their geo-historical conditions. We argue that examining border infrastructures through the lens of ruination provides an analytical perspective that captures elements frequently overlooked by critical border studies, including temporariness, improvisation and obsolescence. The ’analogic border’ and the ‘containerisation of border control’, which are examined in the concluding sections of the article, are presented as empirical manifestations of a broader process of material and functional ruination within border infrastructures.