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Paper short abstract:

The paper will introduce to an argument concerning the analogy and interaction between registration/identification infrastructures and pre-removal centers.

Paper long abstract:

The paper will introduce to an argument concerning the analogy and interaction between registration/identification infrastructures and pre-removal centers. The focus will be on the rhetoric and materialities involved in the paradigmatic case of registration/identification infrastructures operating on the island of Chios and the pre-removal center that has been planned for the same island. Following the EU-Turkey deal, migrants arriving to Chios could not move freely to the mainland. The first part of the paper will introduce to details on the way this center has been presented and promoted by politicians from the central and local government, the press and the police. The second will give an outline of the registration/identification infrastructure used in Chios. In the third part of the paper, the operational philosophies of the two -pre-removal center and registration/identification infrastructures—will be compared. The paper will conclude by arguing that the two share the same philosophy, central to which is a key shift: from assuming that all migrants are legally entitled to an application for a refugee status to treating them in a manner that makes it practical impossible to pursuit such status.

The research has been conducted in the context of the ERC-funded Processing Citizenship project.