Contribution short abstract:

Reflection on the research positionality in the process of production of two diametrically opposed video representations of the everyday events interpreted as different faces of the same regime of irregular migration on the periphery of the EU marked by the normalization of violence and racism.

Contribution long abstract:

The presentation is based on field research in Una-Sana canton of Bosnia and Herzegovina, conducted by active participation in the work of the international, pro-migrant volunteer collective. During 2020 cantonal anti-migrant policies became radicalized and police violence was increasing at the Croatian side of the border.

The ethnography of the everyday life of the migration regime I approach through the analysis of the audiovisual works I have produced in different contexts during the research process. The first example is a video report created through a video call with hunger strikers stuck at the site of burned Lipa camp in the first days of 2021. My second example is a video diary form created by spontaneous video recordings of a dinner with friends in a squat on the outskirts of Bihać in the winter of the same year. Those two diametrically opposed events (the drama of the hunger strike in the camp versus the lightness of the party in the squat) are two faces of the same everyday level of the regime of irregular migration on the periphery of the EU marked by the normalization of violence and racism, the criminalization of people on the move and pro-migrant solidarity, and produced by cooperation and negotiation between heterogeneous actors. I have approached videos as the basis of a tick description and subsequent theoretical interpretation of the events in which I spontaneously participated as one of the actors.