Comparing forms of border encampment in the EU, the Middle East, North Africa, and the Horn of Africa
A series of 3 Webinars
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General Objectives, Research Questions and Scientific Relevance
Externalization of border management by the European Union has been largely studied (Frelick, Kysel, Podkul, 2016; Hyndman, Mountz, 2008; Rodier, 2008). Building up on studies looking at borders ‘beyond a line in the sand’ (Parker, Vaughan-Williams 2005, Agier, 2008) that offer a critical perspective to borderlands as such, this webinar aims to construct a comparison reshaping the usual eurocentric approach when it comes to migration (Thiollet, 2020), border and public policy studies.
By deconstructing the scientific and common division between the ‘global North’ and ‘global South’, we want to come up with a scientific approach that aims to study border practices by looking at different implementing actors (street-level bureaucrats, security actors, humanitarian workers) including the migrants themselves and the population living within these spaces. Furthermore, we would analyse how both encampment and the destruction of the informal camps or squats contribute to the same policy of control and management of the migrants’ population.
Also building up both on geography of borderlands and public policies and practices happening within these spaces, we aim to go further than studies looking at “the global South” as rentier countries satisfying the EU’s agenda of border control. Indeed, we want to build a fine study and analysis, using tools from different disciplines – political science, geography, ethnography, to compare case studies in the Middle-East, North Africa, Europe, and the Horn of Africa.
How are public policies made by these countries both using and playing within the EU and international community’s vocabularies to implement border thickness when it comes to displaced people? To what extent these encampments or non-encampments are part of the migration policy of these countries? Are they simply an extension of the global phenomena of rebordering (Rosière)?
A series of webinars will be organized between February and May 2021, and may converge towards a common article and/or the submission of a special issue, depending on participants’ interest.
Bibliography
Agier, Michel. Gérer les indésirables, 2008
Frelick, Bill, Ian M Kysel, et Jennifer Podkul. « The Impact of Externalization of Migration Controls on the Rights of Asylum Seekers and Other Migrants ». Journal on Migration and Human Security, s. d., 31, 2016
Hyndman, Jennifer, et Alison Mountz. « Another Brick in the Wall? Neo-Refoulement and the Externalization of Asylum by Australia and Europe 1 ». Government and Opposition 43, no 2, 2008
Parker, Noel, et Nick Vaughan-Williams. « Critical Border Studies: Broadening and Deepening the ‘Lines in the Sand’ Agenda ». Geopolitics 17, no 4, 2012, pp. 727‑33
Rodier, Claire. « Externalisation du contrôle des flux migratoires : comment et avec qui l’Europe repousse ses frontières ». Migrations Société, N° 116, 2008, pp. 105‑22
Rosière, Stéphane. Frontières de fer, le cloisonnement du monde, 2020
Thiollet, Hélène. « Déconfiner les politiques migratoires: lacunes et biais des débats scientifiques ». Cogito, 2020.
Session 1 – Comparing the EU and the Middle East
11th of February, 2021, via Zoom at 3:30 (CET)
Registration : https://zoom.us/meeting/register/tJcoduitqjwrGtam_TK8W7WVIILfQrdYc-Ap
Discussant: Synnøve Kristine Nepstad Bendixsen – CMI Bergen, Norway
Migration policies and refugee camps: the thickness of the Syrian-Jordanian borderland
Emma Empociello, CED-Sciences Po Bordeaux / Ifpo
The Hungarian border spectacle: constructing a crisis and redrafting the nation
Céline Cantat, CERI-Sciences Po