The formation of Morocco's policy towards irregular migration (2000-2007): political rationale and policy processes

The factors that influence the formation of transit states' policies towards irregular migration have been insufficiently analysed. The case study in this article therefore investigates why and how Morocco, at the interface of Euro-African migration flows, created a policy towards irregular migration at the beginning of the twenty-first century. This article shows that Morocco's policy, rather than being a by-product of European migration policies, was the authorities' strategic response to the country's complex geopolitical environment that aimed at restoring Morocco's pivotal role in the region via irregular migration control. By retracing the three-phase inverted agenda-setting process that occurred between 2000 and 2007, this article shows why and how irregular (transit) migration was set on Morocco's political agenda, transformed into a new area of public intervention and progressively framed as a national public problem.Morocco's irregular migration policy, unlike that of receiving states, is less guided by national-electoral than by geopolitical considerations. Migratory flows considerably impact Morocco's regional negotiation capital; but while strengthening relations with Europe remains a top priority, Morocco's cooperation with African states is increasingly important. Framing irregular migration as an exterior threat by stigmatizing sub-Saharan transit migration and concealing irregular national emigration is crucial for Moroccan authorities to assure popular adherence to restrictive policies. Civil society activism on migration is an important democratization vector in Morocco. However, selective state responses create a labour division between a state-run border-control and civil society-run integration measures.The Institutions of Politics; Design, Workings, and implications ( do not use, ended 1-1-2020

Anti-Racism from the Margins : Welcoming Refugees at Schengen’s Northernmost Border

Through events of solidarity with refugees that unfolded at the Arctic border between Norway and Russia in 2015, we critically address two common analyses of racism and humanitarianism. First, we argue that the often-claimed explanation that racism results from disenfranchised social class fails to identify solidarities across marginalized groups. Furthermore, as anti-Muslim racism has become more mainstream in the Nordic region, solidarity with refugees offers critical positions in relation to political centers. Second, the case demonstrates how humanitarian action and politicized refugee activism are not necessarily separate forms of action but more entangled forms of engagement. The case where a small Arctic community in Kirkenes responded in solidarity with the refugees who crossed the border from Russia demonstrates how humanitarian assistance entangles with politicized action against the European border regime and against xenophobia, which the locals perceive to be generated by politicians from the political centers of Europe.peerReviewe

L'Europe des camps

Les pays occidentaux développent une culture politique de séparation et d'opposition entre ceux qui peuvent circuler librement dans le monde et ceux pour qui cela est interdit. Elle porte d'ailleurs un nom : le visa Schengen. Cela se traduit par la prolifération de camps d'exilés, où sont enfermés de force des hommes venus en Europe pour y trouver refuge, et par la subordination de pays voisins réduits à la fonction répressive de gardien des frontières... The countries of the European Union, like the other “Western” countries, are developing a political culture of separation by distinguishing those allowed to circulate and move freely throughout the world from the ones for which this is forbidden. This symbolic wall can be read through the common European visa-document dividing and rejecting: the Schengen Visa (Culture & Conflits n°49 and 50). The will to exclude foreigners, except for those who are considered as economically useful, is being exacerbated by repressive policies locking up the undesirable: it is the Europe of the camps. This phenomenon has to be distinguished from the “refugee-camps” that appear in conflict-ridden areas and has nothing to do with the “concentration camps” of the Second World War. What we are seeing is a multitude of zones in which foreigners wanting to reach Europe in order to find shelter, be they asylum-seekers, refugees or illegal migrants, are regrouped by force. The proliferation of these camps reshapes the European map by inscribing the marks of the contemporary fear of migrants on it. This phenomenon bears testimony to the profound transformations of the European cultures and has also very concrete implications at the marches of Europe: the neighbouring states are constrained to accept the repressive function of border-guards

Perception management – Deterring potential migrants through information campaigns

How are images used in the aim of governing migration? This article probes this question through the example of the International Organization for Migration’s (IOM) information campaigns (ICs) in Cameroon, through which it seeks to ‘manage the perception’ of potential illegal(ized) migrants to the European Union (EU). Taking the self-reflexive perspective of a filmmaker who has documented migrants’ rights violations in several projects and is thus struck by the use of imagery of suffering migrants as a deterrent, I first draw a comparison with the practice of colonial educational cinema, which I argue bares many similarities with the IOM’s ICs. Second, I inscribe them within broader trends in migration management, which have in common a simultaneous spatial expansion beyond the EU’s boundaries and a broadening of the domains they attempt to shape. I then attend to the particular ‘media dispositif’ the IOM constitutes in its campaign in Cameroon and question the actual effects of its campaigns