This PhD proposal is about an ethnographic study of “not-so-visible”border violence towards irregular migrants in the European border regime andits impact on migrants’ subjectivities. Irregular migrants in the Europeanborder regime are subject to a constantly increasing degree of violence whichincludes visible, direct, and physical as well as invisible, slow, andstructural types of violence. Their daily practices, social relationships, andtrajectories are essentially structured by their dealing with past violentexperiences, their current condition, and the future threat of exposure toviolence. It is in this quality of their lives and their being that this workmakes the connection between illegal migrants in the European border regime,border violence and the concept of “coloniality of Being”. Theoretically, Icombine critical perspectives from the disciplines of sociology andanthropology about (border) violence and subjectivity with decolonial thought. Iaim to generate a typology of “not-so-visible” border violence and its ways ofoperating and being at work, to distinguish it clearly and conceptually fromvisible, direct, physical violence. While doing so, I lay a focus on understandingits embodiment and impact on the migrants’ subjectivity, everyday practices,trajectories, and world- and self-view. Following an ethnographic approach, Iwill work in two different field locations, the Bosnian-Croatian border andBrussels, in the double role of an activist/humanitarian worker and researcher.Methods for collecting data will include participant observation,ethnographic/narrative/expert interviews with migrants, and digitalethnography, following an approach of patchwork ethnography.