Notes from the EU's Eastern Edge

How Migrants Were Weaponized on the Polish-Belarusian Border
Erscheinungsjahr 2026
ISBN: 978-90-485-7427-8
Verlag: Taylor & Francis Ltd

Buch, Englisch, 294 Seiten, Format (B × H): 160 mm x 238 mm, Gewicht: 606 g

Reihe: Central European University Press

Notes from the EU's Eastern Edge is a bold, singular book—auto-ethnography with analytic bite, theoretically literate without scholasticism, and ethically self-aware. It shows how Kremlin “migration engineering” met a ready-made European script of fear, pride, and denial along the Belarus-Poland frontier. It traces how memory politics and securitized compassion turn migrants into symbols in border forests, as well as in newsrooms, museums, and classrooms, while bilingual gatekeepers launder hard edges into “responsible” discourse. The book’s core contribution is to shift Polish-populism studies from monist typologies to a processual account of a dialectical, polycentric regime of managed antagonisms, refusing the easy pejorative of “populism” and retaining an emancipatory horizon. Vivid reportage sits with compact documentary mini-cases to show how trauma, sovereignty and solidarity are being rewritten at Europe’s edge. Definitive for debates on borders, memory and the political unconscious in Central Europe.

Zielgruppe

Academic

Autoren/Hrsg.

Harper, Jo

Fachgebiete

• Geisteswissenschaften Geschichtswissenschaft Geschichtliche Themen Kolonialgeschichte, Geschichte des Imperialismus
• Sozialwissenschaften Politikwissenschaft Internationale Beziehungen Kolonialismus, Imperialismus
• Sozialwissenschaften Soziologie | Soziale Arbeit Soziologie Allgemein
• Sozialwissenschaften Soziologie | Soziale Arbeit Spezielle Soziologie Soziologie von Migranten und Minderheiten

Inhaltsverzeichnis

1. Europe’s Mirror 2. When Moses Came to Poland 3. A New Wall 4. Polishness, Pain and Its Critics 5. An Othered Poland 6. The West’s Eastern Borderland 7. When “The East” Moves 8. Beyond the Pale 9. The Dialectics of Non-Change

Über Autor(innen)

Jo Harper is a British journalist based in Warsaw, freelancing for various international agencies. He also teaches at the American Studies Center, part of Warsaw University and holds a PhD from the London school of Economics. He has written three books on Polish politics, also published into Polish and German.