“No Chance, My Friend”
A study of the humanitarian border and its consequences in the Jungle of Basroch and camp La Linière
Master Thesis Cultural Analysis Ivana Kalas 6120903 Dr. Timothy F. Yaczo 15 June 2016
Introduction
Today – while talking with my thesis supervisor about my failing motivation – I received a call from my friend, a people smuggler. We became friends in the Dunkirk refugee camps of Basroch and La Linière where I spent three months helping where I could. It became apparent rather quickly that he was involved in smuggling people to the United Kingdom – destination of choice for many. Before coming to the so-called jungle in Dunkirk I had thought my ethical boundaries would have stopped me from engaging in such a friendship but for some reason my routine boundaries became unhinged. The situation in which I found myself was so out of the ordinary that I was able to befriend somebody who crossed all my lines morally, or so I thought. My experiences living in this refugee camp coupled with my experiences as an activist in the
Netherlands got me thinking about territory, borders, and citizenship. After all, the only reason this camp exists is because of borders and the European governments’ involvement in keeping people away out of the sovereignty of the European Union. But there was another striking observation I had made, what was the unsettling force behind the shifting of boundaries which had previously seemed so immutable.
When I first arrived in the muddy make-shift camp in a suburb of Grande-Synthe, France I was in utter physical shock. In my journal I wrote: “Dunkerque. They (we) have devoid these people of humanity. How dare we?” I had been preparing to come to the camp for two weeks, bowing out twice before finally having the courage to go. In many ways, what I found in the jungle could only be described in terms of bare life. Mud would rise to your knees, there were hardly any sanitary facilities, and, most importantly, everybody was an ‘illegal immigrant’. Quickly, the realisation came that the long-term volunteers were of much more use to the residents of the camp and I believe this is the reason I stayed for so much longer than I had planned. In full honesty, if I had not had this thesis to write I would not have come back at all. Very early on I realised it was not my handing out of gas bottles or sleeping bags that was the real necessity to these people. Anybody could hand out supplies. Rather, it was the show of solidarity and friendship that they valued dearly. But more importantly, I grasped the true reason why I decided to come and live in the Dunkirk jungle. It was a protest. It was an act of citizenship.
Engin Isin describes the act of citizenship “as a consequence of the breakdown of our capacity to recognize how we should act.” (2008: 5) This was the shock I had experienced when first arriving, which I believe many people would have had, and certainly the people with me did.
Further, Isin posits that “a genuine encounter forces one to pose the question of how to act, exposing the need to develop new, creative responses to those occasions where we no longer recognize the context of action.” (2008: 4-5) I will analyse this attitude towards citizenship by drawing on the experiences I gathered during my stay in two particular (and very different) refugee
camps in France and on William Walters’ take on citizenship and ‘acts’. This will be examined in terms of the jungle camp as well as the ‘humanitarian’ camp. In “Acts of Demonstration: Mapping the Territory of (non-)Citizenship” (in Isin, Acts of Citizenship) Walters argues that alongside acts of citizenship there is the so-called act of demonstration that takes place. These are instances where “an injustice is revealed, a relationship of power is contested, or a particular wrong is protested.” (2008: 194) Through these acts of demonstration, migrants in fact highlight their transformative potential and subsequently unsettle borders and boundaries.
This paper will attempt to illustrate this transformative potential in terms of (in)visibilitly, with regards to the two camps’ location, and most importantly in its interaction with the
humanitarian border as proposed by Walters. He argues that in the field of border theory and studies a new development is taking place. That is to say, alongside the militarization, securitization and fortification of borders another trend has been observed which he names the “humanitarization of borders.” (2010: 138) The humanitarian border arises when migration (or as will be demonstrated later, the mobility) of people becomes a life or death situation. As such non-governmental
organisations and other humanitarian institutions offer their help at any border where it is needed. From the African to the French coast they serve to aid people in need and to document the situation the people find themselves in. The jungle camp in Grande-Synthe relied heavily if not exclusively on donations and volunteers to help distribute those donations, but the camp itself was built with tents that the people themselves had put up. As stark contrast, the La Linière camp, which was constructed by Médicines Sans Frontières, had a carefully arranged placement of shelters making it almost the complete opposite of the jungle camp Basroch. Juxtaposing these two camps, I will argue that not only does the term humanitarian convey a false sense of compassion but can in fact be detrimental to the survival of the people it supposedly aims to protect.
Because, at the humanitarian border there is another question that rises, namely, what is mostly at stake in any discourse on migration and mobility is the autonomy of the migrant. The narrative in Europe is focused too much on homo sacer, territories, and borders but certainly not enough on the autonomy of the migrant itself. This autonomy will be exemplified by analysing the way in which migrants take control of their own lives, in which they try to mitigate the borders they face, and this paper will aim to prove that the migrant is an uncompromising force in destabilising the borders, boundaries, and territory of Europe. In the image or figure of the migrant there are various modes of resistance, autonomy and citizenship to be found and through looking at a number of situations that serve as objects it will become apparent in which way the mobility of the migrant implies its autonomy.
The concepts offered by Isin and Williams will be set against the backdrop of two particular refugee camps I had the opportunity to live in. Namely, the self made, improvised ‘jungle’ camp
and its successor: the first ‘humanitarian’ refugee camp in Western Europe, camp La Linière. I had the unique chance to see the (forcible) transition from an unregulated camp to a highly regulated one. Here I will draw upon Giorgio Agamben’s theory of homo sacer as well as on theories of securitisation and fortification of borders. This will be done by looking at the way in which the two camps in France were bordered, or indeed, how those borders were unsettles by the inhabitants of the camps. These concepts both offer valuable insights and build upon Foucault’s lectures on governmentality, security and territory which will serve as a backbone to the discussion.
Of course, none of this would have been possible had Europe not invested in such a
contemptible immigration policy and securitization of its borders. Therefore, no research or analysis would be complete without critically looking at what it causing people to risk their lives in trying to cross so-called national borders. Much has been written about border theory, both in the past as well as about the current struggle, that I will only give a brief account of various theories underpinning migration and territory but ultimately I aim to posit the very paradoxical non-existence of borders in their traditional sense. Rather than nursing the idea of a fortress Europe, I will examine the ideas of Foucault and Williams by drawing on concepts of bio-politics, via-politics (the study of routes), and ultimately the idea of nation-building. Many theorists, amongst which Hardt and Negri, would claim that the age of the nation-state is over, and I aim to argue that we are in a transformative time in the concept of a nation-state, precisely because of the migration of people. Viewing the current highly polarized political climate throughout Europe, it is not unlikely at all that the concept of nation-state and the subsequent governing and disciplining of its population (whether this be documented or undocumented) has not yet seen its dying breath.
