Clandestine Migration and the Business of Bordering Europe
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The London School of Economics and Political Science Clandestine migration and the business of bordering Europe Ruben Andersson A thesis submitted to the Department of Anthropology of the London School of Economics for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy, London, October 2012 Declaration I certify that the thesis I have presented for examination for the PhD degree of the London School of Economics and Political Science is solely my own work other than where I have clearly indicated that it is the work of others (in which case the extent of any work carried out jointly by me and any other person is clearly identified in it). The copyright of this thesis rests with the author. Quotation from it is permitted, provided that full acknowledgement is made. This thesis may not be reproduced without my prior written consent. I warrant that this authorisation does not, to the best of my belief, infringe the rights of any third party. NB: some edits have been made to this thesis, for instance to ensure anonymisation, in order for the thesis to be published online by LSE in accordance with the School’s policy. 2 To Cristina 3 Abstract Irregular, clandestine or so-called “illegal” migration by land and sea is rarely out of the political and media agenda in Europe despite its statistically limited significance. Taking this mismatch as its starting point, this thesis explores the industry that has emerged around clandestine migration in recent years – the transnational policing networks, aid organisations and media outlets that all make the “illegal immigrant” their target, beneficiary and source. It focuses on the migration circuit between West Africa and Spain, where a joint European response to irregular flows was first tried and tested under the umbrella of the border agency Frontex. It is also here that success in “fighting illegal migration” has been most readily announced following the brief, spectacular migration “crises” in Spain’s North African enclaves of Ceuta and Melilla in 2005 and in the Canary Islands in 2006. The thesis explores ethnographically how clandestine migration has been constituted as a field of intervention and knowledge-gathering since this time. In this field, it is argued, the roles of policing, caring for and informing on migrants intermingle while producing shared models, materialities and classifications that impinge upon the travellers labelled “illegal”. Drawing on the dynamic nominalism of Ian Hacking, the actor-network theory of Bruno Latour and a growing body of critical migration and border studies, the thesis explores the interfaces where specific modalities of migrant illegality are produced. The exploration of these interfaces – in deportation, surveillance, patrolling, rescues, reception and activism – relies on an extended field site, with research carried out in Senegal, Mali, Morocco, southern Spain and European policing headquarters. Throughout, the thesis highlights not just the workings of the migration industry but this industry’s excesses and absurdities, which make the business of bordering Europe a fraught and contradictory enterprise. 4 Acknowledgments A great many people and institutions have helped make this project possible, too numerous to mention here. I am very grateful to the young repatriates of the Dakar neighbourhood I call Yongor for welcoming me despite their difficult circumstances and for setting my whole project on a new track. I am greatly indebted to all those who have shared their stories with me, in Yongor and elsewhere: protecting their identities prevents me from mentioning them by name here. In Ceuta, I am indebted to Pepi Galván, without whose hospitality, kindness and help my experience in the city would have been completely different. I am also grateful to the director of the CETI and its workers for receiving me, as well as to the Spanish Red Cross staff and volunteers in Ceuta. Many journalists, aid workers, academics and activists have helped give shape to this project through friendship, support, contacts and exchanges of ideas. I especially wish to thank Papa Demba Fall for receiving me at IFAN in Dakar, and the team at Aracem for their warm welcome in Bamako. I am also thankful to the Spanish Guardia Civil and the Senegalese border police for having received me on numerous visits. At LSE, I am deeply indebted to my supervisors, Mathijs Pelkmans and Deborah James, for their unfailing support and guidance. Mathijs has been a constant source of inspiration and help, and Deborah has not only given me much-needed support but her eye for detail has also helped improve my thesis no end. Both have been incredibly patient and helpful, not least during the times when my spirits, ideas or energies have waned, and I am equally grateful to them both. I also wish to thank Chris Fuller for his supervision during my pre- fieldwork year. My colleagues at LSE and elsewhere have been very helpful and inspiring, and their feedback most useful; no one named, no one forgotten. My PhD project was funded by an Economic and Social Research Council Studentship (award number ES/G01793X//1). I am very grateful for this assistance. 5 Above all, I am grateful to Cristina for her support and inspiration throughout, as well as for her almost superhuman levels of patience with me during the preparation, research and writing of this thesis; without her, the thesis would never have been finished, let alone begun. 6 Table of Contents INTRODUCTION .....................................................................................................................10 Illegality in context ........................................................................................................................... 15 West African mobility: from exode to ‘exodus’ .............................................................................................. 16 Dakar-Madrid: Spain between emigration and immigration ................................................................. 18 The research frontier of clandestine migration ............................................................................................ 23 The illegality industry as research object .............................................................................. 25 The extended field site ..................................................................................................................... 30 Ethics and access .......................................................................................................................................................... 33 Thesis outline ....................................................................................................................................... 34 MOHAMMADOU AND THE MIGRANT-EATERS ............................................................39 The birth of a tragedy ...................................................................................................................... 42 Migrants as human deterrents .................................................................................................... 45 Migrants as money-spinners ........................................................................................................ 53 Migrants as content providers..................................................................................................... 61 Repatriation and the economics of affliction ....................................................................... 67 A GAME OF RISK .....................................................................................................................72 Joint Operation Hera: drawing the line ................................................................................... 74 Risk’s golden arrow: Frontex and the border business....................................................... 80 Seahorse: hardwiring the African frontier ............................................................................ 88 Surveillance: the men who stare at screens .......................................................................... 93 Kill the cyclops: Eurosur and the informatised border .................................................... 97 Conclusion: the making of a Euro-African frontier ........................................................ 103 HUNTER AND PREY ............................................................................................................ 107 Rucksacks and biscuits: clandestine-spotting in Dakar ................................................ 109 Reading the illegal mind at the Rosso border ................................................................... 115 Nouadhibou: the numbers game ............................................................................................. 122 The dehumanisation machine: crossing Africa’s internal sea ................................... 128 Oujda and the Strait: the politics of recognition .............................................................. 131 Conclusion: illegality put to work ........................................................................................... 138 THE CROSSING ..................................................................................................................... 140 The spectacle, Act one: guardian angels of the high seas ............................................ 143 Part I: symbiosis .......................................................................................................................................................