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Clandestine migration and the business of bordering Europe
Abstract
Irregular, clandestine or so-called “illegal” migration by land and sea is rarely out of the political and media agenda in Europe despite its statistically limited significance. Taking this mismatch as its starting point, this thesis explores the industry that has emerged around clandestine migration in recent years – the transnational policing networks, aid organisations and media outlets that all make the “illegal immigrant” their target, beneficiary and source. It focuses on the migration circuit between West Africa and Spain, where a joint European response to irregular flows was first tried and tested under the umbrella of the border agency Frontex. It is also here that success in “fighting illegal migration” has been most readily announced following the brief, spectacular migration “crises” in Spain’s North African enclaves of Ceuta and Melilla in 2005 and in the Canary Islands in 2006. The thesis explores ethnographically how clandestine migration has been constituted as a field of intervention and knowledge-gathering since this time. In this field, it is argued, the roles of policing, caring for and informing on migrants intermingle while producing shared models, materialities and classifications that impinge upon the travellers labelled “illegal”. Drawing on the dynamic nominalism of Ian Hacking, the actor-network theory of Bruno Latour and a growing body of critical migration and border studies, the thesis explores the interfaces where specific modalities of migrant illegality are produced. The exploration of these interfaces – in deportation, surveillance, patrolling, rescues, reception and activism – relies on an extended field site, with research carried out in Senegal, Mali, Morocco, southern Spain and European policing headquarters. Throughout, the thesis highlights not just the workings of the migration industry but this industry’s excesses and absurdities, which make the business of bordering Europe a fraught and contradictory enterprise.
... Over the next decade, Moroccan cooperation in Europe's "border externalization" program gave rise to multiple fortified fences, marine radar surveillance, and joint Moroccan-Spanish sea and land patrols even as clandestine migration continued or even increased (Alscher, 2005). During the same period, the demographic makeup of would-be migrants to Europe changed: in the early 1990s nearly all those attempting to cross from Morocco to Spain were Moroccan and Algerian citizens; by 2000, this population contained growing numbers of people from Latin America and especially from "sub-Saharan Africa" (ibid.). 2 Throughout the Mediterranean, two decades of ballooning European investment in the "external dimensions" of its border policy, realized through numerous and sophisticated control measures along migratory routes, have made travel by sea or land more dangerous, giving rise to lucrative smuggling networks and a humanitarian "rescue industry" (Augustín, 2007;Andersson 2014b). The perilous, fragmented, and expensive nature of unauthorized travel between Africa and Europe has resulted in many people stuck en route (Collyer 2007). ...
... Political geographers have explored the political implications of border externalization, which disrupts the conventional state-sovereignty-territory concept in favor of "novel assemblages" of space and power (Sassen 2008;Casas-Cortés et al., 2011;Mountz 2011). Others have analyzed the productive capacity of borders to reorganize regional economies, creating surplus armies of migrant labor and driving "care and control" industries that straddle state and non-state, licit and illicit divides (Andersson 2014b;Feldman 2012;Gammeltoft-Hansen and Sørensen, 2013). Less explored is how externalized borders rework racial-social categories of belonging in partner or "third" countries. ...
... Unauthorized or undesirable others are often differentially included within a country to maintain a cheap and precarious labor force, or are cast as "citizen outsiders" to preserve a homogenous (often white) national or European imaginary (Beaman 2017;Mezzadra and Neilson 2013). Likewise, the criminalization and calculated endangerment of migrant people along routes between their homes and their destinations furthers the international division of labor and fuels transnational industries that accumulate wealth through control, facilitation, and care of migrant people (Andersson 2014b;Feldman 2012;Gammeltoft-Hansen and Sørensen, 2013). Analyzed critically, externalized borders assemble various agents, discourses, actions, and processes of mobility management in a single frame, enabling us to tease out entanglements that cut across multiple scales and that endure across time and space (Gaibazzi, this issue; Savio Vammen et al. 2021). ...
This essay analyzes how race politics and immigration politics intersect in present-day Morocco, entangling various actors across multiple scales, from the continental to the interpersonal. While often problematic, we suggest that externalization can provide a lens through which to trace the production and circulation of race in the Morocco-EU borderlands and to chart the uneasy proximities that emerge among states, migrants and “civil society,” and racialized outsiders and insiders. And while numerous studies analyze the geopolitical and eco- nomic dimensions of the externalized border, how externalization reworks racial-social categories of belonging in “partner” or “third” states like Morocco is less known. Drawing on ethnography and interviews, we argue that externalization is a useful analytical category for understanding transnational border projects as racial projects that operate beyond the domain of citizenship or the state, reworking categories of belonging and exclusion from the scale of the body to the global scale. The Morocco-EU borderlands constitute a “contact zone” where multiple peoples, institutions, processes, and histories interact to produce blackness as out-of-place, changing the way that Moroccans understand race, place, and membership. The mobilization of race in the Morocco-EU border impacts the lives and movements of West and Central African migrants, but may also compound the exclusions of ra- cialized Moroccans at home and in Europe.
... Responding to the above-mentioned incentives, many states (e.g., Australia, Canada, the US, various EU member states) increasingly close, securitize, and/or externalize 30 their borders, focus on policies in and/or with third countries, and ignore and/or violate rights of forcibly displaced people Andersson, 2014;, which can lead to, amongst others, 'neorefoulement' 31 (Hyndman & Mountz, 2008). These measures are often enabled through related issue areas, and legitimized and managed through related practices and discourses; for instance, through depoliticizing humanitarian and development discourses and practices that respond to common victimhood narratives of forcibly displaced people (Crane, 2020, for discussions on the common humanitarian victimhood narratives forcibly displaced people, see Chapter 4). ...
... ring to it, we can be sure that the reality will prove to be considerably more complex, controversial and costly than this concept implies.' Indeed, the above-mentioned restrictive, border security and migration management policies are generally criticized for their (lack of) effectiveness, proportionality and legitimacy, as they imply large human and financial costs, and have facilitated border security and illegal industries (Andersson, 2014(Andersson, , 2016a(Andersson, , 2016b, The Migrants' Files, 2016. The EU, for example, nowadays focuses on migration management that primarily involves border management but also consultancy on migration and asylum, and has consequently created a multisectoral migration management market (The Migrants' Files, 2016). ...
... (3) hardware. Among others, this involves border police, including boats, drones and off-road vehicles, building (e.g., Spain, Greece, Bulgaria] and maintaining (e.g., Ceuta, Melilla) physical walls, and arrangements with foreign states to block forcibly displaced people to come to the EU (e.g., the EU-Turkey deal, the Italy-Libya deal); and (4) deportations, which is one of the largest but barely measured, nor transparent costs of the EU's restrictive immigration policy (Andersson, 2014(Andersson, , 2016a(Andersson, , 2016bThe Migrants' Files, 2016). ...
Although forced migration has always occurred throughout history, it has increased significantly recently. The largest increase took place between 2012 and 2015 and was largely driven by conflicts in Syria, Iraq, Yemen, and Central African and East African countries (the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees [UNHCR], 2021). Worldwide, forcibly displaced people are, however, nowadays confronted with hostility, xenophobia and the increasing popularity of extreme right-wing political parties (Frelick, 2007; Freedman, 2015). Furthermore, in recent decades, several states have tightened their asylum policies and/or become more reluctant to cooperate with refugee organizations (Johnson, 2011; Freedman, 2015). Since 2015, the theme of forced migration has been ubiquitous in (often polarized, overlapping and interacting) public, media and political debates (Hellman & Lerkkanen, 2019).
Within such contexts, UNHCR, which is mandated to lead and coordinate refugee protection worldwide (Jones, 2013), and other international nongovernmental organizations (INGOs) play key roles as providers of assistance and/or protection to forcibly displaced people (Betts et al., 2012). However, through public communication, they also try to inform, raise awareness and set news media, public, political and donor agendas. Therefore, they provide diverse communication content to news media and increasingly communicate directly with citizens via social media and websites (Atkin & Rice, 2013). Hence, these organizations can significantly influence how the general public perceives forcibly displaced people and related displacement crises (Chouliaraki, 2012a) and consequently can have broader policy and societal consequences. Nevertheless, few studies have examined how they attempt to influence public, media and political agendas, and even less studies have analysed the underlying reasons behind the use of their discursive strategies. While most research has analysed the news-making activities of humanitarian organizations, and broader changing journalism-NGO relationships in evolving news and humanitarian ecologies (e.g., Ongenaert & Joye, 2016; Powers, 2018; Van Leuven & Joye, 2014), fewer studies specifically investigated refugee organizations. Second, most research centres on agenda-setting (e.g., McCombs & Valenzuela, 2021) and, to lesser extents, stakeholders’ efforts to influence about which subjects news media, citizens or other stakeholders should think (cf. first-level agenda-building) (Kim & Kiousis, 2012). However, to our knowledge, only a few studies, have thoroughly explored refugee organizations’ second-level agenda-building strategies which attempt to influence how stakeholders perceive certain subjects (Kim & Kiousis, 2012). Further, they mainly textually focus on one organization, media genre, year, and/or crisis, lacking essential explanatory comparative, production, and/or societal perspectives.
