The Reproduction of Borders and the Contagiousness of Illegalisation: A Case of a Belgrade Youth Hostel
The Reproduction of Borders and the Contagiousness of Illegalisation: A Case of a Belgrade Youth Hostel

Summary/Abstract: For the past couple of years, Serbia has become a transit country for the ever in-creasing number of migrants from Africa and Asia, travelling towards the EU. As part of the process of approaching the EU – first achieving the liberalization of the visa regime for entry into the Schengen area in 2009 and then getting the official status of a candidate member in 2012 – Serbia needed to harmonize its policies with those of the EU, especially in the areas of border control and migration man-agement. As a result, Serbia adopted a series of laws and policies which effectively illegalize migrants. In this paper, we first look into how migrant “illegality” is pro-duced by Serbian migration legislation and policy, and second, we look at the con-sequences of this illegalization. The first set of consequences are those that are felt by migrants themselves, as they are its principle target. The second set of conse-quences affects those persons that come into contact with the illegalized migrants. We speak of contagiousness of illegalization, which affects those people who are providing professional services to illegalized persons. Under the threat of possible criminalization, pressure is put on them to conduct “legality” checks and thus re-produce borders far away from the actual state border. We look particularly at reproduction of borders in the area of accommodation of migrants, taking as a case study a Belgrade youth hostel.

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