Policing gender mobilities: interrogating the ‘feminisation of migration’ to Europe

This article proposes a gendered critique of the European Neighbourhood Policy, a framework that, amongst other things, aims to facilitate the mobility of migrants to the EU from the bordering countries. We highlight the ambivalences of European gender and migration regimes, and we take issue with the celebration of the ‘feminisation of migration’. The former fails to offer opportunities to women to safely embark on autonomous migratory projects, the latter contributes to reproduce traditional gender biases in the countries of origin as well as of destination. We conclude by suggesting that the EU critique to emigration countries for failing to tackle women’s discrimination is less than persuasive when assessed vis-á-vis with the curtailment on women’s independent mobility across European borders

Towards the elsewhere : Discourses on migration and mobility practices between Morocco and Italy.

peer reviewedThe objective of this article is to analyze the preparation process of young Moroccan migrants directed towards Italy. My focus is on the personal and collective formulation of their desire to leave and on concomitant action taken to realize these aspirations; highlighting the complexity of the imagination, which migration – and expected return – entails. A second point of attention is the agency exerted by such youth during preparation for departure; even when they have not physically left the country yet. In addition, my observation is focussed on networks emerging as a result of having to deal with state-imposed, migration restrictions, as well as with the politics of humanitarian agencies and NGOs. My discourse argues that these aspiring migrants project themselves into the future and act in accordance with what they long to become. They shape themselves as mobile subjects through a process of self-making to overcome the above-mentioned constraints