Fragile Solidarities: Contestation and Ambiguity at European Borderzones

Abstract

Borders as legal, social, and material aspaces of inclusion/exclusion constantly spark resistance, by both migrants and solidarity actors. In this article, we combine the dual observation of a proliferation of border control policies and of migrant and solidarity activism to analyse how different types of border control policies affect the forms of resistance that emerge in them. We inquire on three different cases: first the Calais region at the territorial border between France and the UK; second the camps and detention centres for refugees and migrants marking borders within Europe; and third the intimate space of encounters between citizens and migrants during practices of migrant support. In our theory oriented qualitative analysis, we carve out how power relations, and thereby notions of inclusion/exclusion, deservingness and (il)legality play out differently on the ambivalent solidarities unfolding in these settings.