Lambert, Rita;
Sullivan, Jessie;
(2025)
Environmental Justice and the (Re) Production of Sacrifice Zones: The Impact of Migration Policies and Practices in the Aegean.
Geopolitics
10.1080/14650045.2025.2558873.
(In press).
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Abstract
As displacement increasingly shapes contemporary realities, powerful nation-states are adopting securitisation strategies that externalise their borders and designating specific territories to absorb ‘excess’ populations, particularly along migration corridors. This trend necessitates further research to understand the impacts in relation to broader concepts of justice. This paper illustrates how an environmental justice lens enriches existing scholarship on the ‘dark side’ of migration management, by examining the social and environmental consequences that transform host territories into sacrifice zones. We apply an environmental justice framework to the five Aegean islands identified by the European Commission’s hotspot approach in 2015 for managing migration into Europe. These fragile ecosystems face significant environmental degradation and social inequities stemming from the containment of displaced individuals and refugee camp infrastructures. We argue that environmental violence is a mechanism of power, enhancing control over marginalised bodies and warranting greater attention in both theoretical and empirical studies. Through participatory action research, this study reconstructs the trajectory of the hotspot approach, analysing the distributive and procedural injustices that exacerbate ongoing humanitarian and environmental crises. Our findings reveal that the hotspot approach, rooted in a colonial mindset, exploits both the tangible and intangible assets of these islands, transforming them into sacrifice zones and enabling controlling agendas. Using an environmental justice framework underscores the processes that restrict individual and collective agency, exploit vulnerable ecological systems, and undermine the structures that protect rights and advocate for affected territories.
| Type: | Article |
|---|---|
| Title: | Environmental Justice and the (Re) Production of Sacrifice Zones: The Impact of Migration Policies and Practices in the Aegean |
| Open access status: | An open access version is available from UCL Discovery |
| DOI: | 10.1080/14650045.2025.2558873 |
| Publisher version: | https://doi.org/10.1080/14650045.2025.2558873 |
| Language: | English |
| Additional information: | © 2025 The Author(s). Published with license by Taylor & Francis Group, LLC. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/), which permits non-commercial re-use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited, and is not altered, transformed, or built upon in any way. The terms on which this article has been published allow the posting of the Accepted Manuscript in a repository by the author(s) or with their consent. |
| UCL classification: | UCL UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Education UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Education > UCL Institute of Education UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Education > UCL Institute of Education > IOE - Education, Practice and Society |
| URI: | https://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/id/eprint/10214335 |
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