Abstract

At the height of the so-called 2015 refugee crisis, Angela Merkel, Chancellor of the Federal Republic of Germany, is thought to have opened the country's borders to a million refugees. She was celebrated as an international leader and the refugees’ savior, while the country was seen as having a welcome culture. Retrospectively, however, her refugee policy is construed as a mistake. Both interpretations agree that Merkel opened the border. Deploying a detailed reading of events, this article asks what political imaginary is invoked through this representation and what its consequences are. It draws out how paying attention to temporality reveals the racialization involved in producing the problem. First, the article sets out the centrality of Merkel and the border opening to accounts of the events, drawing out the temporality of events and its implications. Second, it asks what it means to say that the border was opened, complicating this representation. Finally, it shows how the focus on the border opening invoked a political imaginary marked by a fantasy of control that obscures its own exclusions. Recognizing bordering as about control over the temporality of community alerts us to how the impossible desire to control the future racializes those seeking refuge.

中文翻译：

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“我们可以做到”：默克尔，移徙与控制幻想

摘要

在所谓的2015年难民危机最严重的时候，德国联邦共和国总理安格拉·默克尔（Angela Merkel）被认为已经向一百万难民开放了该国的边界。她被誉为国际领导人和难民的救世主，而该国被视为一种受欢迎的文化。然而，追溯地，她的难民政策被认为是错误的。两种解释都同意默克尔开放了边界。通过对事件进行详细的阅读，本文提出了通过这种表示法调用什么政治假想及其后果。它画出了对时间性的关注如何揭示产生问题的种族化。首先，本文阐述了默克尔的中心地位以及对事件进行说明的边界开放性，勾勒出事件的时间性及其含义。其次，它询问说边界被打开意味着什么，使这种表示复杂化。最后，它显示了对边界开放的关注如何引发以控制幻想为标志的政治假想，而这种幻想却掩盖了其自身的排除因素。将边界视为对社区暂时性的控制，这使我们意识到，控制未来的不可能的愿望如何使寻求庇护的人种族化。