Ville V Laakkonen
Tampere University, Faculty of Social Sciences, Faculty Member
- Social and Cultural Anthropology, Anthropology of Violence, Middle East Anthropology, Ethnography, Social Anthropology, Political Anthropology, and 19 moreRefugee Studies, Forced Migration, Giorgio Agamben, Anthropology of Europe, Immigrant Detention, Anthropology of Borders, Border Studies, Continental Philosophy, Anthropology of the State, Urban Anthropology, Anthropology of the Mediterranean, Deportation, Anthropology of the Mediterranean Area (Europe and the Maghreb), Mediterranean, Bureaucracy, Critical Theory, Guy Debord, Greece, and Modern Greeceedit
Research Interests:
This article explores migrant disappearances and border deaths at the Greek borderlands through the notion of forensic bordering. Based on fieldwork in the Evros region, Athens and its surroundings, and on the island of Lesvos, I argue... more
This article explores migrant disappearances and border deaths at the Greek borderlands through the notion of forensic bordering. Based on fieldwork in the Evros region, Athens and its surroundings, and on the island of Lesvos, I argue that disappearance and non-identification in the event of death are effectively border violence by other means. Three forms of symbolic and political post-mortem border violence are then explicated: the act of disappearance, the act of non-identification, and the act of denying proper mourning. Crucially, this article unpacks the underlining logic that, if migrants from Africa, Asia, and the Middle East are not supposed to cross the border in the first place, their existence and, ultimately, their equal humanity can be similarly denied in death. If the forensic sciences are generally perceived positively as means to provide answers, closure, accountability, and truth, forensic bordering seeks to do the exact opposite, rejecting accountability and employing silence as a deterrence.
Research Interests:
This paper analyses migrant disappearances in connection to EU bordering practices and techniques. Drawing on fieldwork in various localities at Greek borderlands, I argue that death or disappearance, due to drowning, hypothermia,... more
This paper analyses migrant disappearances in connection to EU bordering practices and techniques. Drawing on fieldwork in various localities at Greek borderlands, I argue that death or disappearance, due to drowning, hypothermia, exhaustion, violence, deprivation of medical care, and road accidents, to name but a few examples, has become an integral part of border enforcement in the Global North. To engage analytically with such an instantiation of border violence, I propose to utilise the notion of migrant disappearability. This disappearability is a produced condition (as opposed to accidently or randomly appearing) of everyday existence that does not necessarily lead to death or disappearance but, nevertheless, exerts pressure towards certain kind of precarities and threats by limiting the horizon of possibilities racialised migrants from the Global South have ahead of them. Furthermore, the state of being disappearable is a social space one constantly enters, leaves, re-enters and leaves again; rather than being at the forefront at all times, it looms above like a ghost.
Research Interests:
Etnografiseen tutkimukseemme perustuva artikkeli analysoi ironiaa puhetapana ja sen sosiaalisia käyttötarkoituksia musliminuorison keskuudessa Turun Varissuolla, Suomen kansainvälisimmässä lähiössä. Keskeinen argumenttimme on, että ironia... more
Etnografiseen tutkimukseemme perustuva artikkeli analysoi ironiaa puhetapana ja sen sosiaalisia käyttötarkoituksia musliminuorison keskuudessa Turun Varissuolla, Suomen kansainvälisimmässä lähiössä. Keskeinen argumenttimme on, että ironia syntyy tavaksi vastata siihen monitulkintaiseen kontekstiin, jota muuttoliikkeiden historiat, diasporiset sosiaaliset suhteet, muslimimaailman jännitteet, ulkomaalaisvastaiset ja islamofobiset diskurssit sekä globalisoituvan kaupunkitilan nopea murros synnyttävät. Nuorten ironia esiintyy pilailun, kurittomuuden ja vastustelemisen sijasta heille keskeisenä yhteiskunnallisen analyysin ja kommentaarin välineenä – väylänä tarkkanäköiseen kritiikkiin nopeasti muuttuvassa lähiötilassa. Se tarjoaa keinoja tunnustaa niin oma kuin vertaisten toimijuus vallitsevissa yhteiskunnallisissa rakenteissa. Ironia näyttää, ettei valmiita, muuttumattomia sosio-kulttuurisia tai yhteiskunnallisia kehyksiä elämälle sinällään ole. Tämä kulttuurin prosessuaalista luonnetta painottava tulkinta on tarpeen nopeiden ja dramaattisten yhteiskunnallisten muutosten kontekstissa. Se osoittaa, että tutkimamme musliminuoret ovat vastoin yleisiä käsityksiä valmiita yhteiskunnalliseen analyysiin – he vain tekevät sen perinteisten institutionalisoitujen ilmaisumuotojen ulkopuolella.
