At the Gates: Borders, National Identity, and Social Media during the ‘Evros incident’

Understanding borders as powerful markers signifying state and nation, this paper seeks to uncover their actual meaning(s) for national identity held by ordinary citizens, as expressed on social media. As a case study, we focus on the ‘Evros incident,’ when some thousands of refugees were attempting to cross the Turkish-Greek border, supported by the Turkish government. Based on Twitter data we propose a methodology to uncover the social and political ground upon which national identity is discussed during critical events, as well as the contents of national identity evidenced in our corpus. Four main topics were found, focusing on popular geopolitics, the borders, the presentation of refugees as ‘invaders,’ and the portrait of ‘the enemy within.’ The finding that Greek national identity is divided, while so far extensively discussed theoretically was not yet empirically documented. Our research not only documents the division, but also exemplifies its contents.