Euro-African Migration Policies – Between Outsourcing and Conditionality: An Ethnographic Insight from EU Migratory Projects Implemented in Djibouti

European migration policies are marked by a gradual internationalization dynamic that leads to an ever-increasing outsourcing migration control policies to African states by the EU (Guiraudon, 2001, Lavenex, 2006, El Quadim 2015). At the same time trade agreements and development aid contracts have been realized with these same countries (Lavenex 2002). The simultaneity of these policies is often considered as an issue of conditionality: a give and take (Gabrielli 2007, Bensaad 2005). The paper proposes to question the mechanisms and daily practices of conditionality associated with migrating outsourcing policies at the micro and meso levels. It is based on ethnographic observations conducted during 18 months of participatory observation in 2012 and 2013. The field research took place within migratory multilateralism agencies (UNHCR and IOM) that implemented projects in Djibouti to transform the Djiboutian state public policies on migration, projects that were funded, including, but not exclusively, by the E.U. The production of evidence leads to consider conditionality as a complex social link falling within relations of domination marked by a "conditional unconditionnality" (Caillé 2000) or, to say it with Marcel Mauss by the agonistic gift (Mauss [1923] 2013). Far from simply proceeding from a rational and contractual calculation (i.e. conditionality) the implementation of migration policies of outsourcing is based on a principle of unconditionality creating the "alliance" necessary for the long-term implementation of these policies. This relationship is marked by the paradoxical nature of the social link created. It structures a relationship of domination favorable to the European donor. This in turn allows national actors to summon the EU to demonstrate its ability to donate always more (Lindemann and Caillé, 2016) to effectively implement outsourcing policies in Djibouti.