Contribution short abstract:

The presentation brings together the control of circulation as an apparatus of power and the relational idea of linear dwelling in an ethnographic study of distinct practices linked to the EU and to the Greek state border policies in order to think about borders and hospitality.

Contribution long abstract:

The work of Michel Foucault (2007) on the emergence of certain economies of modern power has brought to our attention how the organization of circulation links to ‘security governance’. The presentation brings together the security/circulation apparatus with the relational approach to life introduced by Tim Ingold (1993, 2006), a life lived across lines that constantly correspond to one another, the idea of ‘linear dwelling’. It brings these together in the ethnography in order to think about borders and migration. Drawing on anthropological research conducted on land borders in Greece and sea borders at the Mediterranean sea, it explores how these two different ‘shapes’ of life, play out in different practices linked to border policies (monitoring movement and circumventing the control of circulation). The paper focuses on heterogeneous rationalities, on monitoring circulation in assisting cross borders and refugee seekers by sea rescue boats, and try to see how lines and circles are associated and the different expressions of hospitality they depict.