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Paper short abstract:

Despite the fact that electronic systems of surveillance are being implemented, old technologies such as barbed wire are still core elements of Fortress Europe. This paper draws reflects on the role barbed wire is playing today in the borders of Europe.

Paper long abstract:

The photograph which was awarded the 2016 'World Press Photo of the Year' prize depicts a man passing a baby through a barbed wire fence at the Serbia-Hungary border. Despite the fact that electronic and high-tech systems of surveillance and control are being implemented with the aim of preventing the movement of people from Siria or Afganistan, old technologies such as guns, tear-grenades or razor-wire fences are still core elements of the technological system that sustains Fortress Europe. This paper draws on the insights of historians David Edgerton and Reviel Netz in order to historicize and think about the role that the technologies for the prevention of motion through pain are playing today in the borders of Europe. Even though it doesn't usually appear in the innovocentric lists of the most significant technologies of the twentieth century, barbed wire has been part of the technological landscapes of the Western world since the late nineteenth century, from agricultural lands to battlefields and concentration camps. According to Netz, the control of space through the mass violence of barbed wire over the flesh of humans and animals is the key to understanding the ecology of modernity. Drawing on Edgerton and Netz, this paper will address barbed wire's contemporary agency in European borders.