The politics of migrant dispersal. Dividing and policing migrant multiplicities

Abstract

This article focuses on the politics of migrant dispersal that has been enforced in Europe for regaining control over ‘unruly’ migrants’ presence and movements, with a specific focus on the French and on the Italian contexts. The article shows that dispersal can be considered as a spatial strategy of governmentality and that far from being a new policy, it was already adopted to manage former colonised populations. The article argues that strategies of migrant dispersal are today enacted by state authorities, in collaboration with humanitarian actors, for troubling migrants’ presence and autonomous movements, as well as for disrupting and dividing temporary migrant collective formations. First, it retraces a colonial genealogy of dispersal, as a political technology used for disciplining unruly populations. Then, it analyses how dispersal strategies have been put into place in France (Calais and Paris) and in Italy (Ventimiglia) not only by scattering migrants across space but also by dismantling migrant spaces of life (‘lieux de vie’). The article moves on demonstrating that the politics of dispersal is mainly enforced for preventing the consolidation of migrant multiplicities, criminalising them as ‘migrant mobs’ and spatially dividing them. The third section of the article brings attention to the effects of migrants’ forced hypermobility and to the convoluted geographies that dispersal triggers. It concludes by bringing attention to the increasing criminalisation of migrant support networks that try to prevent the dismantling of migrant autonomous spaces.

Liberal Violence and the Racial Borders of the European Union

“…The European border's "integrity" is enforced through various forms of violence, both direct and indirect, that can lead to wounding and death to those who try to enter irregularly (Jeandesboz 2014). As critical migration scholars have shown, often the more indirect and geographically "distant" forms of violence are the most lethal: the removal of rescue ships in the Mediterranean for example, leaving thousands to drown as they make perilous journeys to Europe (Stierl 2018). Whilst there exists much insightful scholarship on the technologies of border governance (see Jones 2016), which have answered vital questions about how irregular bodies are immobilised and rendered precarious, there remains a critical need to also interrogate its foundational principles: its rationales, its logics.…”

“…Scholars of race and post-colonialism rightly ask us to consider how the racial logics underscoring racial violence are constructed, and similarly we must also uncover the ways in which that very racial violence is obscured. The multiple forms of social resistance, activism, and advocacy for migrant rights (Stierl 2018) and against racial violence in Europe suggest the potential to challenge what Losurdo (2011:344) described as liberalisms' exclusionary clauses. However, the strength of these resistances is at least partly dependent on the visibility of those injustices and their racial components.…”

“…The consequences of banning rescue missions in the Mediterranean (Garelli et al 2018), or the illegalisation of providing water for migrants in the Sonora desert both have deadly implications. Similarly, the attempts to illegalise food distribution to asylum seekers which may keep them in states of permanent hunger (Tazzioli 2019; Tyerman 2019); or “domicidal” practices such as the systematic soaking of belongings and the routine destruction of improvised migrant shelters in Calais and elsewhere (Hagan 2019; Van Isacker 2019). Other techniques of bordering take place away from the physical borderzone in institutional settings, where for example, healthcare for refugees can be denied or limited, which can allow preventable illnesses to debilitate those who might suffer from them (Dhesi et al 2018; Ilcan et al 2018).…”

How useful is the concept of transit migration in an intra-Schengen mobility context? Diving into the migrant smuggling and human trafficking nexus in search for answers

“…The instability of their administrative status as well as their living conditions was detrimental in their desire to continue their migration journey or to go back to their country of origin. The recent studies of the geographer Tazzioli (2019Tazzioli ( , 2020 portray distinct zones inside the Schengen Area where migrants end up stranded. The stranded condition experienced by migrants challenges the idea of "the free internal mobility practices" that is not only the result of the recent reinstallation of national border controls (see also van der Woude 2020; Guild et al 2015).…”

“…The stranded condition experienced by migrants challenges the idea of "the free internal mobility practices" that is not only the result of the recent reinstallation of national border controls (see also van der Woude 2020; Guild et al 2015). More specifically, Tazzioli's (2019Tazzioli's ( , 2020 ethnographic work conducted at the French/Italian and Italian/Swiss borders and in Calais (France) describes somewhat more conceived governmental strategies than the reinstallation of border checks. The strategies in place aimed at disrupting migrants' journeys and constantly diverting them from sensitive border zones.…”