Borders are sites of epistemic struggle. Focusing on the illegal tactic of the “pushback,” which is routinely deployed by state authorities to forcefully expel asylum seekers from European Union territory without due process, this article explores the uneven politics of knowledge that helps to support or unsettle this clandestine border violence. Drawing on long-term qualitative research on the Croatia–Bosnia border, including interviews with pushback survivors and activists, as well as a database of border violence reports, we explore the competing truth claims and epistemologies that help to conceal, or counter, the pushback regime. Informed by postcolonial perspectives and contributing to political geographies of violence, we argue that “epistemic violence” (Spivak 1988) is a central feature of contemporary borders. We propose that epistemic borderwork is regularly used by state authorities to silence unwanted voices, undermine insurgent perspectives, and stifle the capacity of refugees to draw attention to their own mistreatment. In opposition to this injustice, activists are documenting, mapping, and archiving pushback survivor testimony to construct a counternarrative of refusal, which subverts the harmful knowledge claims of state authorities. In doing so, refugees and activists create epistemic friction, which helps to resist the ontological violence of borders, and “pushes back” against the pushback regime.

边界是认知斗争的场所。本文着眼于“推回”的非法策略，这是国家当局在未经正当程序的情况下将寻求庇护者强行驱逐出欧盟领土的例行公事，本文探讨了有助于支持或扰乱这种秘密边境暴力的不平衡的知识政治。利用对克罗地亚-波斯尼亚边境的长期定性研究，包括对反击幸存者和活动家的采访，以及边境暴力报告数据库，我们探讨了有助于掩盖或反击反击的相互竞争的真相主张和认识论政权。受后殖民观点的启发和对暴力政治地理的贡献，我们认为“认知暴力”（Spivak 1988) 是当代边界的核心特征。我们建议，国家当局经常使用认知边界来压制不受欢迎的声音，破坏叛乱的观点，并扼杀难民引起人们对其自身虐待的关注的能力。为了反对这种不公正现象，活动家正在记录、绘制和归档反击幸存者的证词，以构建拒绝的反叙事，从而颠覆国家当局的有害知识主张。在这样做的过程中，难民和活动家制造了认知摩擦，这有助于抵制边界的本体论暴力，并“反击”反击制度。