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Abstract
This article analyses the spatial dimension of social movements mobilising against border controls. Focusing on the case of the protests against European border controls, this paper shows that new spatial strategies of protest have emerged since the beginning of the 2000s. Movements construct collective actions that aim to identify border controls and occupy specific border sites. These new strategies are related to a transformation of the material and symbolic dimensions of border controls in the last decades. As they have become more diffuse and organised through a selective power, social movements strategically locate their protest in order to document the existence and nature of border controls. In doing so, they disrupt the exclusionary logic of citizenship.
Acknowledgements
The author would like to thank Pascale Dufour, Leah Bassel and Kamran Khan for their comments on earlier versions of this article. He would also like to thank the editors and the anonymous reviewers for their very helpful feedback and suggestions. He would also like to thank David Plotke for his invitation to present this work at the workshop on “The Rights of Noncitizens? – Immigration, Boundaries, and Citizenship in Contemporary Democratic Politics”, New School for Social Research, New York, September 2012.
Notes
1. ‘Transnational Action Day Against Migration-Control on 7 October 2006’.
2. As shown by Walters (Citation2002), there is a fundamental link between border control policies and citizenship: deportation practices in particular are ‘constitutive of citizenship’ (Walters Citation2002, 288).
3. See the website www.london.noborders.org.uk.
4. See the website www.migreurop.org.
5. Migreurop, ‘Introduction to the Network Migreurop’, October 2003.
6. TransitMigration, ‘MigMap – Governing Migration. A Virtual Cartography of European Migration Policies. Introduction’, March 2006.
7. Presentation of the Frontexit campaign, March 2013, on the website www.frontexit.org.
8. Migreurop, ‘Annual Report 2010–2011’, November 2011, p. 3.
9. Migerurop, ‘Chronology of European Migration Policies’, on the website www.migreurop.org
10. No Border, ‘Transborder Map 2012’, on the website www.frontexplode.eu.
11. At a more general level, the strategy of identification can be related to the emergence of new forms of political engagement in the last decades. As shown by Rosanvallon (Citation2008), through the concept of ‘counter-democracy’, an increasing number of social groups engage politically through activities of ‘vigilance’, ‘denunciation’ and ‘evalution’ of politics. The identification of border controls by the part of activists can be understood as being part of this mechanism of ‘oversight’: it is motivated by feelings of ‘mistrust’ in traditional mechanisms of political representation and by a willingness to bring about greater ‘social attentiveness’.
12. NoBorders London, ‘Who we are?’, on the website: www.london.noborders.org.uk.
13. NoBorders London, ‘Noise protest outside Cedars detention centre’, September 2011, on the website: www.london.noborders.org.uk.
14. Boats4People, ‘Presentation’, on the website www.boats4people.org.
15. Boats4People, ‘Press Release. Boats4People First Campaign is a Success’, July 2012, on the website www.boats4people.org.
16. NoBorder, ‘Call for the 2nd European Day of Action by Italian Groups’, March 2005.
17. European Caravan against the Death Fence, ‘Day One of Mobilizations’, November 2005.
18. Migreurop, ‘Ceuta and Melilla: The EU Declares War on Migrants and Refugees’, October 2005.
19. No Border, ‘No Border Camp Cologne/Dusseldorf against Frontex Charter-Deportations’, February 2013, on the website www.frontexplode.eu.