Finally, I want to point out that my stay at the camps was not intended as fieldwork research. In fact, only after returning home I decided I would write about my experiences of and viewpoints on this ‘refugee crisis’ Europe finds itself in. There are a myriad of interesting points of analysis when living in such a camp in fields of study varying from health care to linguistics. I decided on the concept of borders, whether these are national, geographic, or personal. Naturally, during my stay I had been thinking and theorizing about the state of affairs and I diligently took notes of this in my journal.
Green borders and green fences
In order to come to a coherent understanding of the transformative potential of the migrant it must first be established in what kind of conditions this migrant performs and what kind of
obstacles there are to overcome. The object I have chosen to do this is not one object per se but rather a juxtaposition of two types of borders, namely, the green natural borders of the jungle camp of Grande-Synthe and the green fencing of the new ‘humanitarian’ camp called La Linière. The potential in this analysis lies in the way the theory around borders is constructed and what the place of security, territory, and control have in such an approach. It will become clear that these are matters of visibility and invisibility. While contemporary theory concerning borders primarily focuses on the militarization and fortification of borders, William Walters introduced a new type of border, namely, the humanitarian border. It might sound as an oxymoronic idea if one sees the border as a force instead of as a space. However, what is at stake at the border is not the question of whether or not a person crosses it but rather in which conditions they find themselves during the crossing and, indeed, after the crossing.
Walters sees the rise of the humanitarian border in conjunction with the idea that border crossing has for many become a matter of life and death – thinking back to the deaths in the Mediterranean as well as at the France - UK border – and governments have repeatedly failed to answer appropriately in terms of securitization and fortification. What grew alongside those
countermeasures was a form of governmental humanitarianism. This means that governmentality is not limited in respect to humanitarianism. To explain this further Walters quotes Didier Fassin saying:
“Humanitarian government can be defined as the administration of human collectivities in the name of a higher moral principle which see the preservation of life and the alleviation of suffering as the
highest value of action.” (2010: 143)
This passage serves to illustrate that contrary to what the word might suggest the humanitarian border is, in fact, not exclusively a site of compassionate and humane action. Rather, it is yet another form of governmentality that operates at the side of the militarization and securitization of borders. To put this in terms of the French refugee camps, I will argue that this attempted
alleviation of suffering by creating the La Linière humanitarian camp is not a pure and merciful approach but rather another form of what Foucault called ‘pastoral power’ which actually has very significant consequences to the autonomy and agency of the individuals it seeks to ‘protect’.
According to Françoise Vergès these kinds of restrictions are not genuine appeals to humanitarian logic but rather a form of pastoral power. (Kasparek & Speer. 2013: 263)
The object that speaks loudest when considering the humanitarian border and the idea of pastoral power is the fencing around the La Linière camp, constructed by MSF under order of the French state. When the camp first opened, the fencing – a semi-robust green fence with barbed wire on top – enclosed the camp on two sides, leaving open a back and front entrance where police stood watch and a third exit which was not accessible by car. However, as the camp grew the conspicuous green fence started expanding to even cover some pathways away from camp that were used by residents of the camp to move about more efficiently. I will approach this act of fencing off from a number of particular perspectives. Namely, what do these borders illicit in terms of security, i.e. how do they ensure the safety of the residents of the camp. Secondly, how convincing is the argument that the fences are there for protection. Finally, what are the outcomes of these fences and what does this say about the true reasoning behind them?
However, before turning to La Linière the conditions of the previous jungle camp must be clarified. This recently demolished self-made camp was situated in a park in the middle of a middle class neighbourhood in a suburb of Dunkirk where people had put up tents and shelters. According to some estimates the camp was ‘founded’ ten years ago as a make-shift domicile for people trying to cross the Channel to the United Kingdom. It is important to note that the people wishing to cross the border had themselves chosen its location due to its proximity to both the city centre of Grande-Synthe as well as Loon Plage, the port from which lorries board ships to England.
With the camp population’s rapid growth – from about 250 people in September 2015 to a staggering 2500 upon the camp’s eviction in March 2016 – the securitization of the camp grew accordingly. This was mainly due to the increase in different groups of people smugglers as much as it was to give the residents of the Grande-Synthe neighbourhood a sense of security. As the camp was in a park, its borders were very fluid. The main entrance through which supplies could be brought in was always guarded by the police. This entrance can be seen as the only strict border separating the ‘migrants’ from the French ‘citizens’. Its supposed aim is to control the only access point so that it would be impossible – or at least made more difficult – for smugglers to bring weapons into the camp. As there had been gun and knife incidents involving wounded persons this would seem as a very reasonable proposition were it not for the fact that there were a myriad other ways of entering the camp. The camp was not fenced off, nor was the police check-point heavily secured. Somebody who really wanted to, and as I am confident, surely did could bypass the security measures by simply entering the camp through the bushes surrounding the it. This begs the question of what the significance of the police check-point really was.
Here is where Michel Foucault and his lectures on Security, Territory, and Population has an explanation to offer. (1977-8) He posits security as “as series of supervisions, checks,
inspections, and varied controls that, even before the thief has stolen, make it possible to identify whether or not he is going to steal.” (19) In the above case of the camp check-point, we can replace ‘thief’ with ‘smuggler’ and observe a similar outcome. As various reports in the media affirm – albeit in rather general terms – the amount of smuggling gangs in France has indeed decreased. Nonetheless, is this decrease in direct connection with border security such as the one depicted at the entrance of the Basroch camp or is this an attempt at portraying the latter as an effective method of protecting territory – in this case a sleepy French suburb? After all, the French territory had been breached by what some refer to as the “migrant” or “refugee” crisis which according to Nicholas De Genova actually signals “a crisis of Europe’s borders.” (2016: n.p) Indeed, Europe’s border had become unstable and it appeared from the outskirts of the ‘fortress’ to the seemingly innocent suburbia of Northern France. It is precisely this crisis of the European border that is the reason for the police interference at the Basroch border. As De Genova later in the same article postulates: “the ensuing discourse was compulsively preoccupied with “illegal” migration and the “criminal” predations of “smugglers” and “traffickers” as pretexts for renewed and expanded tactics of militarised interdiction.”
Moreover, if we look back at Foucault and his concept of population and control over said population – which is something any government will strive for – then it becomes clear that the site of this camp has become a destabilising force in the concept of citizenship and therefore population. As William Walters puts it in “Acts of Demonstration:”
“In the figure of and the elusive movements of the irregular migrants, many theorists of autonomous migration have detected a deterritorializing force that is unravelling statist regimes of citizenship
and, in some cases, prefiguring new spaces of affinity and community.” (184)
It is not difficult to understand this position in relation to the Basroch camp, including the police check-points and the narrative of victimisation of migrants by human traffickers. In fact, the security control carried out by the law enforcement in attempts to bring an end to smuggling serve to suggest the notion that this ‘deterritorializing’ is not taking place and that France’s borders as well as the European ones are safely guarded and that no one is crossing them unauthorised.
