AB GÖÇ REJİMİNİN GÜVENLİKLEŞTİRİLMESİ VE DIŞSALLAŞTIRILMASI: VAN-İRAN SINIR DUVARI ÜZERİNDEN ELEŞTİREL BİR ANALİZ

Abstract

This article examines the security-oriented transformation of the European Union’s (EU) migration policies in the post-2015 period by jointly analyzing the processes of securitization and externalization. The events commonly referred to as the “European Refugee Crisis” marked a critical turning point in the EU’s approach to migration, enabling the reframing of migration not as a humanitarian or social issue but as an existential threat. Through this threatbased framing, the tightening of borders, the normalization of extraordinary measures, and the relocation of migration control beyond the EU’s territorial boundaries have been legitimized. The article conceptualizes it as a broader restructuring of the EU border regime through spatial rescaling. The study analyzes the intertwined processes of securitization and externalization through a qualitative case study of the approximately 340-kilometer border wall constructed in and around Van along the Turkey–Iran border. Drawing on a synthesis of securitization and externalization theories, the qualitative analysis demonstrates that the Van border wall functions as more than a physical security measure. The findings show that the wall redirects migrants toward more dangerous and potentially lethal routes, reshapes the everyday lives of local border communities, and transforms the border into a site of social division. Through these effects, the border emerges not as a fixed territorial line but as a dynamic space continuously produced through security practices and power relations. The article concludes that the Van border wall should not be understood as an exceptional case, but rather as a concrete expression of the increasingly normalized logic of securitization and externalization within the EU migration regime.