Description: This research examines racialised migration governance and grassroots engagement with illegalised migrants in Eastern Europe, specifically Lithuania. Through politically engaged ethnography with Sienos Grupė (Eng. Border Group), a civic grassroots initiative established in 2021 to provide humanitarian support to illegalised migrants stranded between the EU and Belarus borders, the study explores how this grassroots mobilisation discursively and materially resists Lithuania’s Departheidian (Kalir 2019) migration governance logic. It further connects these local forms of resistance to broader themes of mobility, solidarity, and encounters across intersecting yet sometimes contradictory post-colonial and post-socialist conditions.
Promoter(s): Robin Vandevoordt , Lesley Hustinx
Researcher(s): Julija Kekstaite
Faculty / Faculties: Faculty of Psychology and Educational Sciences , Faculty of Political and Social Sciences
Period of time: 2021 - 2025