European Studies

Borders of Europe and the EU

Guest Lecture, Christoffer Kølvraa; The ‘Psychology’ of EU Bordering

5 March 2020
Borders of Europe
GUEST LECTURE
› What is so special about the
Borders of Europe and/or the
EU?

› What are some of the central

dilemmas?

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‘Psychologizing’ the EU’s ENP
border as ..

› Imperial territorialisation

› Constitutive of ‘Home’

› Delivering Enjoyment
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What is the ENP (European
neighborhood Policy)?

› In exchange for EU-style reforms the neighbors

are offered closer economic and diplomatic
relations with the EU.
› Three intermingled Ambitions
› Stabilize (Security)Control the Neighborhood
› Border controls
› Diplomatic ties
› EU as Regional Power

› Democratize (Political reform)

› Promote democracy
› Promote liberal economics
› Promote good government

› Liberalize (Economic Reform)

› Trade agreements
› Market Access
› Free movement agreements
The European Neighborhood
The European Neighbourhood
Policy – some history

› At bottom an attempt to side-step

the EU/Europe dilemma
› Offer something good, but NOT
(future) Membership
› Tie the neighboring Countries to
the EU as a ‘Ring of Friends’ not
as yet more member-states
 A waiting room for the waiting room
– or permanent limbo
› I want to be perfectly clear on this point: Article 49 of the
Treaty on European Union provides that any European
› A Ring of Friends from Russia to State which respects the fundamental principles of the
Morocco Union can apply for membership.
› So whatever our proximity policy is or will be, no
› Economic benefits in exchange for European state that complies with the Copenhagen criteria
we established in 1993 will be denied this prospect.
political reform
› But to clear up any doubt, let me also say this. Holding
› Offering ‘the essence of Europe’; our out such a prospect to a country does not mean promising
this country that it will definitely join.
values
› Accession is not the only game in town. Remember that
enlargement does not benefit only present and future
› Sharing ‘Everything but institutions’ members. Future neighbors will benefit too.

› I.e. no membership, or membership “We need a debate in Europe

for some or…?
to decide where the limits of

Europe lie and prevent these

limits being determined by others”.

 Geopolitical Confidence

› Ukraine = Morocco
› What is special about Morocco?
› What does that implicitly tell you?

› Russia = Ukraine
- No geopolitical hierarchy

› The EU looks certain to remain a pole of attraction for

its neighbors. For many of the countries in our future
"backyard" the EU is the only prospect. Many of these
countries have already received a formal undertaking
from the Union.
Seeing like a EUropean
(Neighborhood) Border

› What does this mean?

› What is the core distinction between ‘tactics and borderwork’?

› Is it about who you interview?

› Is it about how they relate to the border?

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 Seeing like…
› It is not like ‘Seeing like the EU’
› Seeing the ideological reasons, tactics, means and
problems which is entailed in managing the Unions
borders.
› The realm of high politics and principled
statements

› Seeing like a EU Border:

› seeing the borderwork actually undertaken on and
through the border; the spaces, differentiations and
dilemmas it unleashes as an actual political practice
and imaginary
› The realm of negotiating the meaning of the
border in day to day discourses and practices.

› It this about exploring the view of ‘ordinary 10

people’ for Grzymski)

What does bordering do?

› In terms of territoriality and geopolitics

› Perpetuates fantasy of clearly ordered and separated political
entities. Defines spaces on both sides of the border

› In terms of security & Power

› Defines who is to be trusted and who is a risk – who can
legitimately cross and who must illegitimately cross

› In terms of self-definition and ideas of community

› Ultimately relates to who can legitimately reside

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What kind of Space is a
‘Neighbourhood’

› From who’s perspective is it

defined?
› What kind of power-relation
does it connote?
› What other kinds of spaces or
communities does it define it
self in relation too?

› Why would the EU call this the

‘Neighbourhood Policy’?

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Civilising the Near abroad

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Meta-Cultural Community
› International politics increasingly shaped by interactions btw ’Civilisations’
› Civilisation; Macro-cultural unit - several nation-states: one common
religion

› Civilisations may interact ’strategically’ (alliances) but each maintain an

essentially stable identity. Import of values or practices from other
civilisations : loss of identity.

› Clashing (antagonism) occur when a Civilisation exceeds its natural

(geographical) boundaries – Islam in this sense has notoriously ’Bloody
borders’; i.e. cheats
Geopolitics – Centres and buffers
› ’Major powers’ or power centres compete for land and resources.
› Minor powers must align with major ones when in their sphere of
interest or near abroad. Sovereignty is a matter of having the power to
defend it
› Organisations or principles which prohibit the contest for land and
resources on grounds other than that of power
The EU’s Values – security dilemma
› Shift:
› Soft borders- normative power;
neighbourhood
› Hard Borders – securitization;
migration

What is the core dilemma for the EU as

a ‘Migration-state’ writ large?

