White Europe: an alternative reading of the Southern EU border

Abstract

The external border of the EU challenges many traditional assumptions in border studies research. As scholars struggle to make sense of it, they often forego discussions of the role of race in the history of border control in Europe. This article aims to contribute to this discussion by exploring how the Southern EU border and the Spanish border can be read in racial terms. The discussion begins with an exploration of the concepts of race, racialization and white privilege from a spatial perspective. In the second section, I briefly discuss how the origins of processes of exclusion of racially defined groups in contemporary Spain can be traced to early attempts to create a Spanish national identity in the 16th century. I then return to current forms of racialization and exclusion of the non-white immigrant population in Spain. I conclude that European and Spanish forms of race-based exclusion coalesce at this border. To understand how this happens, a historical study of collective identity construction that revolves around concepts such as “racialization” or “white privilege”.