Nonetheless, by simply being where they are and where they set up camp, these ‘irregular migrants’ had shaken the foundations of citizenship and territory. Far from being kept at the outskirts of Europe, they had nestled themselves in suburbia, where, hard as Europe might, they could no longer be ignored. The camp was a new space of community both within and outside the
borders of France. However, as the camp grew and the ‘invisible’ crisis of Europe’s borders became rapidly visible, the city of Dunkirk called for the eviction of the camp.
Before the eviction of the Basroch camp, MSF had already begun constructing a new camp, which would be the first official humanitarian refugee camp in France. It is important to note which aspects of securitization played a part in constructing this new camp. Initially, the French state did not want to be part of building, financing, or running the camp in fear of coming across as inviting, thereby stimulating more migrants to come to their country. Nevertheless, they imposed various rules and regulations to which the NGO and volunteer organisations, the builders and the management of the camp had to adhere.
When La Linière opened it was a collaborative effort between a number of non-governmental agencies and volunteer organisations to get the place functional. It was a big operation in which a bare plot of land had to be converted into a camp that would meet humanitarian standards that the old jungle camp of Grande-Synthe lacked. The cabins were designed to be built in an efficient manner, sanitary facilities were ample, and a German people’s kitchen which had provided food in the jungle was to cook food for the people until the communal kitchen accommodations were built. However, while everything seemed to be coming together nicely, the French state intervened and criticised the camp’s ‘security regulations’. In an interview with the prefect of the Nord-Pas-De-Calais region, Avi Davis for France24 reported that instead of talking about the humanitarian crisis in France, the prefect preferred to focus on these security regulations saying that “there needs to be a wall between the migrants and the highway, smoke detectors must be installed, and the cabins […] are too close together.”1 MSF and the builders of the
camp complied with the regulation imposed by the French government and built a fence separating the camp from the rail tracks and the highway. To explain these demands made by the French state, I turn back to Foucault’s lectures on security and territory. While demonstrating his concept of security, Foucault draws on the 18th century French concept of a town. He writes:
“The details of the planned development are not important. I think the plan is quite important, or anyway significant, for a number of reasons. First, there is no longer any question of construction
within an empty or emptied space. [...] Discipline works in an empty, artificial space that is to be completely constructed. Security will rely on a number of material givens (sic). It will, of course, work on site with the flows of water, islands, air, and so forth. Thus it works on a given. Second, this given will not be reconstructed to arrive at a point of perfection, as in a disciplinary town. It is
simply a matter of maximizing the positive elements, for which one provides the best possible
1 Davis, Avi. “Grande-Synthe: the humanitarian camp that France didn’t want.” France24. Mar. 2016. Web. 3 June 2016
circulation, and of minimizing what is risky and inconvenient, like theft and disease, while knowing that they will never be completely suppressed.” (34)
In order to explain this somewhat elusive passage, we must take out of his analysis the time frame in which Foucault placed it. Practically, constructing a town in the 18th century would certainly need
different types of constructions and requirements to stop the spreading of disease or theft, as Foucault points out. However, the structure remains the same. As I mentioned the placement of the new camp before, which is squeezed between a highway and rail roads, was a way of ensuring that the conditions as they had been in Basroch could not replicate themselves. This time the borders were strict and they were physical. This served to establish a more rigid and effective police control – not just in terms of who would enter the camp. The arrangement of ‘buildings’ within the camp proved to be the most useful tool in minimising risks. Unlike the chaotic tent jungle of Basroch, the houses in La Linière were arranged in such an order that it became incredibly easy for the police to arrest people they suspected of smuggling2.
Here we see a very clear instance of the indistinct boundaries between the humanitarization and securitization of the border. The French prefect stated that the above mentioned regulations were needed to make the camp more secure. This would imply a humanistic approach especially considering he had made comments about the jungle camp’s dire conditions in the same interview. For the well-being of the residents of the camp there had to be safety measures put in place, making sure that the risk of uncontrolled fires and similar contingencies would be kept to a bare minimum. The camp’s management placed an – unsuccessful – ban on open fires, gas cookers, and tarpaulin extensions of the shelters in order to comply with the demands set by the state. William Walters explains this by saying that the “humanitarian border [is] not a set of ideas and ideologies, nor simply [an] activity of certain nongovernmental actors and organization, but as a complex domain possessing specific forms of governmental reason.” (2010: 143)
One of these governmental reasons is Foucault’s concept of pastoral power. Pastoral power – originated, according to Foucault, in the Christian tradition – is now being used as a governmental tool to ensure individuals are safe and obedient. This pastoral power can be found in various acts of governing, including in the humanitarian approach. Tying this in with La Linière’s strict set of rules – which of course people will find a way to break – is nothing more than a way of governing people. Taking into consideration the fact that the communal kitchens were not yet operational while the ban on gas cookers and open fires was in effect, it becomes clear that the people would
2 No author. “Migrants: interpellations de passeurs présumés au camp de Grande-Synthe” Le Monde. 6 June 2016. Web. 10 June 2016.
come to rely on the camp’s (and therefore the state’s) whims to eat, warm themselves, and make the camp a temporary home. It is difficult to imagine a compliant attitude towards these strict measures.
However, another – more insidious – aspect of the vacillating borders between humanitarization and securitization arises when closely looking at those dark green fences
surrounding the camp. Ignoring some more simplistic arguments as to why barriers – instead of say, common sense – were needed to stop people from wandering on to the highway, I want to turn to governmental control as an explanation. Whereas, according to Foucault, sovereignty is concerned with laws, governmentality is concerned with population. According to Walters, having migrants all in one specific location will make it much easier “to manage and monitor the population.” (2010: 147) Doubting the straightforward argument of protecting the people by constructing barriers, it is not hard to imagine the French state as wanting to have more control over the new camp than they did in the jungle camp – which, with its location being in something like a park, had no fences or borders. In the La Linière camp, the two main entrances were points of control while having fencing around the camp ensured that people could not leave unnoticed. Any government will strive to have control over a certain population whether this population exists within or outside (or in a draconian grey zone) of the political spheres. In fact, by complying with the desires of the French state, the humanitarian organisations that were responsible for putting up the fencing became agents in the biopolitical power-play which they so strongly discouraged. Drawing on Foucault’s ideas on governmentality, Walters writes:
“When humanitarian NGOs take up functions in the management of detention centres [...] then we have a kind of border element. Agencies that are in many respects quite critical of the state and its treatment of refugees become ambivalent functionaries in its extended networks. Of course, such co-options are likely never smooth. And the NGO workers are not naive about what they are getting
into. No doubt they produce tension and perhaps even fracture within the non-state organizations. Nevertheless, it is out of such movements that a border regime is assembled and operates through networks that reach far beyond the formal boundaries of the state.” (“Reflections on Migration and
Governmentality” 2015: n.p.)
