Replay of Torture across ‘Other’ Places and ‘Europe’ The Case of Migration at the Bosnian-Croatian Border

Abstract

This chapter explores whether and how refugees’ past experiences of torture at home interconnect with extreme violence at borders and impact migration journeys. To do so, it draws upon eight months of ethnographic fieldwork at the Bosnian-Croatian border, which includes sixty-eight interviews. The chapter suggests that racialization and ‘othering’ of people makes torture a fluid practice that migrates across globalised borders, despite their institutional format remaining unchanged. By shedding light on complex relational patterns of torture in migration, the text contributes to the literature on torture, racial studies and critical migration and border studies.