Practices of Control and the Production of (Im)Mobility in Una-Sana Canton (Bosnia and Herzegovina)
DOI: https://doi.org/10.2298/GEI2601017G UDC: 314.15(497.6) original research paper
Abstract
This paper examines how practices regulating and producing (im)mobility took shape in the Una-Sana Canton (Bosnia and Herzegovina) over the course of 2019 and 2020, where urban dynamics structured movement and produced uneven and precarious experiences for people on the move. Drawing on Critical Migration Studies and Border Studies, which conceptualize mobility as both a technology of governance and a site of contestation, the article engages with debates on how border regimes are unevenly embedded within local environments, infrastructures and everyday urban life.
While existing literature has extensively documented EU border enforcement, pushbacks and the management of mobility at the external borders, less attention has been paid to the internal spatialization of border regimes and to how local authorities and communities actively shape zones of containment and invisibility within a country.
Based on more than seven years of long-term engagement in the region, complemented by interviews conducted during my doctoral research within the ERC project “TheGAME. Counter Mapping Informal Refugee Mobilities along the Balkan Route”, the article traces how cantonal decisions to restrict mobility, and the public protests that accompanied them, contributed to the formation of an internal border zone within Bosnia and Herzegovina. The article shows how internal borders are assembled through practices that simultaneously enable, redirect, and obstruct movement.
Keywords: Velečevo, Bosanska Otoka, forced (im)mobility, Vučjak, internal borders, “no man’s land”
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