The construction and subsequent securitization of La Linière was primarily done out of
humanitarian beliefs. MSF – which had been providing medical aid at the jungle camp – believed it was necessary to construct a new humanitarian camp nearby both Calais (which was facing partial eviction – and currently still is) and the Grande-Synthe camp which would be completely
idea of a humanitarian camp was not an incomprehensible course of action yet the compliance with the state does offer some dilemmas to consider.
To understand the problematic position the camp and its managers find themselves in, we must turn to Nicholas De Genova and his concept of the border spectacle and victimisation of migrants. As was mentioned before, the jungle camp of Grande-Synthe was chosen by the people as their preferred location from which to continue their journey to the UK. In even the most basic view the camp was constructed according to what people saw fit. This is precisely what made it a
‘jungle’. The placement of tents, the paths that it created, and the space which it inhabited. The old Basroch camp was in fact a space of autonomy and agency which was completely lost when the camp was demolished and its residents were moved to the fenced off new camp. The way in which the new camp was set up – in neatly distributed, numbered shelters as opposed to the utterly chaotic tent placement – was a way in which control of the population could be exercised. When I use the word ‘population’ I do not mean the entirety of the camp. Rather the contrary, a very distinct part population in itself came under scruple, namely, the population of people smugglers in the camp. In “The border spectacle of migrant ‘victimisation’” Nicholas De Genova writes the following, in which he delineates what he calls the paternalistic, in fact, patriarchal (pastoral, perhaps) approach of European states to people smuggling:
“In these instances, the state’s ‘protection’ is benevolently extended beyond its ‘rightful’ citizens to include some migrants, particularly women purportedly rescued from the intrinsic criminal excesses
of ‘illegal’ migration itself. The ‘trafficking’ discourse thus narrowly identifies the source of the migrants’ ‘exploitation’ as a ‘foreign’ one — ‘smugglers’, and the whole ‘opportunistic’ infrastructure of ‘illegal’ migration itself. In this way, illegalised migrants are deemed to be in need
of ‘protection’—from one another!” (2015: n.p.)
Returning back to La Linière, the green fencing and arrangement of shelters comes into a new light. It becomes apparent that it is not at all the security and safety of the residents of the camp that the French state is concerned with but rather the opposite. If the French state was indeed concerned with the well-being of its refugees seeking passage to Britain they would not have signed agreements with the UK ensuring the latter could control its border on the French side of the Channel. As a matter of fact, the securitization of camp La Linière is a form of control which the French government desired in battling the smuggling organisations that are operating there. From personal experience I know that the police would enter the camp and check the shelters one by one until they either found who they were looking for or if they were given information by residents as
to where those people are. Naturally, with or without the residents’ cooperation, the fences of the camp and the arrangement of shelters proved as sufficient measures to enact power and control.
How does this then connect with the concept of the humanitarian border as a means of governing? To answer this it must be established that what is at stake when the smugglers are caught and arrested it is not so much their breaking the law – which, according to Foucault, is what sovereignty is concerned with – but rather their part in destabilising the status of the inhabitants of the camp. Foucault’s take on governmentality says that it is concerned with the status of inhabitants, a status which, in essence, is always being destabilised by migrants. Here we can see the real reason behind the persecution of smugglers but also the part that the humanitarian intervention at this border plays. Walters draws on Hardt & Negri’s concept of ‘Empire’ in outlining this problem:
“There is a point to be made about humanitarianism, power, and order. Those looking to locate contemporary humanitarianism within a bigger picture would perhaps follow the lead of Hardt and
Negri. As these theorists of “Empire” see things, NGOs […] are, contrary to their own best intentions, implicated in global order. As agents of “moral intervention” who, because they participate in the construction of emergency, “prefigure the state of exception from below,” these
actors serve as the preeminent “frontline force for of imperial intervention.” As such, Hardt and Negri see humanitarianism as “completely immersed in the biopolitical context of the construction
of Empire.” (Hardt and Negri 2000:36)” (148)
What the humanitarian intervention at the border then does is make possible for the domination of the politics of citizenship in which illegality is produced by intra-national migration laws. For Hardt and Negri the role of nation states is rapidly diminishing to be replaced with a construction of modern apparatuses ranging from governments, corporations, and nongovernmental instruments. Therefore, we can see that the humanitarianism at the border can no longer be seen as merely an altruistic act but rather as another agent in the operations of Empire. However, the main issue as it practically and personally affects the residents of the La Linière camp is not whether or not Empire exists, their main concern is with how they will navigate this space of control. This becomes increasingly more difficult if the residents of the camp have no means – i.e. no smugglers – to get into lorries, ships, or indeed the UK.
Finally, there is something to be said about the hypocrisy inherent to the humanitarian borders. As it has been established, the humanitarian border is a place of governmental control much like the securitization and fortification of borders are. However, the questions remains as to why this type of control is deemed necessary. Mark Kelly offers an explanation when he draws on Foucault’s concept of state racism. In an age where it has become normalised by many societal
groups to proclaim their racist affiliations, it is left to the state to deny these allegations. However, as Kelly writes:
“Given that our society supposedly values human life per se, and given the existence of legal declarations to this effect, […] it seems to me that state racism in Foucault’s sense is an important,
extremely simple, yet utterly necessary concept for understanding the gross inconsistencies in the valuation of human life by our society.” (2004: 68)
This is precisely the crux of the matter when approaching borders, especially the humanitarian border. The gross discrepancies with which the French state approached its first and only
humanitarian refugee camp is completely incongruous with their approach to the jungle camps or otherwise ‘homeless’ refugees. While the state has recently agreed to financially aid the
humanitarian camp three months after its opening, nevertheless they tried blocking its opening initially. The unwillingness of the state to concern itself in any humanitarian manner with its refugees camps (whether legal or illegal) is in stark contrast to its supposed value attached to human life. This ties in with its aims to control the population to which the NGOs involved with the camp complied out of sheer necessity. Taking this into account it becomes apparent – in a very nefarious way – why the bordering of the La Linière camp was inevitable, namely, to ensure in a very crooked way the valuation of human life only as it is threatened by people smugglers.
While the Mediterranean sea is a site of vast migrant death, much reported on in the media, it is easy to forget that the inner borders of Europe also see the unnecessary death of people trying to cross them. People put their lives at significant risk when they choose to hang onto the axle of a lorry or take a chance when they climb into the trailer. In August 2015 the bodies of 71 people had been found in an abandoned truck, they had died of suffocation3. While this is reported on in media,
there is barely any public outrage to change these people’s circumstances. In fact, all of the responsibility is put on the people smugglers and hardly any responsibility is assigned to the mechanism that impel smuggling in the first place. As De Genova notes in his online article “The “Crisis” of the European Border Regime:”
“Regardless of the specific sites and forms of bordering, migrants’ and refugees’ lives have been mercilessly sacrificed – usually with callous disregard, occasionally with sanctimonious hypocrisy –
in the interest of instituting a “new” Europe encircled by ever-increasingly militarised and securitised borders.” (2016: n.p.)