Therefore, adopting a mixed-methods research design, this research project analysed refugee organizations’ public communication strategies from multiple perspectives. More specifically, we examined various relevant international refugee organizations’ public communication strategies regarding the recent Syrian and Central African crises. Hence, the central research objective of this project is to investigate the conceptual, textual, production and societal dimensions and their interactions involved in international refugee organizations’ public communication strategies. This overarching objective is operationalized through three more specific, interrelated sub-objectives, corresponding to three components and adopting a source-to-end product perspective.
First, we examined the conceptual dimension of international refugee organizations’ public communication strategies (component 1). How can the public communication of international refugee organizations be conceptualized? For this purpose, we conducted an extensive literature review.
Second, we studied the textual dimension of international refugee organizations’ public communication strategies (component 2). Which discursive strategies do international refugee organizations mainly use (cf. how, who, what)? Acknowledging current trends and gaps within the literature, this sub-objective can be further divided into three more specific objectives:
1. How are forcibly displaced people mainly (not) represented and discussed in international refugee organizations’ public communication? In other words, which representation and argumentation strategies do the international refugee organizations use?
For this purpose, we conducted two empirical studies. First, acknowledging potential organizational differences, we applied a comparative-synchronic (Carvalho, 2008) critical discourse analysis (CDA) according to Fairclough’s (1992, 1995) CDA model on the international press releases (N=122) of UNHCR and two INGOs, de ‘Danish Refugee Council’ (DRC) and de ‘International Rescue Committee’ regarding the Syrian crisis (2014-2015). Additionally, we conducted semi-structured expert interviews (N=6) with press and regional officers at these organizations to yield additional empirical material about the underlying production and societal contexts. Second, recognizing potential media genre and crisis differences, we applied a comparative-synchronic multimodal critical discourse analysis (MCDA) (Machin & Mayr, 2012), again following Fairclough’s (1992, 1995) CDA model, on UNHCR’s international press releases (N=28), news stories (N=233), and related photos (N=462) and videos (N=50) of the key year 2015.
2. Who is mainly (not) represented and given a voice in international refugee organizations’ public communication?
3. What is mainly (not) represented and discussed in international refugee organizations’ public communication? Which key characteristics (e.g., organizations, crises, media genres, years) and themes do international refugee organizations represent?
To meet these specific objectives and acknowledging organizational, media, crisis and temporal differences, we applied a comparative, longitudinal, intersectional quantitative content analysis (Neuendorf, 2017; Riffe et al., 2019) on the press releases and news stories (N=1244) about the recent Syrian and Central African crises (2015-2018) of UNHCR, and two INGOs, the Norwegian Refugee Council (NRC) and the European Council on Refugees and Exiles (ECRE).
Third, we focused on the production and societal dimensions (component 3). Central to the corresponding component are the production, political, economic and socio-cultural contexts, forces and motivations behind the public communication strategies. How do the underlying production, political, economic and socio-cultural contexts, forces and motivations explain the discursive strategies of international refugee organizations (cf. why)? Likewise, this sub-objective can be further divided into three more specific objectives that correspond with the specific textual objectives:
1. How can we explain how forcibly displaced people are mainly (not) represented and discussed in international refugee organizations’ public communication?
2. How can we explain who is mainly (not) represented and given a voice in international refugee organizations’ public communication?
3. How can we explain what is mainly (not) represented and discussed in international refugee organizations’ public communication?
Therefore, we conducted a three-week office ethnography at NRC’s main press and communication department, semi-structured expert interviews with press and communication officers of NRC (N=10), and a document analysis of the key communication policy documents of NRC. We thereby focused each time on the production and societal contexts of NRC’s public communication regarding the recent Syrian and Central African crises.
In general, we found diverse, often mixed results that nuance, extend and sometimes contradict the existing literature on the public communication of refugee organizations and, more generally, humanitarian communication, and frequently interact with and explain each other. For reasons of relevance, focus and space, we discuss below interactions between different dimensions, as evidenced within one or more studies. The literature review indicated that in recent decades the social and scientific relevance of research on strategic and non-profit communication in general and on refugee organizations’ public communication particularly have increased. Nevertheless, these fields remain underdeveloped and are mostly text-focused, while the production and reception dimensions are barely explored. Remarkably, however, little or no research has been conducted from an organizational communication perspective, although this study demonstrates that the subject can be adequately embedded in and examined from the fields of strategic, non-profit and public communication. Specifically, our dissertation highlights the relevance of the holistic Communicative Constitution of Organizations (CCO) perspective. This perspective argues that communication is not just an activity that occurs within or between organizations, but forms the constitutive process of organization (Putnam & Nicotera, 2010). Further, strongly influenced by the understandings of Oliveira (2017), Atkin and Rice (2013), and Macnamara (2016), we define refugee organizations’ public communication as the practice of organized and systematic symbolic social action (diversified communication disseminated through a variety of channels and activities) within the public sphere to reach set goals, co-create the refugee organization, perform civic relations and fulfil its mission by groups of people that pursue the (perceived) common good for forced migration. Finally, our conceptual study argues that future research can benefit by adopting multi-perspective, practice-oriented, multi-methodological, comparative and/or interdisciplinary approaches to which we respond in our empirical studies.
Regarding the ‘how’ and related ‘why’ dimensions, the critical discourse analysis shows that the observed organisations to varying extents dehumanize forcibly displaced people and subordinate them to the ‘Western Self’ and national state interests in their press releases. Acknowledging organizational and media genre differences, these power inequalities can be explained by the use of various discursive strategies, as well as the broader production and social contexts. The findings demonstrate that forcibly displaced people are often portrayed as a homogenous and suffering collective, confirming the dominance of the regime of pity’s traditional ‘negative’ representational strategies (Bettini, 2013; Chouliaraki, 2012a; Johnson, 2011). However, unlike existing fragmented research, this analysis also found evidence of the use of other discursive strategies and explored the production process and the social context. The aforementioned depersonalising humanitarian discourse can be considered to be the product of the specific features of the press releases. The importance of news media attention and commercial reasons are other explanatory factors. In addition, the study found articulations of a simultaneously existing post-humanitarian discourse. The interviews revealed that the humanitarian sector has evolved from a non-economic to a market-oriented sphere within which private choice and self-expression are central. One can relate this post-humanitarian discourse to the regime of irony and consider it as an expression of neoliberalism (Chouliaraki, 2012a). While post-humanitarian discourses respond to the needs for personal development and self-expression, the oft-deployed cross-issue persuasion strategy responds to state interests and reflects political realism (Grieco, 1999). Both strategies are self-directed and reduce forcibly displaced people principally to secondary figures.
Similarly, the comparative-synchronic multimodal critical discourse analysis reveals that UNHCR primarily represents forcibly displaced people in its press releases and, to lesser extents, in its news as generic, anonymized, passive, victimized, deprived, and/or voiceless masses, reproducing humanitarian saviour logics and hierarchies of deservingness. However, stories, photos, and videos frequently combine these representations with portrayals of empowered individual doers, speakers, and/or thinkers. Both representation strategies can be partially explained by news logics such as genre characteristics, news media conventions, and representations, and by respectively political and private sector discourses and agenda-building opportunities, and related organizational goals, as the expert interviews show. Furthermore, we identified several argumentation methods, particularly in textual communication genres. UNHCR mainly attempts to stimulate pity-based solidarity but also voices various neoliberal post-humanitarian (mainly Western) Self-oriented solidarity discourses. Refining cross-issue persuasion, we discovered that UNHCR links protection to states’ (perceived) interests in various issue areas but also in various principles and values, and propose the more appropriate concept of ‘cross-interest persuasion’. Rather than just to other (perceived) important issue areas, refugee organizations link contributions to protection to the interests of states in general. Moreover, the term emphasizes the political realist nature of the pragmatic argumentation strategy. Finally, we consider these discursive strategies as reflections and reproductions of, and responses to dominant migration management paradigms and the increasingly neoliberalized and political realist international refugee regime.
