In my master’s thesis, I analyze the border regime of the European Union, focusing on the Balkan route and the Mediterranean, its mechanisms, and the vision of its end. I base my analysis on the premise that colonialism is not a past historical social form, but rather a structure of domination and exploitation in which the contemporary system of power is grounded. An element of this contemporary system of power is the European border regime, which I define as necropolitical, elastic, class-based, and arbitrary, with violence, externalization, securitization, and criminalization as its fundamental mechanisms. I define the abolitionist struggle to end slavery and the slave trade as a historical struggle against colonial power and argue that the experience of this historical fight can serve as a vision for the struggle for the right to move, to stay, and to return in a world that remains structured by colonial divisions. In the conclusion, I show that abolition is not merely an analytical framework or a utopian vision, but a living practice reflected in a multitude of actions that create both small and large geographies of abolition.
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