3 Strohecker, Karin. “Children among 71 migrants found dead in truck in Austria.” Reuters. 28 Aug. 2015. Web. 5 June 2016.
So while the French government is actively patrolling, arresting, and prosecuting people smugglers they are completely ignoring the devices that drive people to turn to traffickers in the first place. The green fencing around the camp, which was supposed to be for the people’s own protection comes apart as a grim and flagrant farce of humanitarian reasoning. There is a parallel to be drawn here between state racism and the construction of borders, or indeed, fences. As
previously stated, the new La Linière camp and its fencing became a new way to ensure a distinct border between France and the ‘illegal migrants’. This is in an effort to reconstitute its own nation state – which is threatened by the migrant – and assert its sovereignty through biopolitics of which state racism is a part.
State racism, according to Kelly is not a question of nationality or race but rather he elucidates: “the biopolitical exclusion of criminals needs only the idea that they are harmful to society, not that they are racially dangerous at a genetic level. [this] allows for the identification of enemies as being outside of the population” and subsequently “letting them die, since part of the biopolitical technology […] is trying to keep people alive.” (2004: 60-2) While this seem as a contradictory statement, what it really tell us is that a state without subject cannot be a state at all. So therefore, concerning both the population of residents of La Linière as well as its smugglers, to maintain this population, a certain part of it must be cast off. In fact, this is precisely the function of the humanitarian border which is not a site separate from the securitised border but works in tandem in enforcing Kelly’s notion of state racism and control of population. In this way, the green fences surrounding La Linière become biopolitical tools to safeguard the population over which the state desires to have power while at the same time the fences serve as an instrument of control in that they essentially transform the camp into a prison.
While it has become clear what problematic position the residents of the La Linière camp find themselves in, I briefly want to put this in contrast with the jungle camp which they had to leave. As many of the people I spoke to in the camp pointed out, their condition of bare life in the camp made their struggle more apparent. They became visible in media which reported on their horrid living conditions but also with charity organisations and individual volunteers who came to their aid. In this way they collectively maintained pressure on the French, British, and European governments not to ‘forget’ about them. They choose to remain outside of the political order which was a transformative act in itself. By setting camp in this particular environment, the undocumented migrants had performed an act of demonstration, in Walters’ terms. They were highlighting their suffering through living in such bare conditions as the camp, they were pointing out the power struggle with the police – which often times would not allow for tents and/or building materials to be brought into the camp – and they were protesting the injustices they suffer by simply being there.
They demonstrated homo sacer. Instead of remaining passive victims of their situation, the residents of the camp in fact politicised the concept.
Much like William Walters, I approach the concept of homo sacer from a different
perspective than Giorgio Agamben did in his eponymous book. I would like to point out a relation between autonomy (or agency) and the idea of homo sacer is an often overlooked one. While in the following part of the this paper I will focus more in depth on autonomy it has to be said that, as citizens without citizenship, the undocumented residents of the jungle camp in Grande-Synthe took to claim their rights, both to be physically visible as well as by appropriating the concept of homo
sacer. This transformative act of citizenship and non-citizenship solicited a disciplinary act from the
French state. The camp was to be evicted. Walters asks to what extent is the “frequently bleak and occasionally apocalyptic vision that Agamben [offers] us challenged by the perspective of
autonomous migration.” (2008: 184) This inquiry leads to the importance of the agency of people living in the jungle camp had. This particular type of agency, so it would appear, was taken away from them when they were moved to the new ‘humanitarian’ camp.
In the previous part of this paper I have attempted to outline the problems in the transition between the two refugee camps of Dunkirk in terms of the humanitarian border, security, and control. It has shown that the humanitarian border is a complicated and precarious type of bordering to investigate. It has also proven to be filled with contradictions and paradoxes which it so deftly tries to mitigate in terms of migrant death and border security. However, as with any kind of bordering, also the humanitarian border falls within the sphere of governmentality, as Walters has indicated. It is not simply the act of humanitarianism, i.e. the NGOs and volunteer organisations that come to the aid of people, but rather it works together with other forms of governmentality to produce a consistent control over a particular population.
While the jungle camp of Basroch destabilised the pretence of the fixed French borders, with its keen location in French suburbia, it was nevertheless as much subject to the
humanitarisation of borders as it as was to the securitisation of such. However, because of its location the fluid nature of a border became too visible and the camp had to be evicted. The residents of the camp were offered new accommodations in the much more isolated, much less visible new ‘humanitarian’ camp which stripped them of the autonomy they had possessed while in their personally assembled camp.
The new camp, La Linière became a sight of even more control and security. Under the guise of humanitarianism the population became subject to regular raids and a general sense of imprisonment. The gangs of smugglers – i.e. the migrant’s only means of crossing to the UK – were arrested on a great scale, all under the pretext of victimisation of migrants. The juxtaposition of two distinct borders in the Grande-Synthe refugee camps has shown that while governmental control,
through police check-points and random searches, was always present, only did it become a problem for the population of the camp after the green shrubs were replaced with green metal fences. The argument that the fencing had been put up for the safety of the people is in direct conflict with the rest of the French governments attitude towards migrants. They still let them die at the borders while it is in their power to end this immediately. Due to what De Genova called the ‘sanctimonious hypocrisy’ of Europe at the present stage there probably will not be massive restructuring of the border controls, at least not in a way that would significantly decrease the amount of smuggling or, indeed, make migrants’ lives more secure. So the only means the French state is left with are apparatuses of control and security.
Considering the case of homo sacer and the European society’s attitude towards the jungles of France, which is one of pity, it can seem that the construction of the ‘humanitarian’ camp by MSF was an act of compassion but this is not the case. Simply put, it was a necessary outcome of the rise of the humanitarian border. Various reports and articles in the media have shed light on the terrible living conditions of both the Dunkirk jungle as well as the Calais jungle. They continuously stressed the inhumane conditions the people were forced to live in. So when the La Linière camp opened it was welcomed as it was the first internationally recognised humanitarian camp in Western Europe. However, as the following will aim to prove, there are some grave pitfalls when the
victimisation of the migrant and the concept of homo sacer are not adequately investigated.
Acts of Citizenship, Resistance, and Autonomy
While there is no doubt that the jungle camp of Basroch was an appalling situation for people to live in, there is no reason to assume that in the La Linière camp the situation for the migrants has improved in any other terms than hygienically. As stated before, what they lost was a sense of autonomy and agency. These two things are of vital importance to anyone, and in particular to people in the position of migrant or refugee because as Walters puts it, they are “subjects lacking formal rights or recognition [who] constitute themselves […] as capable of acting like citizens, and meriting treatment as citizens.” (2008: 192) What follows will deal with these acts of citizenship as coined by Engin Isin in his eponymous book. These acts will be explored through Agamben’s idea of the ‘camp’ and the maladaptation of his homo sacer. It will become apparent that the migrant and its mobility will always be sights of struggle. It will challenge the idea of borders and fences in both literal and symbolic terms. But most importantly, it will position the migrant as an autonomous movement which continuously unsettles how Europe should view its current ‘crisis’.