Concerning the textual ‘who’, ‘what’ and connected ‘why’ dimensions, the comparative, longitudinal and intersectional quantitative content analysis shows a mixed picture of what and who are (not) represented, involving interorganizational commonalities and differences. First, regarding ‘what’, the refugee organizations predominantly communicated in 2015 and 2016 about forcibly displaced people involved in the Syrian crisis, because of intertwined organizational, societal and/or financial reasons and mainstream media logics. More specifically, it is far more difficult for international refugee organizations to obtain media attention for the Central African crisis than the Syrian crisis, because of various factors such as the nature, magnitude, implications, mediatization and comprehensibility of the conflicts, and geographic and cultural proximity. As there is more media attention on Syria, international refugee organizations generally obtain also more resources specifically intended for the Syrian crisis, including for press and communication efforts. This leads on its turn to even more attention for this crisis, creating a ‘Vicious Neglected Crisis Circle (VNCC) effect’. Organizational factors generally reinforce this effect, while security and political factors in the case of communication about Syria limit it.
Regarding ‘who’, we observed that primarily forcibly displaced people and refugee organizations obtain voices in het public communication about the investigated forcibly displaced people, refining earlier studies. Additionally, examining several (largely unexplored) sociodemographics, this study finds that individualized forcibly displaced people are represented in significantly unbalanced manners (e.g., mainly along age, geographical location, legal status, current country and continent, nationality, life stance, sexual orientation, family situation, marital status and former and current profession). This can be explained by a myriad of pragmatic, humanitarian, societal, organizational, ethical/personal, practical, security, political and/or narrative reasons. Shaped by production and societal contexts, humanitarian communication reproduces and reflects quantitative mediated hierarchies of suffering, both between (cf. what) and within (who) crises. In general, we can conclude that various pragmatic and contextual factors explain ‘how’, ‘who’ and ‘what’ are represented. Finally, we argue that well-balanced humanitarian communication is essential for societal and strategic reasons (e.g., negative long-term implications of imbalanced humanitarian imagery and sensational public communication, branding opportunities as reliable, accountable ‘authorised knowers’).
... According to International Organization for Migration (IOM)'s Missing Migrants Project, almost 20,000 people have died in the Mediterranean Sea since 2014, making it the most dangerous border in the world (IOM, 2017). Several observers have pointed out the ritualistic and performative aspects of contemporary border enforcement (Andersson, 2014;Andreas, 2000;Brown, 2010;De Genova, 2013;Franko, 2020). Drawing on the work of Guy Debord (1995), De Genova (2013) argues that today the border is a spectacle. ...
... Drawing on the work of Guy Debord (1995), De Genova (2013) argues that today the border is a spectacle. However, the border spectacle is, as Andersson (2014) points out, two-sided. ...
... This article has embraced the encouragement that 'criminology needs to rethink its relations with the ascendant power of spectacle' (Carrabine, 2012: 463). Through textual and visual analysis of Frontex and MSF_Sea's Twitter communications the article explored the two-sided nature of the border spectacle (Andersson, 2014). It has outlined the split nature of communication which is, among others, visible in radically different understandings of reality, particularly of migrants' journeys and living conditions. ...
... Spanish enticements for collaboration in the realm of migration have centred on aid, trade, fishing rights and the diplomatic status of occupied Western Sahara (Andersson, 2014). These processes have been reinforced by various EU 'action plans' and 'mobility partnerships' with Morocco which also incorporate questions of illegal migration. ...
... The essence of Eurosur is an information exchange framework, synthesising a variety of data into a 'situational picture' of the border region of the EU (Tazzioli and Walters, 2016) as well as a 'common pre-frontier intelligence picture (focused on areas beyond the Schengen area and EU borders) [Jones, (2017), p.52]. Rationalised partly on a humanitarian basis by EU Commissioner Cecilia Malmstrom, Andersson (2014) has pointed out that this legitimisation for the information exchange network came much later and the initial impetus for the technology was to prevent people from making the journey to Europe in the first place. The 'humane' argument however was one which could be seen to have developed some traction in the legitimation of the system to the public (Follis, 2017) and was one which was heavily deployed in internal Frontex communications themselves (see Aas and Gundhus, 2014). ...
... Research on migration through Morocco is certainly an 'overcrowded field' (Andersson, 2014), something which many of my interlocutors made me aware of, particularly those who had been there for some time. Since the so-called refugee crisis however, less attention has been paid to this region than, for example the migration routes further east (Rozakou, 2017;Guida, 2018), or the 'hotspots' (Chouliaraki and Georgiou, 2017;Tazzioli et al., 2018;Ansems de Vries and Guild, 2018;Sciurba, 2016) set up within EU territory. ...
... Spanish enticements for collaboration in the realm of migration have centred on aid, trade, fishing rights and the diplomatic status of occupied Western Sahara (Andersson, 2014). These processes have been reinforced by various EU 'action plans' and 'mobility partnerships' with Morocco which also incorporate questions of illegal migration. ...
... The essence of Eurosur is an information exchange framework, synthesising a variety of data into a 'situational picture' of the border region of the EU (Tazzioli and Walters, 2016) as well as a 'common pre-frontier intelligence picture (focused on areas beyond the Schengen area and EU borders) [Jones, (2017), p.52]. Rationalised partly on a humanitarian basis by EU Commissioner Cecilia Malmstrom, Andersson (2014) has pointed out that this legitimisation for the information exchange network came much later and the initial impetus for the technology was to prevent people from making the journey to Europe in the first place. The 'humane' argument however was one which could be seen to have developed some traction in the legitimation of the system to the public (Follis, 2017) and was one which was heavily deployed in internal Frontex communications themselves (see Aas and Gundhus, 2014). ...
... Research on migration through Morocco is certainly an 'overcrowded field' (Andersson, 2014), something which many of my interlocutors made me aware of, particularly those who had been there for some time. Since the so-called refugee crisis however, less attention has been paid to this region than, for example the migration routes further east (Rozakou, 2017;Guida, 2018), or the 'hotspots' (Chouliaraki and Georgiou, 2017;Tazzioli et al., 2018;Ansems de Vries and Guild, 2018;Sciurba, 2016) set up within EU territory. ...
... For this reason, the article argues that the form the externalisation process takes is deeply conditioned by the situated socio-spatial dynamics and historical legacies in the regions in which it unfolds. In the case of Rosso, these dynamics force compromises upon the infrastructure of externalisation at the border, while also casting a different light on the migrant illegality that is produced by the border regime beyond its external border (Andersson, 2014Cobarrubias, 2019. ...
... projection of migrant illegality onto what this Eurocentric imaginary depicts as a vacant space (Cobarrubias, 2019), and a concomitant social injection of illegality into the relations and structures that make up this space on the ground (Andersson, 2014). It is with this latter fact in mind namely the production of illegality, along with its derivative state of deportability (De Genova, 2002), as a lived social conditionthat the term 'illegality' is used here. ...
This article situates the EU border externalisation process within the regional history and social dynamics of the Senegal River Valley. It does so by drawing from fieldwork data gathered in the Mauritanian border town of Rosso, a crucial node within the architecture of the EU border regime in West Africa. By ethnographically detailing the workings of the border crossing and the experiences of illegalised migrant workers in the town, the article argues that the externalisation process is conditioned by the histories and socio-spatial dynamics of the regions in which it unfolds. In the case of Rosso, migrants who are elsewhere illegalised by the border regime appear equally marked by a regional history of racialised expulsions and accumulation by dispossession. As regards the border itself, the infrastructure of externalisation serves to uphold the colonial conversion of the Senegal River into a territorial dividing line. At the same time, however, the situated socio-spatial dynamics of this locale force compromises on this infrastructure, thereby acting upon and transforming the externalisation process in its practical unfolding.
... One change particularly concerning families involves a curtailment of family reunification options and a significant increase in the maintenance requirements on the party located in Sweden (Asylum Information Database, 2020). There is also a development in Swedish policies, politics and public debate -similar to debates across Europe, further affecting its self-image as a moral superpower -whereby the criminalisation of refugees has created an entire industry of illegality that views immigrants as a threat to Europe, and as being deportable (Khosravi, 2010;Andersson, 2014;Djampour, 2018). This industry involves not only border controls, detention centres and outsourced border surveillance, but also more implicit changes in migrants' ability to obtain permits or social support (Khosravi, 2010;Andersson, 2014;Djampour, 2018). ...
