Open Doors and “Open Wounds”: Bearing Witness to Borders and Changing Discursive Formations on Refugees and Migrants in Turkey

On February 28th, 2020, with President Erdogan’s claim to have “opened the doors,” refugees and migrants made their way to the Turkish borderlines with Greece and Bulgaria, only to experience militarized policing, hazardous crossings by sea, and deadly encounters. By employing a critical discourse analysis and using Gloria Anzaldúa’s borderlands theory and lens, the article argues how Turkish borderlines with Greece and Bulgaria have transformed into a borderland due to the Justice and Development Party’s (JDP) shifting discursive formations against migrants and refugees. The article analyzes public speeches and statements of President Erdogan and politicians from the JDP between the years 2014–2020. The discursive shift from honorable guests and Muslim fellows to refugees and migrants being a burden on the Turkish state has led Greece and Bulgaria to heighten the militarization of the borderlines both on land and sea, forming a complex security landscape, a topography of cruelty, and a borderland. Furthermore, the article contextualizes how this infected environment becomes an “open wound,” breaking down families, futures, and bodies as well as constructing individual and collective spaces of (un)belonging, trauma, and displacement.