Same Border, Different Subject Constructions: The daily shopping visitors and the refugees across the Turkish-Bulgarian border in Kırklareli, Turkey

Abstract

The Turkish-Bulgarian border at the town of Kırklareli embodies different realities and representations with respect to different subjects, namely, for those who reside there, visit regularly from neighbouring countries via open and easy access, and for those whose paths traverse the town to -illegally- cross over to Bulgaria, the European Union territory. This article aims at contributing to border-studies by means of a study on how border residents in Kırklareli position two different subject identities for the ‘others’ that they confront along the border, and how they construct a subject identity for themselves in the process. Based on the findings of the fieldwork conducted through a series of semi-structured interviews, we argue, the border crossings of the daily Bulgarian shopping visitors and refugees or illegal immigrants moving in the opposite direction create a different hierarchy of ‘self’ and ‘other’, complicated by the fact that this is also a border between the European Union and Turkey. As members of the EU, Bulgarians crossing the border for daily shopping represent an advantageous and welcomed European ‘other’ for the local population, particularly for the local shopkeepers. However, in the process, they realize they themselves are Europe’s ‘other’. Illegal migrants trying to cross the border, on the other hand, represent an uninvited ‘other’ condemned to a ‘Bare Life’, a definition bestowed by Agamben, the social theorist.

Keywords

• The Turkish-Bulgarian border
• ‘constructed others’
• refugees
• Bulgarian shoppers
• ‘Bare Life’

References

1. Agamben, G. (1998). Homo sacer: Sovereign power and bare life. Stanford university Press.
2. Agnew, J. (1994). The territorial trap: the geographical assumptions of international relations theory. Review of international political economy, 1(1), 53-80.
3. Agnew, J. (2008). Borders on the mind: re-framing border thinking. Ethics & global politics, 1(4), 175-191.
4. Appadurai, A. (1990). "Disjuncture and Difference in the Global Economy." Theory, Culture & Society 7:295–310.
5. Aras, R. (2020). The Wall: The Making and Unmaking of the Turkish-Syrian Border. Springer Nature.
6. Boehmer, C. R., & Peña, S. (2012). The determinants of open and closed borders. Journal of Borderlands Studies, 27(3), 273-285.
7. Clifford, J., & Marcus, G. E. (Eds.). (1986). Writing culture: The poetics and politics of ethnography. Univ of California Press.
8. Eriksen, T. H. (2001). Small places, large issues. An introduction to social and cultural anthropology.

9. Foucault, M. (1990). The history of sexuality: An introduction, volume I. Trans. Robert Hurley. New York: Vintage, 95.
10. Geertz, C. (2008). Thick description: Toward an interpretive theory of culture. In The cultural geography reader (pp. 41-51). Routledge.
11. Gelbman, A., & Schweitzer, R. (2023). Tour Guiding in Contested Geopolitical Borderlands: Narratives and Approaches. In Routledge Handbook of Borders and Tourism (pp. 241-252). Routledge.
12. Gray, A. (2002). Research practice for cultural studies: Ethnographic methods and lived cultures. Sage.
13. Guazzo, G. (2007). “Methods: qualitative,” in William A. Darity (ed.), International Encyclopedia of Social Sciences (London and New York: Macmillan)
14. Hammersley, M., & Atkinson, P. (2007). Ethnography: Principles in practice. Routledge.
15. Hannonen, O., & Prokkola, E. K. (2023). Physical Access and Perceived Constraints. Routledge Handbook of Borders and Tourism.
16. İçduygu, A., & Sert, D. (2015). The changing waves of migration from the Balkans to Turkey: A historical account. Migration in the southern Balkans: From Ottoman territory to globalized nation states, 85-104.
17. Makkonen, T. (2023). Outshopping Abroad: Cross-border Shopping Tourism and the Competitive Advantage of Borders. In Routledge Handbook of Borders and Tourism (pp. 269-280). Routledge.
18. Paasi, A. (1996). Inclusion, exclusion and territorial identities. The meanings of boundaries in the globalizing geopolitical landscape. Nordisk Samhallsgeografisk
19. Paasi, A., Prokkola, E. K., Saarinen, J., & Zimmerbauer, K. (Eds.). (2019). Borderless Worlds for Whom?: Ethics, Moralities and Mobilities. Routledge.
20. Paasi, A., & Ferdoush, M. A. (2023). New Borders and Mobility in the Age of Globalization: De-bordering, Re-bordering, and Beyond. In Routledge Handbook of Borders and Tourism (pp. 47-60). Routledge.
21. Prokkola, E. K. (2010). Borders in tourism: the transformation of the Swedish–Finnish border landscape. Current Issues in tourism, 13(3), 223-238.
22. Saukko, P. (2003). Doing research in cultural studies: An introduction to classical and new methodological approaches. Sage.
23. Soja, E. W. (1996). Thirdspace Journeys to Los Angeles and Other Real-and-Imagined Places.
24. Timothy, D. J., & Butler, R. W. (1995). Cross-boder shopping: A North American perspective. Annals of tourism research, 22(1), 16-34.
25. Timothy, D. J., & Gelbman, A. (2023). Understanding Borders and Tourism: Complex Relationships and Evolving Patterns. In Routledge Handbook of Borders and Tourism (pp. 1-14). Routledge.
26. Van Houtum, H., & Van Naerssen, T. (2002). Bordering, ordering and othering. Tijdschrift voor economische en sociale geografie, 93(2), 125-136.
27. Van Houtum, H. (2021). Beyond ‘Borderism’: Overcoming Discriminative B/Ordering and Othering. Tijdschrift voor economische en sociale geografie, 112(1), 34-43.