... There is also a development in Swedish policies, politics and public debate -similar to debates across Europe, further affecting its self-image as a moral superpower -whereby the criminalisation of refugees has created an entire industry of illegality that views immigrants as a threat to Europe, and as being deportable (Khosravi, 2010;Andersson, 2014;Djampour, 2018). This industry involves not only border controls, detention centres and outsourced border surveillance, but also more implicit changes in migrants' ability to obtain permits or social support (Khosravi, 2010;Andersson, 2014;Djampour, 2018). Everyday family life is thus infused with migration policies and public debates in which family members, largely on an individualised basis, are constructed as both a possible threat to the nation and as deportable, rather than families in need of welfare support (Vitus, 2011). ...
Utilising data gathered through ethnographic fieldwork this article investigates (a) how asylum seekers portray family life in relation to their decision to flee their country of origin, and (b) how asylum seekers’ ways of doing family life intersect with the Swedish migration context. Analytically, the article leans on sociologically informed theories of family practices and a conceptual discussion on deportability . The results show how family life among the participants is reconstituted both in terms of geographical closeness and distance, and in terms of ideas about a previous family life in the country of origin and hopes for a possible future in Sweden. The insecurity and the strains placed on people and their family bonds by current migration policies, and the risk of deportation, are interpreted as a specific form of administrative violence that cuts into family practices, serving to maintain physical and emotional distance between family members and break down social bonds.
... De Genova 2016;Hess and Kasparek 2017;Perl and Strasser 2018;Tazzioli 2018; Van Houtum 2010). The border regime -including nation-state and EU legal frameworks, border securitisation, and militarisation -selectively channels and structures human mobility across borders (Andersson 2014;De Genova and Peutz 2010;Tošić and Lems 2019). Extending far beyond European territorial frontiers, the EU border regime regulates North-South relationships by maintaining and increasing global inequalities (Law 2014). ...
... By co-opting non-European countries into their border management, the EU and Spain outsource violence against Black migrants to Morocco. The externalisation of EU borders to the African continent combined with visa and deportation regimes aims to keep Black and Brown bodies from moving north (Andersson 2014;Besteman 2019;De Genova and Peutz 2010). While European colonialists required racist technologies to expand their empires (Moffette and Vadasaria 2016), the EU's racial governmentality expands border control to prevent certain bodies from entering Europe. ...
For centuries, the Strait of Gibraltar has been a crossroads between Africa and Europe. Since the 1980s, however, it has increasingly become a "zone of illegality" (Hannoum 2020) where racial governmentality produces illicit lives and creates an apartheid-like hierarchy of humanity. By exploring how colonial legacies and EU policies play out in the Strait of Gibraltar, I show how categories of difference are made and remade across time and space. Through a genealogical and ethnographic approach, I study the historically produced particularities that make racialised "Others" emerge and explore how human differences are created in terms of race, gender, and class. Migrants are historical actors that shape and are shaped by the social fabric of a border region. I thus argue that categories of difference are not fixed entities, but instead they are simultaneously reworked, reinforced, contested, and subverted.
... Nearly all policing exhibits an inherently oppositional dynamic (Comaroff and Comaroff 2006), one often de-scribed in terms of the relation of hunter and prey (Andersson 2014). Moreover, it is mutually influencing. ...
... Such practices of self-isolation (vis-à-vis wider social worlds) are intentional and expressive acts designed, in the instance of migration control, to mark juridically defined boundaries (however thick and disaggregated they may become) as distinct from the seeping borderland formations that overflow and surround them. These are anxious sites where wider notions of the viability of the sovereign state form and the national "culture" it houses (Anderson 1991)-the existence of which is presumed even in Ortiz's own notion of a transculturated Cubanidadplay out, often in mediatized, deeply performative displays (Andersson 2014). ...
... Waiting itself has become a liminal enforcement, caught between conflicting national and transnational governmental priorities. That means that the camp is frequently regulated through the reproduction of uncertainty -a reflection of the contradictory policies, which either on the basis of humanitarian protection or of securitised expulsion, keep migrant lives on the hold (Andersson 2014). ...
... Hotspots' residents wait for months and years in confinement as their recognition is simply and indeterminately deferred (Joronen 2017). Patience and waiting become evidence of discipline within these spaces of indistinction, as impatience and frustration deem migrants threatening and ungrateful, attracting the state's punitive force (Andersson 2014;Trimikliniotis 2019). Resistance to suspension therefore works against migrants' chances for rights and recognition, displacing voice (Chouliaraki and Georgiou 2019) and reinforcing waiting as the dominant pathway out of desperation. ...
This article focuses on suspension: a process and a politics in migration governance that disables subjects and destabilises the state. Drawing on migrant, civic actor and policy-maker insights and experiences in the cities of Athens, Berlin and London, the discussion reveals how suspension is operationalised and enacted. As recorded across three cities, suspension has become a way to govern migration as an unequal and racialised system by obscuring, prolonging and deferring state responsibilities and migrants’ access to resources and rights. By focusing on who is most likely to be suspended, and how the urban convenes both everyday bordering and new solidarities, we aim to understand the politics of migration in a volatile political and economic conjuncture. Invoking the city of refuge as an actually existing but fragile ethico-political project, we critically reflect on the currency of urban politics of sanctuary cities as redemptive spaces detached from the punitive functioning of the state. We explore how suspension is operationalised in the city through three core processes: the fracturing of legalities; the devolution of care; and the spatialising of uncertainty. We further reflect on the precarious practices care and solidarity which engage our shared humanity as opposed to enforced differences.
... While studies of migration have long examined relationships between labor markets, remittances, and policies (e.g. Dustman et al 2013), recent political economic work foregrounds the economic relationships supporting migration (Cranston 2017, Gammeltoft-Hansen andNyberg-Sorensen, 2013;Hernandez-Leon, 2013;Xiang and Lindquist 2014) and preventing unauthorised migration (Andersson 2014;Coddington et al. 2020;Conlon and Hiemstra 2014;Doty and Wheatley 2013;Ferndandes 2007). US-based scholars have analysed the heavy reliance on private, for-profit corrections companies and argue that they comprise an 'immigration industrial complex' Hiemstra 2014, 2017;Doty and Wheatley 2013;Fernandes 2007;Martin 2017), while multi-sited ethnographic approaches have pointed to a diffused international 'illegality industry' (Andersson 2014). ...
... Dustman et al 2013), recent political economic work foregrounds the economic relationships supporting migration (Cranston 2017, Gammeltoft-Hansen andNyberg-Sorensen, 2013;Hernandez-Leon, 2013;Xiang and Lindquist 2014) and preventing unauthorised migration (Andersson 2014;Coddington et al. 2020;Conlon and Hiemstra 2014;Doty and Wheatley 2013;Ferndandes 2007). US-based scholars have analysed the heavy reliance on private, for-profit corrections companies and argue that they comprise an 'immigration industrial complex' Hiemstra 2014, 2017;Doty and Wheatley 2013;Fernandes 2007;Martin 2017), while multi-sited ethnographic approaches have pointed to a diffused international 'illegality industry' (Andersson 2014). To date, this literature has emphasized how 'control providers' participate in a broader 'migration industry', engaging in a contentious back-and-forth with migration facilitators, employers, and traffickers (Gammeltoft-Hansen and Sorenson 2013; Hernandez-Leon 2013). ...
This paper asks how people finance life when displaced, as a precursor to building pathways to more inclusive and sustainable prosperity on the move. The approach taken seeks to examine both lived experiences of displacement and the actors, institutions and technologies shaping those lives. The paper selectively reviews existing literatures to explore two key foci: (1) the role that various technologies play in financing movement and (2) the obligatory relationships through which people make life on the move. The argument is structured around a series of problemsolution dyads through which finance and technology are presumed to solve displacement’s problems: Governing displacement through outsourcing and offshoring; Governing the movement of money through legislation and data mining; Managing displaced people through financialization and techno-humanitarianism; Capitalizing (on) mobility networks through remittances and mobile money. The paper then examines potential methods for exploring these topics, before concluding with a set of key questions for future research.
... In contrast to the West Africans, most of the North African detainees had lived in an irregular situation around Europe for years, some for even more than 10 years; many of them were kind of "veteran migrants" (Andersson, 2014) According to the detention records, Italy seemed to have significantly relaxed readmission policies, as they even accepted removals of migrants whose residence permits were expired. Even more importantly than the opportunity for legal movement in Europe, humanitarian permits provide a safeguard against removal to the country of citizenship, consequently changing legal geographies of deportation. ...