As the rhetoric of ‘crisis’ persist, so have European states tried to fortify their borders, making it near impossible for migrants to enter the inner territories of Europe. This is done through
stricter passport or visa control, boat patrols at sea, and through increased deportations. This mean that the importance of smugglers in the lives of migrants cannot be understated. While the European governments fail to provide in the needs of passage, citizenship, and legality for the migrants, the people smugglers fill part of this vacuum. However, whenever there is massive migrant death European agencies both governmental and non-governmental responded with the same
anti-smuggling rhetoric. They point a crooked finger at the inhumane conditions the people are found in, instead of opening a dialogue about their own accountability. In fact, what is completely lacking is the personal responsibilities that Europe should take in their creation of the conditions in which people are forced to take drastic measures and put their fate in the hands of smugglers.
However, personal agency and autonomy should not be forgotten and perhaps to say that people are ‘forced’ into the exploitative hands of people smugglers can be considered an
exaggeration, precisely because this exploitation is not so much solely exploitation of the migrants themselves – who nevertheless have to pay obscene amounts for a crossing – but rather of the European policy of legality and illegality as it now exists. In the end, the displaced people (migrants) have chosen their intended place of residence, whether this be the UK or simply the European Union, and they will try to reach it at all costs. This is a problem for the states of the EU precisely because of the defiant nature of the act. In another article De Genova elaborates on this:
“Whether as “a” population, or numerous distinct populations, or a part of “the” population, migrants may be understood to disregard, if not actively subvert, “the rules of obedience” of which
Foucault speaks by prioritizing their own basic needs and requirements.” (2013: 3) This important aspect in the transition between camps and the subsequent securitization of La Linière has not yet been adequately addressed, namely, the autonomy and agency of the ‘refugees’ themselves. Frequently, in the debate regarding the migration, smuggling, and
accommodation of displaced people, there is a narrative of victimisation and salvation which is tied to the concept of homo sacer. Often what happens is that Giorgio Agamben’s theory and ideas concerning homo sacer might be taken over too easily and there needs to be a more critical analysis of his theory. When Giorgio Agamben coined the phrase homo sacer it was with the conditions of concentration camps in WWII in mind. He has much theorised on this idea of a camp and while it is completely misleading to compare concentration camps to the current humanitarian camp of France there are parallels to be drawn in terms of security and visibility. He writes:
“The camp is the space that is opened when the state of exception begins to become the rule. In the camp, the state of exception, which was essentially a temporary suspension of the rule of law on the
basis of a factual state of danger, is now given a permanent spatial arrangement, which as such nevertheless remains outside the normal order.” (1995: 83)
With this in mind it becomes very clear that there are certain similarities in which both kinds of camps operated, because – while it is the homo sacer that was present in the camp – it is the state of exception that conceived of these conditions. What this state of exception in fact entails is more than just the previous two concepts. Indeed, he coins the phrase ‘zone of indistinction’ to elaborate on the situation in which ‘refugees’ find themselves. As Walters explains, these people find
themselves in an “ambiguous [zone] between the inside and the outside, the social condition of being neither fully included nor fully recognized.” (2008: 186-7) And this is what the state has done: removing the people from their self chosen camp, in which they as far as they possibly could had placed themselves outside of the political, social, and arguably legal spheres, the French state placed them in a governmentally overseen – and at this time of writing even completely taken over – camp. The French state tried to reverse this ambiguous situation by placing them in the ‘camp’ instead of the jungle and thereby again creating a sphere of ambiguity, in the legal, social, and spatial way. The ‘refugees’ were made invisible again.
While much has been theorised about homo sacer and the concept of the camp since Agamben published his work, I will focus on William Walters’ interpretation and contestation of the camp as used by Agamben. In “Acts of Demonstration” Walters argues that:
“If the latter [homo sacer] designates a space and an identity where the migrant appears suspended between an inside and an outside, positioned as a vulnerable, ‘bare’ existence, the theme of autonomous migration offers a quite different and in certain respect more optimistic view of unauthorized forms of migration – one that signals their transformative potential” (2008: 184)
Here, I want to focus on this ‘transformative potential’ of the migrant in terms of citizenship, territory, and resistance. There are a few instances in the camp that stand out when thinking about these concepts. First of all, after the fencing around the camp started expanding, there arose a certain tug of war in the autonomous movement of the camp’s residents. It is worth exploring what these different routes have to say about the idea of a border (or fence), or as William Walters puts it, the focus must be shifted away from a border centric theory to a supplementation with the study of routes, i.e. viapolitics, which “would, amongst other things, address the different ways in which routes and their vehicles become stakes in power relations and political actions.” (2015: n.p.)
Now, I want to address the agency of the migrant, an issue that is at stake when Agamben’s concept of homo sacer is not adequately adapted. This will tie into the previous part that dealt with the securitization of the humanitarian camp in order to exert control over its population. In order to investigate this I will turn to a particular incident in the camp that I was witness to where the police came to raid shelters and potentially arrest suspected smugglers. Here, the police was expelled from the camp in a fitting act of autonomy. It will become clear that Walters’ idea of the transformative potential of the migrant is, in fact, a great addition in the discourse on bare life which leaves out the crucial yet often overlooked facet of autonomy.
When theorising about the autonomy of the migrant it must first be established why such a concept would exist. What makes a migrant autonomous or, indeed, dependent? In this respect it can be argued that the dependency – on aid, passage, or citizenship – by migrants is constructed through the policy-scape in contemporary Europe. In the last twenty years alone the borders of Europe have vacillated frequently, by establishing the Schengen zone, by expanding on which country was included in Schengen, and then more recently, by closing the borders again. The closing of the borders and reinstated checkpoints were a direct response to the migration flow through certain areas. However, the impact of the closing of certain parts of Europe did not have the effect of fortifying Europe further, rather, it forced displaced people to find new ways of movement. This is exactly what Walters meant when he stated that “stateless persons actively negotiate the world of borders.” (2008: 190) This activeness is the crucial element in the autonomy of the
migrant. It means that while Europe is vigorously engaged in fortifying its outer borders and trying to maintain control over its population, the stateless person will find a means around them.
This is precisely what happened in the La Linière camp. As previously mentioned, the dark green fence so distinct to the camp, started popping up in areas far removed from the camp. At one of such fences, which was intended to dissuade people from using this particular path, I was directly confronted with Walters’ concept of viapolitics. In general, it is interesting to observe which ways residents of La Linière used to move about more efficiently, but in this specific case it became more than a simple study of movement. What that green fence symbolises is exactly the governmental focus on the construction of borders and no light is shed on the study of roads. As Walters states: “All migrations involve journeys and those journeys are more often than not mediated by complex infrastructures, authorities and norms of transportation.” (2014: 2) However, this mediation is nothing more than the attempt to interfere with the movement of stateless people. It should be more concerned with free movement. Governments, NGOs, and the French state in this particular context still think in terms of borders while Walters argues this should be combined that with thinking about movement, the road, and the means of transportation themselves.
