Migration and the African Timespace Trap: More Europe for the World, Less World for Europe

ABSTRACT

Drawing on an ever-evolving corpus of scholarly, political, and public texts, this article reflects on the temporalisation and territorialisation of Africa in response to Europe’s ‘migration crisis.’ Re-awakened fears of the African other and its own divisive internal politics have presented Europe’s leaders with a dilemma: how to contain African ambitions to move while remaining true to their self-professed commitment to individual freedom, universal rights, and global progress. To solve it, Europe has updated longstanding colonial narratives and identities by constructing a timespace trap. This trap justifies exclusion as readying Africa for an elusive global future. Employing temporal forms of socio-spatial governance, the Europeans dangle a global and mobile future to Africans willing to mould themselves into externally defined parameters of moral respectability. Adherence to immigration regulations authored and often imposed by Europe, together with a demonstrated commitment to family, community, and country mark one’s suitability to enter a global future. But meeting these legal and moral standards effectively means building a sedentary life dedicated to ‘development at home’. Together with allies across sectors and continents, they are realising their ambitions through frameworks that morally justify intercepting and pre-empting movement as means of empowering and perfecting Africans. Doing so effectively excludes Africans from a shared, global humanity while discursively shielding Europe’s liberal commitments.

Notes

1. Translated from German by the author.

2. then president of the European Commission

3. then president of the African Union Commission

4. translated from German by the author

5. translated from German by the author

6. According to their website, the fearless summit, ‘is an annual gathering of church and marketplace leaders who are passionate about bringing godly change in every sector of society.’ https://fearlesssummit.org/(accessed 16 November 2019).

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Princeton Institute for International and Regional Studies.; National Research Foundation South Africa.