Introduction: An Afro-Europeanist Perspective on EurAfrican Borders

Abstract

The volume analyzes the formation of the Europe’s externalized border management of African migrations, as well as its socio-cultural, political, economic and existential underpinnings and implications. The introduction lays the analytical foundations of this collective endeavor. As it is a process emanating from Europe, scholars have primarily studied the externalization of Europe’s borders from ‘inside out’, that is, as seen in the migrant-receiving context and the external dimensions of the Union’s policy. By contrast, the introduction makes a case for studying the African ramifications of Europe’s southern border, arguing that Europe’s external borders have also become African borders. It uses the term ‘EurAfrican’ to tease out the relational nature of border-making, and the legacy of asymmetric exchanges, encounters and (imperial) imaginations informing in complex ways the current border and migration management strategies in the Euro-African space. In order to analyze EurAfrican borders and migration management, the introduction further argues, an Afro-Europeanist perspective is needed that destabilizes centric epistemologies and strives to reinforce the dialogue between Africanist and Europeanist scholarships on borders.