Our collective study on the relationship between Frontex and the university is now out, open access in Antipode (https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/anti.70090).
This article is just one part of a longer story. In 2021 we carried out direct actions, investigations and protests challenging the ties between my department at Polito and Frontex — thanks to the efforts of many students and collectives across Italy and the reporting of journalist Luca Rondi (see here for a recap: https://www.michelelancione.eu/blog/2022/11/10/the-university-of-turin-against-frontex-and-against-the-polytechnic-the-fight-continues/). In 2022 and 2023 I focused on tracing Frontex’s links with the military-industrial complex (see Università e militarizzazione, Eris Edizioni: https://www.erisedizioni.org/prodotto/universita-e-militarizzazione/). The work with student collectives throughout Italy that followed — and continues — has been vital.
With my co-authors, Giulia Corgnier, Patrícia Nunes Gomes and Devra Waldman we decided to take a step back and probe more deeply into Frontex because the coloniality and violence of Western academia demand further challenge.
We hope our research will be useful to those fighting the academic-military-industrial complex in Europe and beyond.
Frontex and the University: Positivist Dissonance and the Institutionalisation of Border Violence through Research
The paper examines the existing relationships between universities and Frontex, investigating and problematising the intersection between the higher education sector and the violence of the European border regime. We introduce the concept of positivist dissonance to conceptualise these relationships within the wider “industrial-military-academic complex”. Several cases are examined, ranging from the Horizon projects involving both universities and Frontex to the research grants offered by the agency and its teaching programmes. We also discuss the case of our department at the Polytechnic of Turin, which has provided cartographic services to Frontex. The paper offers a twofold contribution. First, expanding on available scholarship, it shows how universities function as key actors in the enforcement of regimes of border control. Second, it provides conceptual and empirical insights to centre academia as a prime ground not only of critical thinking but also of direct struggle against the violence of the EU border regime.
