Passing by In/Visibly: The Lone Child in the Croatian Section of the Balkan Refugee Corridor

The Balkan refugee corridor was active in 2015 and 2016 in order to facilitate and control the movement of refugees towards their destination countries in the EU. In this article, the Slavonski Brod camp, a kind of obligatory stopover in the Croatian section of the Balkan corridor, is approached as a site where the concept of a “lone child” in migration was defined and re-defined in practice. After presenting a short overview of the corridor and the camp, and the genealogy of the concept of the child traveling alone, the article discusses the procedures and practices regarding the position of such a child in this unique form of the European migration regime. The article focuses on the interrelation between changing norms of the corridor and conceptualization/behavior of “lone child” in migration. In that framework we follow the transformation of child traveling alone as privileged humanitarian subject to the child traveling alone as competent social actor.