Research Interests:
Migration politics in Finland are centered around “social integration” and “multiculturalism.” While the stated aims of such politics are equality and social mobility, the results are often contradictory, perpetuating the hierarchies and... more
Migration politics in Finland are centered around “social integration” and “multiculturalism.” While the stated aims of such politics are equality and social mobility, the results are often contradictory, perpetuating the hierarchies and inequalities they propose to overcome. Utilizing Guy Debord’s notion of the “society of the spectacle,” I argue that there is a neoliberal Integration Spectacle that projects the appearance of societal change but is, in reality, an immobilizing force that works to obscure a particular racialized social order. I draw on my fieldwork in and around Varissuo, an international working-class suburb on the edge of Turku, western Finland, to analyze how both migrant residents of the area and the professionals within the so-called integration economy engage with, reproduce, and deal with this discrepancy.
Research Interests:
Research Interests:
This paper analyses migrant disappearances in connection to EU bordering practices and techniques. Drawing on fieldwork in various localities at Greek borderlands, I argue that death or disappearance, due to drowning, hypothermia,... more
This paper analyses migrant disappearances in connection to EU bordering practices and techniques. Drawing on fieldwork in various localities at Greek borderlands, I argue that death or disappearance, due to drowning, hypothermia, exhaustion, violence, deprivation of medical care, and road accidents, to name but a few examples, has become an integral part of border enforcement in the Global North. To engage analytically with such an instantiation of border violence, I propose to utilise the notion of migrant disappearability. This disappearability is a produced condition (as opposed to accidently or randomly appearing) of everyday existence that does not necessarily lead to death or disappearance but, nevertheless, exerts pressure towards certain kind of precarities and threats by limiting the horizon of possibilities racialised migrants from the Global South have ahead of them. Furthermore, the state of being disappearable is a social space one constantly enters, leaves, re-enters and leaves again; rather than being at the forefront at all times, it looms above like a ghost.
Research Interests:
Migration politics in Finland are centered around “social integration” and “multiculturalism.” While the stated aims of such politics are equality and social mobility, the results are often contradictory, perpetuating the hierarchies and... more
Migration politics in Finland are centered around “social integration” and “multiculturalism.” While the stated aims of such politics are equality and social mobility, the results are often contradictory, perpetuating the hierarchies and inequalities they propose to overcome. Utilizing Guy Debord’s notion of the “society of the spectacle,” I argue that there is a neoliberal Integration Spectacle that projects the appearance of societal change but is, in reality, an immobilizing force that works to obscure a particular racialized social order. I draw on my field-work in and around Varissuo, an international working-class suburb on the edge of Turku, western Finland, to analyze how both migrant residents of the area and the professionals within the so-called integration economy engage with, reproduce, and deal with this discrepancy.
Research Interests:
Etnografiseen tutkimukseemme perustuva artikkeli analysoi ironiaa puhetapana ja sen sosiaalisia käyttötarkoituksia musliminuorison keskuudessa Turun Varissuolla, Suomen kansainvälisimmässä lähiössä. Keskeinen argumenttimme on, että ironia... more
Etnografiseen tutkimukseemme perustuva artikkeli analysoi ironiaa
puhetapana ja sen sosiaalisia käyttötarkoituksia musliminuorison keskuudessa
Turun Varissuolla, Suomen kansainvälisimmässä lähiössä. Keskeinen
argumenttimme on, että ironia syntyy tavaksi vastata siihen monitulkintaiseen
kontekstiin, jota muuttoliikkeiden historiat, diasporiset sosiaaliset suhteet,
muslimimaailman jännitteet, ulkomaalaisvastaiset ja islamofobiset diskurssit
sekä globalisoituvan kaupunkitilan nopea murros synnyttävät. Nuorten
ironia esiintyy pilailun, kurittomuuden ja vastustelemisen sijasta heille
keskeisenä yhteiskunnallisen analyysin ja kommentaarin välineenä –
väylänä tarkkanäköiseen kritiikkiin nopeasti muuttuvassa lähiötilassa. Se
tarjoaa keinoja tunnustaa niin oma kuin vertaisten toimijuus vallitsevissa
yhteiskunnallisissa rakenteissa. Ironia näyttää, ettei valmiita, muuttumattomia
sosio-kulttuurisia tai yhteiskunnallisia kehyksiä elämälle sinällään ole.