... (Schengen Visa Information, 2019.) Due to the geographical proximity of the countries, the removal of irregular Russian migrants may also be implemented directly from Finland without detention, either by trains or by escorting them to bordercrossing sites.Finally, in discussing the legal geographies of irregular migration, it is necessary to take into account deportable migrants' remigration plans (see, e.g.,Andersson, 2014;Schuster & Majidi, 2013). Many detainees had been removed earlier from Finland or other EU member states or they expressed their remigration plans in case of removal. ...
In this article, I discuss legal geographies of irregular migration, drawing on a case study on immigration detention in Finland. Based on analysis of detention records, four different types of legal geographies are identified, relating to south-north movement of third-country nationals inside Europe, criminalised Eastern European EU citizens , irregularity during the asylum process (in particular, related to the Dublin Regulation) and irregularly residing foreign nationals, including deportable long-term residents. The analysis focuses on the relations between space, law and persons during detainees' irregular migration trajectories, paying attention to their varying entry routes, residence times, legal grounds for removal and detention and removal countries. I argue for the need for empirically contextualised analysis that addresses the complex relations between law and geography beyond a particular national context, in order to better understand the dynamics of irregular migration in all its variety.
... Although all the informants were able to obtain a permanent residency permit or Italian citizenship (only one seller), they all pointed out the length of the process, which took at least three years. This situation is the result of the rigid legislation concerning immigration, based on a strict quota system enforced in Italy [27,46]. Facing the complex and uncertain legal context, migrants have to come to terms with a limited possibility of acquiring and running a business. ...
Migration and migrants’ integration are prominent aspects of globalized contemporary
society. In this respect, a key question appears of how to foster the full participation of migrants in the host society. This article investigates the role of migrant entrepreneurship as a vector of integration.
Based on case-study research conducted among Bangladeshi vendors in Nuovo Mercato Esquilino in Rome, the article highlights the potentialities in terms of social and market innovation of such activity.
However, it points out that this way forward cannot be considered a generalized solution, relying on strong social and cultural capital that not all migrants, in particular asylum seekers, may have. Thus, it proposes a normative adjustment to empowering migrants and facilitating their endeavors.
... Anonymizing not only the names of those participating but also the research context is therefore a standard practice 19 . With particularly sensitive data or insights about the participant, it is worth considering describing participants in a more abstract way rather than as specific individuals. ...
In-depth interviews are a versatile form of qualitative data collection used by researchers across the social sciences. They allow individuals to explain, in their own words, how they understand and interpret the world around them. Interviews represent a deceptively familiar social encounter where people interact, asking and answering questions. They are, however, a very particular type of conversation, guided by the researcher and used for specific ends. This dynamic introduces a range of methodological, analytical and ethical challenges, for novice researchers in particular. In this primer, we focus on the stages and challenges of designing and conducting an interview project and analysing data from it, as well as strategies to overcome these challenges.
... Inoltre, dagli anni 2000 in avanti la mobilità transnazionale, che era ormai una dimensione strutturale dello sviluppo oltre che una chiave di volta di consolidate culture locali della migrazione, è diventata per la maggior parte delle persone uno sforzo sempre più inafferrabile (Cavatorta 2016;Melly 2016). Il cambio di secolo corrisponde a un periodo di trasformazione delle politiche migratorie dei paesi di approdo (Andersson 2014;Gaibazzi et al. 2017). Nuove strategie di dissuasione e gestione dei migranti cosiddetti "irregolari" vengono rapidamente messe in piedi. ...
In this article we discuss the representations ad aspirations of Louga’s Jakarta men in Senegal. This is the name of Asian made moto-taxi drivers, an activity through which many young persons managed to enter the informal economy of various Senegalese Towns. Their experiences show that, despite growing vulnerability, youth are not passive or immobile actors towards social duties, kin relations or the town’s economic activities. Through the rielaboration of ordinary ethics and forms of social and spatial mobilities, they seem protagonists of a reinterpretation from below of the neoliberal contradictory dicourses and policies characterizing the migration-development nexus. Yet, this ordinary neoliberism limits the understanding and politicisation of inequalities and contradictions of their precarious socio-economic condition. The Jakarta generation remains partially invisible and its horizon and potential purpose ambivalent although open to multiple explorations, which escape categorical classifications often found in development as much as migration studies.
... While 'space' has long centralized and guided the scholarly understanding of migration processes, during the last decade the attention within refugee and border studies has systematically focused on time and the multidimensionality of the temporality-border nexus. 2 Along with attention to the different dimensions (linear, cyclical, imagined . . .) and organization of time (biological, religious, social, political and bureaucratic as well as relating to im/mobility and economic/family relationships), greater research interest has been directed to the way in which 'bordered time' is shaped by border-making processes, 3 to how it is perceived and experienced at the subjective and collective levels, and to the entanglements between (im)mobility and borders . ...
After the closure of the so-called ‘Balkan Route’, the western Balkan countries became buffer zones for thousands of unregistered migrants living ‘in waiting’ in precarious conditions. The overland route captures everyday configurations of multiple spatial, temporal and social interconnections, in their entanglement with the historicity of the cross-border areas. By analysing ethnographic accounts collected on the Italian-Austrian and Italian-Slovenian borders, the paper explores the street-level practices of public/institutional apparatus and the stories of would-be asylum seekers, with their experiences of mobility and ‘involuntary immobility’ shaped by power relations. Our aim is to discuss the complexity of this process which concerns patterns of (im)mobility (e.g., waithood), migration projects, rejection, violence, vulnerability and agency from the point of view of the migrants entering the European Union through this eastern passage.
... This special section aims to illuminate the emergence of hospitality and hostility in a contemporary era of globalised migration encounters and fraught border regimes (De Genova, 2016), illegality (Andersson, 2014;Khosravi, 2010), the securitisation of migration (Squire, 2015), moral arguments for migration rights (Maboloc, 2020), decolonisation of asylum (Picozza, 2021), and regimes of hospitality and governing citizenship (Foultier,2015).These intersecting discourses and practices constitute those seeking better and safer lives as strangers, aliens, racialised immigrants, undocumented refugees, foreign beggars and other displaced subjects who are in transit and/or without a home as 'guests' -albeit unwanted ones. This concept of the other as guest generates another concept: namely the concept of 'host'. ...
Until recently, studies of hospitality have been less prominent within the broader context of studies of global mobilities. Yet, both are entangled. In this special section of the Journal of Sociology, we explore the effects of narratives of ‘migration crisis’ or ‘refugee crisis’ in contemporary, intersected global and local politics and studies of hospitality. In doing so, contributors bring hospitality and mobility studies into closer dialogue by turning their attention to the dilemmas of intimate life and refugee hosting.
... Here it is not only that the fences that Spain erected in 1995 along the borders of its two North African enclaves, or the Israeli West Bank border wall built during the second Intifada in 2000, set an effective (though rarely acknowledged) precedent for US President Trump's "Mexican border wall" project (Ferrer-Gallardo 2008; Bowman this issue). Rather, FRONTEX's 9 patrol of Mediterranean waters also bears uncanny resemblance to the expansion, during the 1990s, of a "water border" into the Caribbean Sea to staunch the flow of Haitian refugees into the United States (Noll 2003;Andersson 2014;Kahn 2016Kahn , 2019. Are these attempts on the part of a Schengenized "Fortress Europe" to contain an "unwanted Mediterranean" to its south? ...
... Algeria is an attractive country for African migration because of its strong economy compared to its Sahel neighbors, and cross-border trade exchanges have intensified migration towards Algeria (Molenaar and Janssen 2017). The size and geographical location of Algeria is also a great boon to the smuggling networks that see the smuggling of African migrants as a lucrative activity, since they know the desert hideaway spots and gaps in the border barrier (Loprete 2018;Sanchez 2018;Andersson 2012). The regions most affected by illegal migration in Algeria are Tamanrasset (on the Algerian-Nigerian border and the Algerian-Malian border), Adrar (on the Algerian-Malian border), Illizi (on the Algerian-Libyan border) and Tlemcen (on the Algerian-Moroccan border) (Mebroukine 2009 (Mebroukine 2009). ...
