“Fare famiglia” in transito: ritorni ed esternalizzazione dei confini in Bosnia-Erzegovina - “Family-making” in transit: returns and border externalization in Bosnia and Herzegovina

Autori

  • Zaira Tiziana Lofranco Dipartimento di Scienze dell’educazione “Giovanni M. Bertin”, Università di Bologna

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.1473/ea.v13i2.516

Parole chiave:

Bosnia Herzegovina, transit, amily-making, sedentarization, externalization

Abstract

Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH), a key transit country along the Balkan Route, is used as a case study to assess how systematic pushbacks at the European Union’s external borders drive cyclical returns, which force mobile populations to establish a presence in BiH. This process fosters crucial socialization dynamics (e.g., “family-making”) that the migrants, as much as the current policies of the IOM (International Organization for Migration), leverage to promote settlement within a country considered on its way toward Europeanization. Ultimately, this evolving dynamic yields novel patterns of BiH-centred circular mobility, directly reflecting the specific consequences of border externalization across Eastern Europe.

Riferimenti bibliografici

Balić M., 2024, From a leap of faith to a love story, IOM BiH, 25 Settembre, Sarajevo, https://bih.iom.int/stories/leap-faith-love-story (31/10/2025).

Bittel S., Monsutti A. 2022, Waiting Games: Taming Chance among Afghans in Greece, «Journal of Balkan and Near Eastern Studies», 24(3): 460-478.

Carsten J. 2004, Culture of relatedness. New approaches to the study of kinship, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

— 2020, Imagining and living new worlds. The dynamics of kinship in context of mobility and migration, «Ethnography», 21(3): 319-334.

Cassarino J.P. 2004, Theorising Return Migration: The Conceptual Approach to Return Migrants Revisited, «International Journal on Multicultural Societies» 6 (2): 253-27.

Castellano V. 2022, Voluntary returns or forced choices? Assisted voluntary return and reintegration programs in the Gambia, «Refugee Outreach and research network», November 2nd, http://www.ror-n.org/-blog/voluntary-returns-or-forced-choices-assisted-voluntary-return-and-reintegration-programs-in-the-gambia (04/11/2025).

Crane A., Lawson V. 2020, Humanitarianism as conflicted care: Managing migrant assistance in EU Assisted Voluntary Return policies, «Political Geography», 79: 102-152.

Crawley H., Jones K. 2021, Between here and there: (re) conceptualizing migrant journeys and the ‘in-between’, «Journal of Ethnic and Migration studies» 47(14): 3226-3242.

Cuttitta P., 2018, Delocalization, Humanitarianism, and Human Rights: The Mediterranean Border Between Exclusion and Inclusion, «Antipode», 50: 783-803.

De Genova N. 2013, Spectacles of migrant ‘illegality’: the scene of exclusion, the obscene of inclusion, «Ethnic and Racial Studies», 36(7): 1180-98.

Düvell F. 2010, Transit migration a blurred and politicized concept, «Population, Space and place», 18: 415-427.

Fine S., Walters W. 2021, No place like home? The International Organization for Migration and the new political imaginary of deportation, «Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies», 48 (13): 3060-3077.

Glick Schiller N., Basch L., Szanton Blanc C., 1995, From Immigrant to Transmigrant. Theorizing Transnational Migration, «Anthropological Quarterly», 68 (1): 48-63.

Gaibazzi P., 2024, Frontiere oltre confine: fronti e interstizi della gestione migratoria nello spazio EurAfricano, «Archivio Antropologico Mediterraneo», 26 (2): 1-13.

Hameršak M. et al., 2020, The forging of the Balkan route. Contextualizing the border regime in the EU periphery, «Movements», 5(1): 9-32.

Hess S. 2012, De-naturalizing transit migration. Theory and methods of an ethnographic regime analysis, «Population, Space and place», 18: 428-440.

Hromadžić A. 2025, Patchy internalization: Transnational migration and local buildings in the Bosnian borderland, «Society», 62: 473-485.

Kalir, B., L. Wissink 2016, The Deportation Continuum: Convergences Between State Agents and NGO Workers in the Dutch Deportation Field, «Citizenship Studies», 20 (1): 34-49.

IOM 2020, IOM institutional strategy on migration and sustainable development, Geneva https://publications.iom.int/books/iom-institutional-strategy-migration-and-sustainable-development (31/10/2025).

IOM 2024, Ozan Khoshnau went through everything he dreamed of in Bosnia and Herzegovina, Sarajevo, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kwQrimaYegc (31/10/2025).

Isakjee A. (et al.) 2020, Liberal Violence and the Racial Borders of the European Union, «Antipode», 52(6): 1751-1773.

Jansen S.2023, How Bosnia and Herzegovina was bordered: the supervised making of a border/mobility assemblage in the European semiperiphery, «Comparative Southeast European studies», 71(1): 190-209.

Jovanović T. 2023, Assisted voluntary return, e-Erim, December 23, https://e-erim.ief.hr/pojam/p-asistirani-dobrovoljni-povratak-p?locale=en (04/11/2025).

Leerkes A., Os R.V., Boersma E. 2017, What Drives Soft Deportation? Understanding the Rise in Assisted Voluntary Return among Rejected Asylum Seekers in the Netherlands, «Population, Space & Place», 23 (8): 1-11.

Lofranco Z.T, Tarabusi F. (2025), Ripensare i rifugiati. Interconnessioni di mobilità e solidarietà lungo la rotta bosniaca, «Anuac», vol.14 (2): 97-120.

Masi Gabriele M. 2023, Turning uncertainty into risk: cultural heritage and western subjectivity models among unsuccessful return migrants of the central European route, «Journal of the Anthropological society of Oxford», vol 15:243-261.

— 2024, Fallire la migrazione. Esperienze senegalesi di ritorno dalla Rotta mediterranea, Salerno: Edizioni Arcoiris.

Massa A. 2014, Migrazioni di transito in Riccio B. (ed.) 2014, Antropologia e migrazioni, Roma: Cisu, 35-44.

Maitilasso A. 2014, Migrazioni di ritorno in Riccio B. (ed.) 2014, Antropologia e migrazioni, Roma: Cisu, 233-242.

Stojić Mitrović M., Vilenica A. 2019, Enforcing and disrupting circular movement in an EU Borderscape: housingscaping in Serbia, «Citizenship studies», vol. 23 (6): 540-558.

Petrović T., 2013, Europe’s new Colonialism «Belgrade Journal of Media and Communications», vol. 2 (4): 107-125.

Tazzioli M., Walters W. 2019, Migration, solidarity and the limits of Europe, «Global Discourse», 9(1): 175-190.

Tazzioli M. 2023, Border Abolitionism: Migrants’ Containment and the Genealogies of Struggles and Rescue, Manchester: Manchester University press.

Tošić J. 2017, From a Transit Route to the “Backyard of Europe”? Tracing the Past, Present and Future of the “Balkan Route”, in Fartacek G., Binder S. (eds.) 2017, Facetten von Flucht aus dem Nahen und Mittlern Osten: Facultas Universitätlag, 150-166.

##submission.downloads##

Pubblicato

2026-01-15

Come citare

Lofranco, Z. T. (2026). “Fare famiglia” in transito: ritorni ed esternalizzazione dei confini in Bosnia-Erzegovina - “Family-making” in transit: returns and border externalization in Bosnia and Herzegovina. EtnoAntropologia, 13(2), 135–150. https://doi.org/10.1473/ea.v13i2.516

Fascicolo

Sezione

Sezione monografica - Deportazioni, rimpatri e ritorni “volontari” assistiti. Antropologia delle migrazioni di ritorno