Tämä kulttuurin prosessuaalista luonnetta painottava tulkinta on tarpeen
nopeiden ja dramaattisten yhteiskunnallisten muutosten kontekstissa. Se
osoittaa, että tutkimamme musliminuoret ovat vastoin yleisiä käsityksiä
valmiita yhteiskunnalliseen analyysiin – he vain tekevät sen perinteisten
institutionalisoitujen ilmaisumuotojen ulkopuolella.
puhetapana ja sen sosiaalisia käyttötarkoituksia musliminuorison keskuudessa
Turun Varissuolla, Suomen kansainvälisimmässä lähiössä. Keskeinen
argumenttimme on, että ironia syntyy tavaksi vastata siihen monitulkintaiseen
kontekstiin, jota muuttoliikkeiden historiat, diasporiset sosiaaliset suhteet,
muslimimaailman jännitteet, ulkomaalaisvastaiset ja islamofobiset diskurssit
sekä globalisoituvan kaupunkitilan nopea murros synnyttävät. Nuorten
ironia esiintyy pilailun, kurittomuuden ja vastustelemisen sijasta heille
keskeisenä yhteiskunnallisen analyysin ja kommentaarin välineenä –
väylänä tarkkanäköiseen kritiikkiin nopeasti muuttuvassa lähiötilassa. Se
tarjoaa keinoja tunnustaa niin oma kuin vertaisten toimijuus vallitsevissa
yhteiskunnallisissa rakenteissa. Ironia näyttää, ettei valmiita, muuttumattomia
sosio-kulttuurisia tai yhteiskunnallisia kehyksiä elämälle sinällään ole.
Tämä kulttuurin prosessuaalista luonnetta painottava tulkinta on tarpeen
nopeiden ja dramaattisten yhteiskunnallisten muutosten kontekstissa. Se
osoittaa, että tutkimamme musliminuoret ovat vastoin yleisiä käsityksiä
valmiita yhteiskunnalliseen analyysiin – he vain tekevät sen perinteisten
institutionalisoitujen ilmaisumuotojen ulkopuolella.
Research Interests:
Research Interests:
Research Interests:
Editorial in Suomen Antropologi: Journal of the Finnish Anthropological Society, 43(1).
Research Interests:
Short Abstract This panel addresses different moments and modes of disappearances in the context of undocumented migration. We suggest that disappearances are a powerful lens to analyze policies and politics as well as intimate and... more
Short Abstract
This panel addresses different moments and modes of disappearances in the context of undocumented migration. We suggest that disappearances are a powerful lens to analyze policies and politics as well as intimate and cultural practices.
Long Abstract
Since the end of the Cold War and the ensuing enlargement of the Schengen Area, people have been disappearing at Europe's southern fringes. Current EU border policies, including visa regimes, surveillance and the regulation of movement, have made the crossing to Europe a dangerous undertaking for some. With the gradual expansion of border control, the Mediterranean Sea has become the 'world's deadliest border' (Albahari 2015). However, the Mediterranean is not the only site of death and disappearance. Around the world, walls are being built, fences erected, military technologies used to prevent people from the global south entering the global north. At every stage of the journey, migrants are dealing with violent restrictions to their everyday lives. States intrude migrants' lifeworlds intimately, causing marginalisation and disappearances, via e.g. illegalization, detention and removal. Against this backdrop, our panel explores how trans/national states and disappearances are intimately intertwined by discussing manifold disappearances such as death, detainment, deportation, displacement, abuse and killing in migrants' countries of origin, transit and destination. We invite papers that explore different cases of and approaches to disappearances within contemporary migration regimes. We are interested in the questions of how states and state actors respond to and conceptualize disappearances; if and how families of the disappeared search, take action and organize themselves; and what kind of politics disappearances engender. We seek to develop new conceptualisations of contemporary disappearances as a powerful lens to address key anthropological issues such as governance, violence, citizenship, kinship, death and burial, personhood and identity.
This panel addresses different moments and modes of disappearances in the context of undocumented migration. We suggest that disappearances are a powerful lens to analyze policies and politics as well as intimate and cultural practices.
Long Abstract
Since the end of the Cold War and the ensuing enlargement of the Schengen Area, people have been disappearing at Europe's southern fringes. Current EU border policies, including visa regimes, surveillance and the regulation of movement, have made the crossing to Europe a dangerous undertaking for some. With the gradual expansion of border control, the Mediterranean Sea has become the 'world's deadliest border' (Albahari 2015). However, the Mediterranean is not the only site of death and disappearance. Around the world, walls are being built, fences erected, military technologies used to prevent people from the global south entering the global north. At every stage of the journey, migrants are dealing with violent restrictions to their everyday lives. States intrude migrants' lifeworlds intimately, causing marginalisation and disappearances, via e.g. illegalization, detention and removal. Against this backdrop, our panel explores how trans/national states and disappearances are intimately intertwined by discussing manifold disappearances such as death, detainment, deportation, displacement, abuse and killing in migrants' countries of origin, transit and destination. We invite papers that explore different cases of and approaches to disappearances within contemporary migration regimes. We are interested in the questions of how states and state actors respond to and conceptualize disappearances; if and how families of the disappeared search, take action and organize themselves; and what kind of politics disappearances engender. We seek to develop new conceptualisations of contemporary disappearances as a powerful lens to address key anthropological issues such as governance, violence, citizenship, kinship, death and burial, personhood and identity.