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Neo-imperial Capabilities and Dilemmas
The more we protect against migrants the more we endanger
them. The border guards end up charged with helping those
against which they protect us.
› The increasing harshness of border policies might
undermine the values of the community they protect.
› In the end non-EU must be recruited to help protect
against non-EU
› This is a different imperial territoriality than the expansion
of Union territory
› The idea of governing at a distance.
› ENP as ‘pre’-border securitised space, not as civilising gesture
› Imperial borderwork of controlling the space before the border.
› The expansive gesture potentially in conflict with values rather than expression 17
of them
The Imperial double bind

› The EU still considers itself imperial

› The right to influence non-EU states

› But the main service the Eu now requests in return for

‘closer relations’ is aid in securing external borders
› Non-Europe is enlisted to contain and protect against Non-
Europe
› Europe’s values is then not undermined by the necessity to
employ hard securitization at its borders
› But what is the consequences of this move?
› In term of EU normative power?
› In terms of the power-relation to the neighbours? 18
Coming Home

› What is the psychological

experience of coming
home/being home?

› What distinguishes this

space from other spaces in
your life?

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Home making

› What is the ‘setting’ for the argument?

› Westphalia, post-Westphalian, neo-Westphalian

› Why is there a deep need for ‘Home’?

› Ontological security
› What characterises the domo-politics of ’Homelands’
› What is the theoretical grounding? Winnicott
› What is the political expression? Nationalism/Populism
› What would change in a shift to ‘Homespace’?
› What is the theoretical grounding? Feminist/poststructuralist
› Why might Europe still be able to undertake this shift? Special
features 20
Westphalianizing Europe

› EU is a territorialisation of Europe
› But it also defines itself in contrast
to the Westphalian nation-state
project

› The game-changer:
› Migration challenges all liberal states
and prioritises the states particularity
as a secure bounded territory
› Migration is likewise pushing the EU
in a Westphalian direction.
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The psychological centrality of
Home

› Home: comfort, familiarity,

safety
› House refuge from threatening
world
› Home is a basic psychological
need – I affords subjectivity
with ontological security
› Home connotes a privileged
spatiality and belonging to a
community: ‘we’ live here

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Winnicott and home

› Home as a space enabling

becoming
› As holding area; baby held
not too tightly and not to
loosely
› Subjective engagements
centred on something or
someone

› ‘Good enough mothering’

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 Psychologizing home
› Home central to self-stabilization
› Home:
› Routinised, familiar routines
› Safe space for experiences and novelties ‘in private’
› Refuge against overwhelming world
› Home is (non)temporal, nothing should change

› In this form home is a container of the self maintained by

bordering: it is a securitised territoriality

› But this glosses over power (home is where I decide) and

ambivalent or negative feelings about home
› And its fantasy of purity denies that there were always strangers
in our homes (slaves, women, colonials)
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 Home-Space

› The psychological primacy of home is

politically consequential
› Home-talk play a part in the re-
westphalianation of European borders
(both internal and external)
› But it doesn't have to be like that…
› Our ideas of Home is cultural even if
the need is psychological.
› Home was never actually a homogenous,
clearly bordered, safe space (homeland)

› So home does not need to connote a 25

bordered homeland – it can instead be a
home-space.
New Metaphors to think with..

› This means
› 1) the container imagery of the home land is not natural
but a securitization
› 2) focussing instead on centring and ‘being through
becoming’ might better ground a post-Westphalian order
› The Hearth and the membrane..

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A different domo-politics for Europe

› The EU can move away from

Westphalia

› It has two distinct advantages:

› 1) It has no spatial finality (was
always an expanding project)
› 2) it has no heroic narrative (the
peace narrative undercuts the
securitization of the Other – both
within and without)

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Borders of Desire

› What is the psychological

experience of encountering a
(hard) border?

› Which relations and power

hierarchies comes into play?

› Who is enjoying themselves?

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Fantasy and Jouissance

› There is more to desire than

satisfaction
› Beyond the pleasure principle

› Jouissance (enjoyment): the pleasure

of desiring itself
› Crime novels

› Fantasy is enjoyable because it

sustains desire
› As unsatisfied but ‘realistic

› The pursuit of (full) identity is

enjoyable in itself – if the fantasy of
final success is convincing (but
absent)
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Political Enjoyment

› Lacanian subject beyond mere lack.

› Enjoyment lost, and partly regained

› Original Enjoyment as Impossible

ultimate desire
› Compensatory logic; Impossible made
to seem possible by positing as stolen

› Thereby desire is maintained:

› What is enjoyed is the fantasy of total
enjoyment recaptured from the enemy. 30
EU Peace narrative

› Why such a moral victory to

give up war and genocide…?

› It is really about giving up

(nationalist) enjoyment.

› But how to Enjoy a Europe

founded on the moral
fortitude of giving up
enjoyment?

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Identification and Desire

› “Mans Desire is the Others Desire”

› What we desire is to be the Other’s
object of desire
› Our ideal identity is no longer
‘authentic’ but becomes the identity we
think the Other will desire.
› Identification:
› Ideal-Ego: My image of my perfect full self
› Ego-ideal: the personification which validates my
Ideal-Ego, by finding it worthy of desire

› When we desire objects, the dimension of Others

looking at us is always present
› Fantasy is an imagined answer to the question: ’What 32
does the Other want’
› Europe is enjoyed ‘through the
eyes of the Other’

› The centrality of the border is

to force the other to display
and embody his desire for
Europe

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