With his concept of viapolitics Walters is not trying to supplant border theory – or give the state a better means of controlling its population – but instead wishes to shed more light on an important outcome of the act of bordering, namely, the journey. He explains this concept by drawing on Foucault’s history of sexuality in which Foucault explains that even though sex as an act has always existed, it is the apparatus of the state, physicians, laws, etc that shaped sexuality as a concept. Walters extends this to the study of the road, or the journey and explains that the journey is inherent in all forms of migration but that it is not always an interesting point of analysis. Rather, it is:
“only under specific conditions and with particular effects that the journey, the route, its vehicles and the complex social relations that underpin any journey become objects of expert knowledge and
counter-knowledge. We are in the presence of viapolitics only when migration is problematized from the angle of the journey, and the vehicles, authorities, markets, infrastructures, and
subjectivities that mediate that journey.” (On the Road with Foucault. 6)
For Walters, the word via has three connotations but he wishes to focus on the third meaning of the word which is old Latin for ‘road’. The road and the journey are inextricably linked and – in terms of the recent migration into and through Europe – the images it produces (of dingies or lorries cramped with people) are appropriated by politicians to serve as a means to control and patrol more of Europe’s borders, in the name of protection. However, in the politics of migrations there is a space created by the road which disrupts the standard narrative about migration and mobility and forces a fresh perspective. Instead of putting emphasis on the control of borders it is worth while to look at how these borders are transmuted, revised, and revisited. This both illustrates the essential transformation power of the migrant but also underlines its autonomy and agency.
When the news broke that the jungle of Dunkirk would be closed down, Médicines Sans Frontières together with the municipality of Grande-Synthe, set out to build this new camp that would meet the humanitarian requirements which the old camp severely lacked. They had decided upon the location of the new camp – an old industrial terrain wedged between a dozen rail road tracks on one side and A16 motorway on the other. This meant that for even the simplest of errands – going to the shop 2km away – would require the residents to walk for 30 minutes. Taking into account that these people would try almost on a nightly basis to board trucks for the UK, this choice of location was highly impractical for the people who would come to reside in the camp. However, it does aid in removing the supposed problem from view. Not only in a literal sense, by relocating the camp, but rather by removing the bare life conditions of mud and filth and replace it with little wooden cabins (which many referred to as chicken coops) and solid ground. Nevertheless, what happened was quite the opposite. With the move from the jungle to the humanitarian camp, the
displaced people actually lost more autonomy and more importantly, they were made into homo
sacer all the more, but with one important aspect: the people would resist.
In another attempt to control people’s movement, the green fencing of the camp started turning up at sites that were not located near the camp. One such fence was blocking a path which, according to some people smugglers, was particularly convenient for remaining relatively invisible and secure. This path led onto the shoulder of the motorway, then down an exit to an underpass which led underneath the motorway, through high grass in which people’s feet had etched a path, and through some shrubbery towards the camp. There was no road on which cars could pass and therefore was considered as a safer way to navigate around the constant threat of police controls. Underneath the motorway was a familiar green fence which made a valiant attempt at keeping people from using this particular path. It was, of course, torn down within the first few days of the camp’s opening. Every day I passed by it it was torn open a little bit more until finally it had been thrown in the grass next to the underpass.
To illustrate why this seemingly simplistic act of tearing down a fence is a sign of the transformative potential that is so crucial to the autonomy of migrants, I want to address another situation in which the agency of the residents of the camp overtook the governmental attempts at control. There is a progression through time in these acts of resistance carried out by the population of the camp which culminated to a particular situation, a moment which I have captured on video4. I
was having lunch with some friends in their shelter when I heard commotion outside. People were whistling, shouting and booing. Upon further investigation it turned out that the police had come to raid houses to which the people resisted. They had come out collectively and established a human border, as it were, between the police and the rest of the camp. A police officer tried explaining – in vain – that the police’s presence was the fault of the camp’s smugglers, that they were the problem in endangering people. But the group of people took great offence at this and shouted back that it was the European governments’ fault, and the police was acting on their behalf. As Foucault supports:
“Here again, moreover, we need only look at the body of laws and the disciplinary obligations of modern mechanisms of security to see that there is not a succession of law, then discipline, then security, but that security is a way of making the old armatures of law and discipline function in
addition to the specific mechanisms of security. (23)
The people correctly understood that was not the smugglers or the security of the camp that was at stake. It was not a question of whether or not smuggling people is illegal or not, nor was it a
disciplinary course of action that the police employed. Rather, what happened was that the residents of the camp resisted the form of power through security which they felt had no place in their camp. When this was said the crowd erupted in cheers and more whistling. Defeated, the police retreated in their cars and drove off. The atmosphere was charged after the police left, and I spoke to people who expressed their dependency on the people smugglers the police was targeting. The smugglers are those people’s only way of reaching their destination and they could not stand by while those means were threatened. This act of resistance is exemplary of the agency and transformative properties of ‘refugees’, and I aim to analyse the occurrence and its immediate consequences. In order to do so, we must turn back to Foucault and his lectures series Security, Territory and
Population. He writes:
“We now see the development of counter-conducts, of demands in the form of counter-conduct, whose meaning is: There must be a moment when, breaking all the bonds of obedience, the
population will really have the right, not in juridical terms, but in terms of essential and fundamental rights, to break any bonds of obedience it has with the state and, rising up against it, to
say: My law, the law of my own requirements, the law of my very nature as population, the law of my basic needs, must replace the rules of obedience.” (453-4)
To unpack Foucault’s reasoning here, it must be understood that the right the residents of the camp took was not a right given to them by the French state, in the lawful sense of the word. In fact, the French state was trying to make it impossible for the people to take this right, as was shown in the previous part of this paper. The right that was taken was a right of mobility, of movement. Their right to choose to be smuggled. Many people had expressed their dismay at staying in the La Linière camp, indeed, the hygiene was improved but overall they were still stuck. Taking this into consideration it would be highly calamitous for the population of the camp to lose their smugglers. Their basic need is to be granted passage into the United Kingdom and their obedience to the governments of both the UK and France are in direct conflict with each other. This particular moment in time is a culmination of the force and control that people have been under for months. In its most basic meaning, it was an act of resistance.
