“You can make it here!”: Producing Europe’s mobile borders in the New Gambia

Abstract

European border externalization to “sending states” throughout Africa is a well-documented phenomenon. Less clear, however, is the role that African governments and implementing organizations play in border externalization, nor the precise mechanisms by which European borders are “mobilized” (Szary & Giraut, 2015) and projected into everyday spaces in “sending states”. Drawing on a case study of three different European border enforcement projects in The Gambia, I argue that a collaboration between the International Organization for Migration, the EU Emergency Trust Fund for Africa, and the Gambian government makes Gambians themselves agents of the European border. Drawing upon Szary and Giraut's notion of “borderities” (2015), I illustrate how the border is projected into The Gambia through an articulation of humanitarian borderwork with developmental approaches intended to solve the “root causes of migration” (Zaun & Nantermoz, 2021). Furthermore, I argue that the Gambian government is not passive in the process of border externalization, but actively involved in interpreting and rearticulating European policies and narratives about migration. Following Adamson and Tsourapas' (2020) reworking of the “migration state” concept, I demonstrate the Gambian government's active interests in bordering its own citizens: simultaneously encouraging emigration for the sake of national “development” while immobilizing young Gambians as part of a broader strategy to cooperate with European states. This research illustrates both the immense value of a “borderities” approach to studying contemporary migration management, and the close association between borderwork and nationhood in African post-colonial states.