... Also considering what was added after the launch of Frontex, we can summarize the main steps towards both a European asylum system and a European border regime as follows (Mountz 2010, Andersson 2014: 1) Introduction of a common visa policy (definition of a whitelist and a blacklist of countries); 2) Introduction of carrier sanctions and mandatory transmission of passenger data; 3) Creation of the Schengen information system (database for checking the identity of asylum seekers and mobility control); subsequently strengthened as EURODAC, a European dactyloscopy database for the identification of irregular asylum seekers and border-crossers; 4) Clarification and specification of the criteria for the allocation of competencies to the EU Member States on the assessment of asylum applications to prevent the purchase of asylum (Dublin I, II and III); 5) Introduction of two attenuated forms of protection: temporary humanitarian protection, and subsidiary protection; 6) Introduction of the principle of the third safe country close to the crisis areas (e.g. Turkey, Libya and many other African countries in the very near future), with the task of managing the flows and asylum applications in exchange for economic aid; 7) Implementation of projects relating to the relocation or outsourcing of asylum (e.g. ...
The 2015 European refugee crisis highlighted some inherent shortcoming
in European migration and asylum policies. Hundreds of thousands of people
moving across the borders of Schengen and seeking international protection
were quickly classified by the highest institutional offices of member states as
“irregular migrants”, they were associated with threats such as organized crime
and terrorism and they have been exposed to the risk of being criminalized.
These official reactions are both the consequence and the reflection of the European
asylum system. A regime that has been created in almost thirty years -
from the Schengen agreement to the most recent immigration conventions - on
the basis of an obsession for border security which, on the one hand, led to the
approval of increasingly restrictive immigration and asylum policies, and, on
the other hand, have transformed asylum seekers from victims of political persecution,
wars, natural or human disasters to disguised economic immigrants
or “false refugees”.
Two interesting interpretations of this trajectory have been provided by
Valluy - who explains it as the result of a competition between three political-
ideological views - and Huysmans - who analyzes it in terms of a classical
securitization process. In the last part of our paper, we briefly address three
main points: 1) the generative power of borders; 2) the need to critically reconsider
the vocabulary we as scholars use to analyze human mobility; 3) the link
between the European immigration policy framework and the reworking of a
European cultural and ethno-racial identity.
Key words: European asylum policies; Refugee crisis; Border control; Securitization;
European ethno-racial identity
... Detainability thus amplifies migrant deportability (De Genova, 2002, 2010a, and enhances how irregularised migrants and refugees' predicaments come to be reconfigured as an enduring socio-political condition akin to 'doing hard time on planet earth.' The emergent ethnographic literature depicting situations in which migrants and refugees find themselves stranded en route, temporarily but indefinitely stuck someplace along the way on their migratory itineraries, and often vulnerable to arrest and detention, provides ample evidence of merely one example of this predicament (Mountz et al., 2002;Coutin, 2005;Collyer, 2007Collyer, , 2010Dowd, 2008;Mountz, 2011;Bredeloup, 2012;Lecadet, 2013Lecadet, , 2017Tazzioli, 2013;Andersson, 2014;Garelli & Tazzioli, 2017;Osseiran, 2017;Picozza, 2017;Stierl, 2017Stierl, , 2019. Similarly, an emergent literature exposes how rejected asylum seekers and other illegalised migrants and refugees increasingly find themselves 'legally stranded' even in their chosen countries of destination because they remain 'undeportable' (Ellermann, 2008;Paoletti, 2010;Sigona, 2012;Fischer, 2013Fischer, , 2015Le Leerkes & Broeders, 2013;Campesi, 2015;Courant & Kobelinski, 2016;Hasselberg, 2016;Freedom of Movements Research Collective, 2018;Fabini, 2019). ...
... This article focuses on the concept of 'illegality' within the UK immigration system and the relationship this has with contemporary social work. Scholarship has explored the link between immigration and notions of 'illegality' (Andersson, 2014), emphasising that criminality and migration become entangled to create what is termed 'crimmigration' (Armenta, 2017;;Van Der Woude et al., 2017;Bowling and Westenra, 2020). Despite migration being a consistent feature within history, immigration control in the UK is weaved into legislation and policy creating a complex and politically charged atmosphere. ...
This article argues that the notion of ‘illegality’ has become a dominant aspect in social work practice for those who are subject to immigration control and have no recourse to public funds (NRPFs). Drawing together conceptual tools from the theoretical work of Giorgio Agamben and Achille Mbembé, necropolitical exception in social work will be explored to analyse how this has impacted upon racialised bodies within the UK immigration system. The findings presented in this article are based upon Ph.D. research conducted between July 2017 and October 2018 in Glasgow, Scotland, and includes ethnographic qualitative data from case studies with the Asylum Seeker Housing Project. It focuses on interviews that explore the lived experiences of those categorised as ‘illegalised’ migrants to examine the implications of necropolitical exception for those with NRPF, third sector caseworkers and statutory social workers. In framing those with NRPF as ‘illegal’, this article demonstrates that social workers have become drawn into agents of necropolitical exception that demands critical scrutiny.
... Indeed, migration control policies produce the conditions for the rising of a thriving networks of actors, from pushermen and taxi-drivers to embassy officers, who facilitate migration both in legalised and illegalised ways. This way, a migration industry (Gammeltoft-Hansen and Nyberg Sorensen 2013; Hernández 2012; Lucht 2013) rises in parallel with (and as a response to) the State's border security industry, or 'illegality industry' (Andersson 2014). ...
en As a response to the reintroduction of border controls at the French/Italian border, which aim to push back undesired migrants, increasing border‐crossing facilitation practices are being carried out by different categories of social actors, including local residents and migrants themselves. In a context of increasing criminalisation of border‐crossing facilitation practices, racialised, non‐white facilitators are usually stigmatised as smugglers acting exclusively in return for payment, while local residents moved by humanitarian concerns are increasingly represented as privileged do‐gooders. This article moves toward a deconstruction of both categories by investigating the discursive motivations of different border‐crossing facilitators and taking into account the unequal structure of opportunities characterising their practices. Through ethnographic accounts and interviews in different localities at the French/Italian border, the article sheds light on the complex coexistence of different interests moving a wide range of actors. The empirical analysis reveals that mere market logics do not reflect the complexity of the figure of the professional facilitator; nor are humanitarian, ethical and political motivations exclusive to white, European citizens providing free help to migrants in distress.
Pourquoi prendre un tel risque ? Au‐delà du profit : les motivations des passeurs à la frontière franco‐italienne
fr En réponse au rétablissement des contrôles à la frontière franco‐italienne qui visent à repousser les migrants non désirés, des pratiques de facilitation de passage sont développées et mises en œuvre par différentes catégories d'acteurs sociaux, parmi lesquels des résidents locaux et les migrants eux‐mêmes. Dans un contexte de criminalisation croissante des pratiques de facilitation du passage de la frontière, les passeurs « racialisés » non‐blancs sont généralement stigmatisés, considérés comme des contrebandiers agissant uniquement pour l'argent, alors que les résidents locaux, animés par des préoccupations humanistes, sont davantage présentés comme des bienfaiteurs. Cet article tend à déconstruire ces deux catégories, en enquêtant sur les motivations discursives de plusieurs passeurs et en prenant en compte les différences d'opportunités qui caractérisent leurs pratiques. À travers les récits ethnographiques et les entretiens menés dans plusieurs localités de la frontière franco‐italienne, l'article met en lumière la coexistence complexe d'une diversité d'intérêts, animant un large spectre d'acteurs. L'analyse empirique révèle que la simple logique mercantile n'est pas en mesure de refléter la complexité de la figure du passeur professionnel, de même que les motivations humanitaires, éthiques et politiques ne sont pas l'apanage des seuls citoyens européens blancs, apportant une aide gratuite à des migrants en détresse.
... In response, and especially after two dozen migrants were killed by security forces while attempting to scale the fences separating Melilla from Morocco in 2005, the Spanish and Moroccan government collaborated to enhance the fences' security infrastructure, adding barbed wire, several layers of walls, and further patrols (Andersson 2014). With financial assistance from Spain, Moroccan security forces also began raiding migrant camps near the enclaves, arresting and detaining migrants before forcibly deporting them across the border into the no-man's land separating Morocco and Algeria (MSF 2013). ...
