Frontiers of externalisation

Borders and temporality in the Euro-African zone

Abstract

Since the early 2000s, Europe has externalised its management of migration beyond its borders, Africa being a prime destination. This article proposes a two-fold frontier heuristic to study the spatial and temporal un/making of Euro-African borders. Building on Frederick Turner’s (1920) classic model, externalisation can be analysed as a frontier of control advancing into Africa, albeit not in a linear and irreversible manner. Igor Kopytoff’s (1987) notion of the internal or interstitial frontier, on the other hand, contributes to going beyond Eurocentric and state-centric perspectives on externalisation. External borders can be analysed as emerging at the intersection between different regimes and temporalities of migration in Africa. I will illustrate this dynamic through the example of the repatriation of transit migrants in the Gambia, whose European Union (EU)-sponsored governance both blurs the boundaries of sovereignty and depends on migration being managed at the community and family levels.