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ABSTRACT
In the context of the development of national dispersion policies in Europe, a growing body of literature has been focusing on small and mid-sized cities as points of arrival for migrants in these specific cases of forced mobility. However, little work has been done on the trajectories of migrants who voluntarily move to apparently unattractive territories. Based on the example of the department of Calvados in Normandy, and drawing on qualitative data, this paper analyses the information practices developed by international migrants that are in a situation of information precarity and who are faced with Europe’s externalized and internalized border control. By looking to the source and nature of elements that were the reason for their decision to move to Calvados, this article sheds light on the types of information and actors that shape migrants’ itineraries. Furthermore, this article discusses the dynamics of trust and distrust between migrants and their various interlocutors and questions the characteristics of those identified as relevant providers of information. This article highlights the impact of administrative procedures and reception arrangements on migrants’ trajectories, as well as the central, albeit ambivalent, role of transnational social capital in relation to finding the right information in a new territory.
Acknowledgments
The author would like to thank the anonymous reviewers for their useful comments, as well as the coordinators of the workshop “What do we say to migrants throughout their journey?”: Anissa Maâ, Julia Van Dessel, and particularly Amandine Van Neste-Gottignies for her helpful suggestions on a previous version of this paper.
Disclosure Statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).
Notes
1 They can theoretically refuse to be transferred but it would imply losing their rights to accommodation.
5 Institut National de la Statistique et des Etudes Economiques (national institute of statistics and economic studies), source: https://www.insee.fr/fr/statistiques/3295615.
6 Guinea (7), Chad (4), Sudan (4), Mali (3), Nigeria (3), Ivory Coast (2), Eritrea (2), Kosovo (2), Afghanistan (1), Armenia (1), Cameroon (1), Congo (1), Gabon (1), Gambia (1), Haiti (1), Iran (1), Kazakhstan (1), Western Sahara (1), Senegal (1), Syria (1).
7 20.25% of the Parisian population were immigrants in 2018; 19,76% in the region of Ile-de-France; and 9,72% metropolitan France, sources: https://www.insee.fr/fr/statistiques/5397749?geo=COM–75056&sommaire=5397790; https://www.insee.fr/fr/statistiques/5397749?geo=REG–11&sommaire=5397790; https://www.insee.fr/fr/statistiques/5397749?geo=METRO–1&sommaire=5397790.
8 On top of the intricacies of the process itself, we can note the remarkable complexity of the names of each structure, given through acronyms that are already hard to remember for native French-speakers and can therefore be impossible to decipher for foreigners.
9 Although the situation has improved since 2022, the delays were this long at the time when my interlocutors arrived.
10 The details indicated about each person are the most recent I know, dating from 2021 or 2022 depending on the individual.
11 Interview conducted in French, December 2019.
12 Interview conducted in English, October 2020.
13 Interview conducted in French, August 2019.
14 In 2021, 59.3% of asylum seekers were housed in the DNA. The proportion has gradually increased in recent years since it was only 53% in 2020, 47.2% in 2019, and 48.8% in 2018 (OFII Citation2019, Citation2020, Citation2021, Citation2022).
15 Interview conducted in French, July 2020.
16 Mid-sized city, prefecture of a department next to Calvados.
17 Village near Abdoulaye’s domicile.
18 A town located in Italy near the Franco-Italian border.
19 Interview conducted in French, October 2020.
20 Interview conducted in French, March 2021.
21 Conversation in English, September 2021.
22 Interview conducted in French, October 2020.
23 Interview conducted in French and English, June 2021.
24 Interview conducted in French, June 2021.
25 Interview conducted in French, September 2019.
26 Although this assertion needs to be qualified as it does not apply to everyone: some migrants will, contrarily, try to avoid people from their country as it could reproduce some persecution, exclusion or violence they experienced in their home country. It is particularly the case for migrants who left because they were oppressed because of their sexual orientation (Chossière Citation2022).
27 Interview conducted in French, May 2020.