Impossible protest: noborders in Calais

Abstract

Since the closure of the Red Cross refugee reception centre in Sangatte, undocumented migrants in Calais hoping to cross the border to Britain have been forced to take refuge in a number of squatted migrant camps, locally known by all as ‘the jungles.’ Unauthorised shanty-like residences built by the migrants themselves, living conditions in the camps are very poor. In June 2009, European ‘noborder’ activists set up a week-long protest camp in the area with the intention of confronting the authorities over their treatment of undocumented migrants. In this article, we analyse the June 2009 noborder camp as an instance of ‘immigrant protest.’ Drawing on ethnographic materials and Jacques Rancière's work on politics and aesthetics, we construct a typology of forms of border control through which to analyse the different ways in which the politics of the noborder camp were staged, performed and policed. Developing a critique of policing practices which threatened to make immigrant protest ‘impossible’, we highlight moments of protest which, through the affirmation of an ‘axiomatic’ equality, disrupted and disarticulated the borders between citizens and non-citizens, the political and non-political.

Keywords:

• protest
• policing
• Franco-British border
• camps
• Rancière

Acknowledgements

The ethnographic material for this paper was collected by the authors during their participation in the Calais noborder camp, June 2009, and through their involvement in the UK noborders movement more generally. The authors thank Imogen Tyler and Katarzyna Marciniak for their support in preparing this article for publication, Bülent Diken and John Urry for their comments on earlier drafts, and the two anonymous reviewers from Citizenship Studies for their generous comments and criticisms. They also thank all those who made the 2009 Calais noborder camp possible, and in particular our interviewees.