However, there is another interpretation and aspect to this act of resistance and it has to do with homo sacer. For when considering people smuggling and the conditions people are found in when smuggled the narrative of victimisation is dominant in the discourse. As stated before, this negates the particular autonomy a person has in choosing to board a lorry or ship. So in the case of the camp, when the police tries to apprehend the smugglers the people have shown not to accept this. The residents of the camp know they have autonomy and agency yet the position they find
themselves in will time and again try to contest this. This is what happened after the act of
resistance that particular day. The following day the police had followed a smuggler’s car as it was trying to get people into a lorry. When they realised they were being followed, the smugglers drove back to camp and the police gave chase. When the smugglers arrived back at the camp they quickly hid in the group of people that had amassed, awaiting their arrival. The crowd and the police came face to face and violence was used. The police asserted dominance as they shot tear gas and rubber bullets at the crowd who responded with rocks.
To explain what happened here we must turn again to William Walters. He argues that the perspective of homo sacer as it is approached leaves very little room for the previously mentioned political agency of the residents of the camp. (2008: 188) This is in line with what the confrontation between the camp’s population and the police evoked, namely, the question as Walters posits:
“How is the argument that the irregular migrant has become homo sacer modified once we recognize more fully the strategic, and agonistic (sic) character of contemporary border crossings –
that mobility is, in other words, a site of struggle in its own right? […] Does [the camp] actually obscure new acts and spaces of citizenship? […] we might ask whether a greater recognition of these manifold expressions of agency would challenge the gloomy view of the camp – whether understood as an archipelago of actual spaces of detention and removal, or as a metaphor for the
contemporary political conditions.” (idem: 184/191)
The previous part dealt with the idea of the camp as a space of detention, as Walters puts it, but this specific act of resistance in the camp proves that it can indeed be seen as something else, as a metaphor. In fact, turning it all upside down, the population of the camp has endeavoured to
reconstitute the authority within the camp, resisting heavily the use of force and intimidation by the French state. The implication here is that while the majority of the population of La Linière would almost certainly be denied citizenship in France – due to the fact that many of the people are not from direct war-zones and as such as are seen as ‘economic’ migrants – their bodies are still subject to rules of law. They would be imprisoned if they were caught in an attempt to cross the border, or if they helped others to do so, but otherwise they were stripped of their rights. By forcing the police off of the camp, the population actually re-territorialised the space, making it theirs, constituting themselves as citizens and the police as the unwanted trespasser.
This confrontational act of citizenship undoubtedly transformed the borders of the camp, appropriated them in a sense. Even if it was in that ephemeral moment, the residents made the space of the camp theirs. As much as they could of course, as the state will always find a way to assert its own dominance and authority. The space of the camp has become a site of struggle both in literal
terms (struggle for the camp) as well as in terms of citizenship. However, it must be pointed out that the way in which Agamben used the term camp is not the way in which I use it. In fact, it has been argued that a move should be made away from the term camp as it connotes too much with WWII’s extermination camps. Rather, as Mezzandra writes, it should be termed lager, the German word for camp but without the same implication. This latter term is used to denote a space where “men and women who have not committed any crime are denied their right to mobility.” (Walters. 2008: 187) We can see this same ban on a person’s right to movement in the La Linière. It manifests itself in quick literal terms with the green fencing and police controls but also in a symbolic sense by making it impossible for people to request asylum in the country while also denying them passage through. In this non-literal way the migrants are denied their right to movement.
As a final, but important point, I want so stress the notion that everybody should have the right of movement. This is embodied in the famous activist slogan: “No Borders, No Nations, Stop Deportations,” but it also finds resonance with Nicholas de Genova who put forward a Marxist theory of borders. He references the Communist Manifesto in saying that workers have no country, and that they are all internationalists. Tying this in with the idea of Empire and the decline of the nation-state, De Genova states that:
“Will we finally become the (witting or unwitting) accomplices of border policing, even if only by uncritically adopting the nationalist standpoint of the state that presumes to act as the sovereign power behind any given border regime? Or alternately, as genuine internationalists, will we align ourselves conscientiously on the side of our own elementary freedom of movement and reject all
(nation) state borders.” (2016: n.p.)
With this Marxist analysis, de Genova hits the nail on the proverbial head of the humanitarian border. Will the NGOs, the aid organisation, and the autonomous volunteers continue to be
accomplices in the global order and thereby in the situation of the migrants or will there be a rupture in this way of thinking which will demand a rethinking of the (national) borders as they now stand.
Conclusion
This paper has aimed to illustrate the way in which the European border politics are influenced by the distinct nature of visibility and invisibility. While the outskirts of Europe are being securitised with further measures and while the media is indeed reporting on the casualties of these strict rules, there is very little proof that would support the notion that any significant changes will be made. On the contrary, the response by Europe has consistently been to fight fire with fire,
so to speak. To securitise more the border that are causing people to take the dangerous journey on the Mediterranean in the first place. This disregard for human life is cause for a different type of border theory, as Walters argued. When faced with the unnecessary deaths of thousands of migrants and Europe’s seeming impotent attitude at combating this, various types of non-governmental organisations have taken upon themselves to go to the sites of this suffering and either aid the people or document what is happening. This is what Walters called the ‘humanitarisation’ of the border and I have aimed to show how this phrase can be falsely interpreted as a humanitarian intervention out of altruistic beliefs. In fact, this intervention is another form of Foucault’s ideas on governmentality and is thereby complicit in maintain the status quo.
By juxtaposing the jungle camp of Basroch and the ‘humanitarian’ camp La Linière, and the transition between these two camps I have aimed to show that in both camps the humanitarian border was present but as I have pointed out, this was in different capacities. The Basroch jungle camp – which was set up by migrants themselves and had to rely heavily on the aid of NGOs and volunteers – suffered from police controls that would not allow any building materials or tents into the camp. This was a way of controlling the growth of the camp and thereby the visibility of the migrants plight. Besides this, the mud and the cold, the jungle had its additional problems. With the camp’s rapid growth so did the visibility of the migrant ‘crisis’ in Europe become more visible. The camp’s location as much as its visibility were signs that the European borders were not as natural and immutable as they might have appeared. Now, the condition of migrants was not an issue of the Mediterranean and it could no longer be ignored. In an almost psychoanalytic sense, the camp’s location in French suburbia could remind one of the return of the oppressed. However, the problem was that – unlike the Jungle in Calais – the French citizens were daily and directly witnessing the abhorrent living conditions and dangers that are associated with refugee camps. Poetically, the only thing that separated French suburbia from the jungle was a street, the ultimate sign of the
deterritorialising capacity of the migrant. In order to maintain security of its territory, the French state called for the eviction of the camp and within three days all of the residents had left, most of them came to La Linière.
It is in this transition between camps that the problematics of homo sacer became apparent. The new ‘humanitarian’ camp was heralded as an almost utopia for the people who had spent months in desperate conditions. The new camp was clean. it was rid of mud and tents, and instead there were carefully arranged shelters. However, while many recognised the camp as being more sanitary, many people also lamented in the new ‘humanitarian’ camp that they felt like they had become invisible. This was of course also the intention of the state, which Foucault argues will try to control its population at any means necessary. The old camp had an advantage what the new camp did not, namely, the conditions of bare life. The sense of invisibility that haunted the residents
