FROM EXCEPTION TO EXTRA-LEGAL NORMALITY 19 sections, are thus situated within a borderscape shaped by the logic of defence against perceived migratory and territorial threats. Drawing on these theorizations of the border as a global, European and localized institution, we situate pushbacks as a violent and racialized technology whose prevalence and the extent of harm its violence produces, is a technology that liberal states often seek to deny and render invisible (Isakjee et al. 2020), or legitimate through narratives of the (b)order, legality and national sovereignty (Sharma 2020; Walia 2021). In the following two sections, we explore the violence of pushbacks in the borderscape of Evros. A History of Violence at the Evros Border Located at the north-eastern edge of Greece and established in 1923, the Evros border has always been a locus of cross-border movement. Cross border social visits, especially of the local Turkish/Muslim minority, tourism, trade and occasionally military infractions have all been part of the mobility landscape of the Evros borderland (Demetriou 2019; Kasli 2014). Turkish and Kurdish people escaping oppression in Turkey were the key groups using the route in the 1990s (Dimitriadi 2013; Papadopoulou 2004), but not the only ones. An informant who did his military service in Evros in 1996 encountered a group during a patrol that included Rwandan, Syrian and Lebanese nationals. Armed conflicts and oppressive regimes in Afghanistan, Iraq, Iran and Syria, but also economic inequalities and other forms of oppression shaped migratory movements in the area from the 2000s onwards (Dimitriadi 2013). At the same time, Evros became increasingly incorporated into the European border regime. The accession of Greece to the European Union and later the Schengen Area rendered Evros a key entry point into Europe (Dimitriadi 2013; Grigoriadis and Dilek 2019). The expansion of border technologies reflected both the increasing importance of external borders within the EU migration governance as well as domestic policy imperatives (Fotiadis 2015; Grigoriadis and Dilek 2019). Since the 1990s, detention spaces in police units and border guard stations, a Reception and Identification Centre (RIC) and a pre-removal detention centre near the village of Fylakio, and other temporary facilities, have been expanded (Karamanidou et al. 2021). Since 2012, police presence in the area has been reinforced by Operation Aspida, and for a shorter time the notorious arrest-and-deport policy , Operation Xenios Zeus (Fotiadis 2015; Grigoriadis and Dilek 2019). The construction of a fence between the villages of Nea Vyssa and Kastanies in 2012 further exemplified the deepening securitization of migration in Greece (Grigoriadis and Dilek 2019). EU funds were used to finance local border infrastructures such as the automated border surveillance system, five operational centres, a coordination centre at the village of Nea Vyssa, thermal cameras and thermovision vans (Fotiadis 2015; Pallister-Wilkins 2016). Produced and distributed by Pluto Journals www.plutojournals.com/scj/