Abstract

White Enclosures (Duke University Press, 2023) brings together queer and critical race theories with decolonial praxis to examine how recent anti-migration policies along the Balkan Route have brought into sharper attention the more enduring post-Ottoman and post-Habsburg structuring of race and border regimes in the region. The refraction of these post-colonial legacies of spatial and social relations, argues Rexhepi, shape the ongoing redistributive and reproductive rights of Roma, Muslim and refugee communities while reconstituting them as a racial threat to regional demographic and political stability. Combining ethnographic and archival research with policy and media analysis, the book details the complex convergence of the post-socialist politics of sexuality, systematic displacement of Roma communities, criminalization of ‘radical Islam’ and legitimization of migrant squad patrols with the larger regional politics of border control.