
Notes from the EU's Eastern Edge
How Migrants Were Weaponized on the Polish-Belarusian Border
Jo Harper(Author)
Pallas Publications (Publisher)
Published on 29. May 2026
Book
Hardback
294 pages
978-90-485-7427-8 (ISBN)
Description
Notes from the EU's Eastern Edge is a bold, singular book-auto-ethnography with analytic bite, theoretically literate without scholasticism, and ethically self-aware. It shows how Kremlin "migration engineering" met a ready-made European script of fear, pride, and denial along the Belarus-Poland frontier. It traces how memory politics and securitized compassion turn migrants into symbols in border forests, as well as in newsrooms, museums, and classrooms, while bilingual gatekeepers launder hard edges into "responsible" discourse. The book's core contribution is to shift Polish-populism studies from monist typologies to a processual account of a dialectical, polycentric regime of managed antagonisms, refusing the easy pejorative of "populism" and retaining an emancipatory horizon. Vivid reportage sits with compact documentary mini-cases to show how trauma, sovereignty and solidarity are being rewritten at Europe's edge. Definitive for debates on borders, memory and the political unconscious in Central Europe.
More details
Language
English
Place of publication
Amsterdam
Netherlands
Target group
Professional and scholarly
College/higher education
Academic
Product notice
Laminated cover
Dimensions
Height: 234 mm
Width: 156 mm
Thickness: 18 mm
Weight
590 gr
ISBN-13
978-90-485-7427-8 (9789048574278)
Copyright in bibliographic data and cover images is held by Nielsen Book Services Limited or by the publishers or by their respective licensors: all rights reserved.
Schweitzer Classification
Person
Jo Harper is a British journalist based in Warsaw, freelancing for various international agencies. He also teaches at the American Studies Center, part of Warsaw University and holds a PhD from the London school of Economics. He has written three books on Polish politics, also published into Polish and German.
Content
1. Europe's Mirror 2. When Moses Came to Poland 3. A New Wall 4. Polishness, Pain and Its Critics 5. An Othered Poland 6. The West's Eastern Borderland 7. When "The East" Moves 8. Beyond the Pale 9. The Dialectics of Non-Change