This article examines the 2013 migration policy liberalizations in Morocco and Turkey in order to understand whether predominantly “human rights-centric” or “diplomatic” factors influenced domestic decisions to reform migration policies. It uses original interview data collected in 2015, as well as policy documents, to examine the two reform processes and their initial consequences for migrants and refugees residing in each host state. While the academic literature on migration has focused on human rights-centric factors to understand historic migration policy reforms, Turkey and Morocco’s geopolitical and geographic positions between powerful neighbors to the north and important sending countries to the south mean that diplomatic factors are also key to understanding the incentives behind reform. This article’s findings have important implications for scholars of international migration, demonstrating that while countries like Morocco and Turkey may implement liberal and inclusive policies if there are diplomatic and economic gains to be had from doing so, such policies may have little impact on the everyday lives of individual migrants and refugees residing in these states and may be subject to reversals if such states’ geopolitical calculations change.
This introductory chapter explains how the book draws on postcolonial and decoloniality studies to challenge exceptionalist narratives and Eurocentric epistemologies that underly the fields of refugee and forced migration studies. Scholarship from disciplines such as international relations, sociology, criminology, and political science often reveals a curious silence on the continuities of colonialism and historical legacies that inform contemporary refugee phenomena. Postcolonial and decolonial critiques, however, offer ways to move beyond certain dominating analytics of Western thinking and geographies about displacement – the nation-state, border control and humanitarianism. This chapter surveys several productive critiques from postcolonial scholarly engagement with the field of refugee and forced migration policy. Using postcolonial theoretical approaches, the volume as a whole interrogates how the control, securitization, policing and surveillance of mobility follows racialized and geopolitical patterns with colonial and historical roots. Contributors represent a variety of disciplines and employ a creative array of methodological and theoretical tools. Their work requires careful assemblage of social and political theory, historical archival research, and careful analysis to link those histories to the present. The Introduction ends with a brief synopsis of each of the book’s chapters.
Black African women exert agency during, after and before migration amidst an atmosphere of vulnerability, violence and victimization. An understudied category in migration, gender significantly impacts every aspect of the migratory experience. In my dissertation, I explore the effect Spanish borders and Senegalese gendered expectations have on Senegalese women’s migration through a corpus of African and European cultural production (1990-2020). Using Balibar’s work on borders as a starting point, I map the Senegalese-Spanish borderspace as the liminal geographical territory for Senegalese and Sub-Saharan African migration to Spain. Relying on Senegalese Gender Theory (Fatou Sarr Sow, Awa Thiam and others) and informed by Ayo Coly’s work on postcolonial gender issues, I argue that migrant women are susceptible to violence because of their position in Senegalese society prior to migration. Through Mahler and Pessar’s approach to women and gender in migration and Elsa Tyszler’s understanding of heightened femininities and masculinities, I examine how gendered cultural expectations persist and are exacerbated in the crossing by male migrants, non-migrants, and border and local police. I scrutinize the gender-related challenges and achievements of Senegalese women in Sub-Saharan Africa, North Africa and Spain during land, sea, and air migration by analyzing Senegalese women protagonists in Frontières (2002), La Pirogue (2012), and Des Étoiles (2013). I advocate for a more agentic understanding of Senegalese women migrants through a more agentic reading of Senegalese women migrant characters. Utilizing the films Atlantics (2019) and Biutiful (2010), I investigate the disruption and reconstruction of home for the Senegalese women “who remain” in Senegal or Spain when Spanish borders separate them from their romantic partners. I examine the challenges of immigrant motherhood, specifically how through their motherhood status Spain simultaneously offers home to immigrant women and locks them into certain roles. Through this work I push forward the gendered impact of the Spanish border on Senegalese women im/migrants and non-migrants.
The chapter takes the case of migrants in conditions of irregularity into account, as an example of group vulnerability that is related to systemic violence and oppression towards individuals as members of a group. At the same time, such a condition is an example of the positive and emancipatory value of group vulnerability, fostering people’s capacity for political action and resistance to mechanisms of oppression and marginalisation. Through many examples, the chapter analyses how migrant groups succeed in acting as counterpublics, as dissonant voices in the public debate. Through labour strikes, hunger strikes, claims for regularisation and political rights, as well as through the occupation of churches and public spaces as a means of seeking refuge, migrants have challenged not just individual measures, but the whole legal and political mechanisms of migration and border management, and dominant representations of migration in public discourse.
Over the past 25 years a significant (but unknown) number of migrants from Ethiopia have been migrating to South Africa through the “southern route.” This male-dominated migration is becoming more and more irregular and includes multiple transit countries, largely controlled by human smugglers. The size of the Ethiopian immigrant population in South Africa has increased. The profile of individuals on the move has also changed in terms of migrants’ age, ethnicity, place of origin, gender and socioeconomic status. Youth from rural areas have joined the migration trail, and, increasingly, women are migrating for marriage in South Africa. Today, migrants from southern Ethiopia (Hadiya and Kambata) dominate Ethiopian migration to South Africa. The age and socioeconomic status of the migrants have also changed where teenagers, college graduates and civil servants are entering the migration stream in recent years. Equally changing is the nature and operation of the smuggling and settlement processes. Like the broader field of migration studies in which source and destination countries receive the overwhelming focus, the multiple transit countries Ethiopians on the move to South Africa travel through, and the migration journeys themselves, have not received adequate research attention. The effects these journeys have on the settlement processes are also largely ignored. This article, therefore, explores these emerging patterns with a view to understanding the inequalities faced by Ethiopian migrants on their journey to South Africa and the factors behind it. With the intensification of border closures due to multiple factors, including the COVID-19 pandemic, we examine the shift in the nature and trend of smuggling and how it is reflected in inequalities experienced by Ethiopian migrants in South Africa.
Despite attempts by the Dutch government to combat and discourage unlawful residence, there are people who live in the Netherlands without a residence permit. However, little is known about the way they live (or survive) and work in the Netherlands. Although their residence is not legal, this does not mean that migrants without residence permits have no rights. On the contrary, this book connects the legal legislation and regulations on the national and international level with the socio-economic reality of this vulnerable group of migrants. Based on unique empirical material, this study shows the discrepancy between the rights that also apply to migrants without residence permits, for example as workers, as patients or as residents, and shows the absence of protection in everyday practice. The book concludes with an exploration of possibilities for improving the vulnerable position of migrants without residence permits in the Netherlands.
Freely available at https://library.oapen.org/handle/20.500.12657/52883
This edited volume approaches waiting both as a social phenomenon that proliferates in irregularised forms of migration and as an analytical perspective on migration processes and practices.
Waiting as an analytical perspective offers new insights into the complex and shifting nature of processes of bordering, belonging, state power, exclusion and inclusion, and social relations in irregular migration. The chapters in this book address legal, bureaucratic, ethical, gendered, and affective dimensions of time and migration. A key concern is to develop more theoretically robust approaches to waiting in migration as constituted in and through multiple and relational temporalities. The chapters highlight how waiting is configured in specific legal, material, and socio-cultural situations, as well as how migrants encounter, incorporate, and resist temporal structures.
This collection includes ethnographic and other empirically based material, as well as theorizing that cross-cut disciplinary boundaries. It will be relevant to scholars from anthropology and sociology, and others interested in temporalities, migration, borders, and power.
The Open Access version of this book, available at http://www.tandfebooks.com , has been made available under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial-No Derivatives 4.0 license.
What happens to gains in human rights protections if states learn how to use international human rights courts to evade future scrutiny? This article centers on Hirsi Jamaa v. Italy , a landmark 2012 migration case at the European Court of Human Rights. Rights advocates characterized the case as a legal victory for migrants. Subsequent shifts in Italian bordering and policing on the high seas demonstrate unintended consequences of this litigation. While Italy implemented the judgment, compliance went hand in hand with state efforts to undermine rights protections in practice. Italy carved out new areas of discretion among maritime police, human rights advocates, and migrants on the high seas. Ultimately, assessing the impact of case law requires looking not only at judgments and at execution. It requires attention to subsequent policy environments and policing efforts that may violate the spirit, if not the letter, of human rights obligations.
In diesem Interview sprechen die drei Anthropolog*innen Chiara Brambilla, Didier Fassin und Sarah Green über ihre empirischen und konzeptuellen Zugänge zum Thema Grenzen. Ausgehend von der Frage, was es bedeutet, Grenzforschung zu betreiben, erörtern sie die Komplexität moderner Grenzen als Zusammenspiel politisch-territorialer und soziosymbolischer Grenzziehungen. Die eigenen Forschungserfahrungen reflektierend werden methodologische Herausforderungen und Möglichkeiten ethnografischer Grenzforschung aufgezeigt. Das Interview schließt mit der Diskussion über Artikulationsmöglichkeiten einer kritischen Grenzforschung im Spannungsfeld von Wissenschaft, Politik und Ästhetik.
