Date of Award
2018
Document Type
Honors Thesis (Open Access)
Department
Colby College. Global Studies Program
Advisor(s)
Maple Razsa
Second Advisor
Nadia El-Shaarawi
Abstract
This honors thesis in Global Studies explores issues of (in)visibility and representation of migrants travelling along the Balkan Route to Western Europe from 2015-2018 through visual analysis of the images of migrants and borders found in news media, social media posts, art galleries, and on the cell phones of migrants and activists. Drawing on fieldwork conducted in Belgrade, Serbia, one of the key nodes of the Route, as well as online archival research, I examine key differences in the ways migrants are represented and examine the power relations that are represented and reinforced through these images. My research is rooted in both anthropology and art history, situated in the evolving fields of both photography of migration and migration studies. I seek to understand how visibility and invisibility are used by, for, and against migrants as tools to alternately enable and impede their mobility: Which acts of mobility are intentionally made visible, and which are hidden? How do visibility and invisibility lend power—sometimes in seemingly contradictory ways—to the various actors along the Route?
Keywords
visibility, migration, Serbia, European border regime
Recommended Citation
Hill, Nora, "Drawing Borders: Images, Representation, and (In)Visibility of Migrants on the Balkan Route" (2018). Honors Theses. Paper 909.https://digitalcommons.colby.edu/honorstheses/909