Die Erforschung von Grenzen erfährt aktuell eine enorme Aufmerksamkeit. Das erste deutschsprachige Handbuch zum hochdynamischen Forschungsfeld der Grenzforschung stellt das interdisziplinäre Sachgebiet in seiner Breite dar und liefert somit eine aktuelle Bestimmung des Feldes. In über 30 Beiträgen aus verschiedenen Disziplinen werden zunächst die historischen, methodologischen sowie theoretischen Grundlagen der interdisziplinären Grenzforschung rekonstruiert, bevor ausgewählte konzeptionelle Perspektiven sowie zentrale Themengebiete vorgestellt werden. Der Band schließt mit einer Erweiterung der gegenwärtigen Diskussion um die Erforschung von Grenzen, indem neue theoretische Debatten sowie benachbarte Perspektiven eingebunden werden. Das Handbuch bietet damit sowohl einen fundierten Überblick, als auch einen detaillierten Einblick in die aktuelle Erforschung von Grenzen. Mit Beiträgen von Christian Banse, Chiara Brambilla, Claudia Bruns, Franck Düvell, Monika Eigmüller, Didier Fassin, Astrid M. Fellner, Dominik Gerst, Sarah Green, Goetz Herrmann, Sabine Hess, Concha Maria Höfler, Wolf-Fabian Hungerland, Martin Klatt, Maria Klessmann, Hannes Krämer, Sabine Lehner, Carolin Leutloff-Grandits, Christine Leuenberger, Gesa Lindemann, Sandro Mezzadra, Marie Müller-Koné, Thomas Nail, Brett Neilson, Marek Nekula, Jana Schäfer, Conrad Schetter, Larissa Schindler, Falko Schmieder, Matthias Schmidt-Sembdner, Markus Schroer, Alexandra Schwell, James Wesley Scott, Sebastian Teupe, Holger Pötzsch, Peter Ulrich, Andreas Vasilache, Bastian Vollmer, Béatrice von Hirschhausen, Christian Wille
This article explores the mechanisms in which, through the US family detention asylum process, neoliberal ideas of citizenship are reinforced and contested. Through ethnographic research, and using a Foucauldian lens, we take a closer look at the neoliberal processes involved within so-called family detention. Specifically, we focus on legal advocates who are helping detained women prepare for their legal interviews. This paper argues that humanitarian aid work becomes knowable through attention to microlevel details and forms of practice—on the ground and at the margins. This affords a recognition of not only areas of functional solidarity or symbiosis with the state, but also those less visible forms of contestation. We claim that while legal advocates play a role within the neoliberal regimes at work inside these centres, they also contest this system in various critical ways, ensuring both access to legal representation for all detainees and their eventual release.
This article has been written in collaboration with Beshwar Hassan, a Kurdish musician who spent a few months in the camp of Grande-Synthe, near Dunkirk (France). Music was highly important in the leadership role he played in the camp. It especially gave him the ability to entertain the community and draw the attention and sympathy of humanitarian workers and volunteers who supported his position. During his time in the camp, he “became” a musician through the recognition of both his musical skills and his leadership. This study analyzes how he constructed his online presence through his relationship with music, using Facebook both as a social medium and as a technical tool, that is, a space where music is “mediated” through the technical capabilities of the platform and used to share narratives of exile with an audience made up of Facebook friends. This research began while Beshwar Hassan and his family were living in the Grande-Synthe camp and ended 1 year later when they were granted asylum in the United Kingdom.
In response to contemporary forms of human mobility, there has been a continued hardening of borders seeking to deter, control and exclude certain groups of people from entering nation states in Europe, North America and Australasia. Within this context, a disconcerting evolution of new and increasingly sophisticated forms of border control measures have emerged, which often play out within bilateral arrangements of “externalised” or “offshore” border controls. Drawing on extensive first‐hand field research among displaced people in Calais, Paris and Brussels in 2016–2019, this paper argues that the externalization of the British border to France is contingent upon a harmful strategy, which can be understood as the “politics of exhaustion.” This is a raft of (micro) practices and methods strategically aimed to deter, control and exclude certain groups of people on the move who have been profiled as “undesirable,” with a detrimental (un)intended impact on human lives.
This article conceptualizes carceral economies of migration control. First, I argue that ‘privatization’ signals a reorganization of authority, rather than a relocation of ownership from public to private domains. Second, I argue for greater attention to the socio-technical practices of valuation specific to migration control through which commodification becomes possible. Third, this reorganization of authority has produced (1) status value, a form of value specific to immigration policing’s juridico-political position; and (2) valuation practices that translate, commensurate and circulate migrant life as a marketizable entity.
Resumen Este artículo tiene como objetivo analizar el papel de las Organizaciones de la Sociedad Civil (OSC) en lugares de frontera con una alta migración, como son los casos de la frontera México-Estados Unidos y Marruecos-España, dos de los corredores migratorios de mayor importancia en el mundo. En estos espacios, sometidos a una vigilancia y una militarización cada vez mayores, las OSC vienen desarrollando desde hace tiempo una labor que se enfrenta crecientemente a los condicionantes impuestos por las políticas de control migratorio y de fronteras de los Estados. El artículo se basa en los resultados de del trabajo de terreno desarrollado en la ciudad fronteriza de Tijuana (México) y en las ciudades autónomas de Ceuta y Melilla (España). Nuestras investigaciones muestran cómo los niveles de actuación de las OSC en relación con las personas migrantes en tránsito, deportadas y refugiadas se mueven entre la ayuda humanitaria y la defensa de los derechos, aunque las políticas de control de flujos limitan cada vez más la acción de las organizaciones, en especial de aquellas con posicionamientos más críticos.
In the Colombian–Venezuelan borderlands, the reconfiguration of armed group presence and mass migration create and reinforce conditions of high violence and risk. Against this backdrop, we ask: What are the gendered security implications of the double crisis in the borderlands? Based on fieldwork in four regions along the border, this article argues that the border effect is gendered; the very factors that coalesce to produce this effect exacerbate existing gendered power dynamics, particularly as these relate to gender-based violence. Accordingly, this article demonstrates the specific ways in which the border – as a facilitator, deterrent, magnet and/or disguise – reinforces experiences of gendered insecurity in this region. The article finishes by outlining the implications for other international borderland settings.
This paper sheds light on the role of non‐governmental/civil society organisations, as well as the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, in the externalisation of migration management in Tunisia and Egypt. These organisations are involved in migration‐related activities, which, from the externalisation perspective, should prevent people from attempting the sea‐crossing to Europe, thus immobilising them in North Africa. The paper is an ethnographic border regime analysis drawing on extensive fieldwork. It shows that European Union‐externalisation is not a univocal and smooth process. Instead, externalisation is entangled in a complex network of actors and dynamics. Measures meant to support externalisation may produce effects contrary to those envisaged, whereas practices accomplishing externalisation goals may be in fact the result of internalisation. By analysing the various actors in their diverse practices and in their—sometimes conflictual—relationships, the paper also tries to minimise state‐centrism and Euro‐centrism in the study of externalisation.
This article explores why certain spaces of refuge continue to be excised from global maps of forced migration. It first reviews why this exclusion happens, before synthesising work on the movements of forced migrants to states that are not signatories to the dominant refugee law frameworks. This exposes the partiality of geographies of refuge that rest on Western legal-normative conceptualisations of hospitality and humanitarianism. It argues that a focus on alternative sites and forms of refuge is nonetheless critical for 1) sketching accurate experiential and geopolitical maps of forced migration and 2) challenging dominant moral geographies of asylum and responsibility-sharing.
Traduzione della prefazione a Border Deaths: Causes, Dynamics and Consequences of Migration-related Mortality (Amsterdam University Press, 2020). Il volume, curato da Paolo Cuttitta e Tamara Last, comprende contributi di: Paolo Cuttitta, Jana Häberlein e Polly Pallister-Wilkins; Kate Dearden, Tamara Last e Craig Spencer; Giulia Sinatti e Renske Vos; Amade M’Charek e Julia Black; Giorgia Mirto, Simon Robins, Karina Horsti, Pamela J. Prickett, Deborah Ruiz Verduzco e Victor Toom; Emilio Distretti; Kristof Gombeer, Orçun Ulusoy e Marie-Laure Basilien-Gainche; Huub Dijstelbloem, Carolyn Horn e Catriona Jarvis; Thomas Spijkerboer. L’intero libro è scaricabile gratuitamente attraverso il sito https://www.aup.nl
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