From Borderisation to Local Dimensions and Back: Policies, Practices and Outcomes along the Alpine Chain

In recent years, intra-EU mobility patterns of asylum seekers have played a critical role in the European crisis. While the Dublin Convention has been working as a form of “internal externalization” at the intra-EU level, several EU member states (Austria, Denmark, France, German, Hungary, Norway, Slovenia and Sweden) have reintroduced border controls as a response to the general perception of “crisis” related to the management of migratory flows. As a consequence, intra-EU mobility of asylum seekers is increasingly governed through systematic push-backs at the borders within the Schengen area. This paper, based on an in-depth ethnographic research, focuses on the reintroduction of border controls at the Northern Italian borders, by comparing three different border-crossing points along the Alpine chain: the Italian/French border between the Susa Valley and Briançon, the Italian/French border area between Ventimiglia, Menton and the Roya Valley, and the Austrian/Italian border between Bolzano and the Brenner Pass. The reestablishment of border controls in these areas, far from preventing asylum seekers’ secondary movements, make border crossings through the Alps more risky, even deadly. At the local level, in border towns such as Ventimiglia, Briançon and Bolzano, the “refugee crisis” has become especially visible and give rise to different responses from civil society organizations and local administrators, and produced different kind of outcomes. While mainstream approaches of local and national powers have been generally securitarian and triggered processes of criminalization of solidarity, a few local powers supported contentious humanitarian politics from below (aimed at feeding and hosting migrants, and facilitating their border-crossings). The proposed paper aims to illustrate the impact of massive push-backs of migrants on local communities and territories, but also the impact of the local dimension (with its pre-existing social networks and trans-regional economic flows) on the border itself, with special attention on grassroots mobilizations in favor and against border controls. By focusing on the material, discursive and performative strategies of four categories of social actors (migrants in transit, local residents, local administrators and police officers), the proposed paper shed light on the different roles played by local powers, residents and border workers in the disputed and contentious implementation of the border regime at the internal European borders in the context of the (so-called) refugee crisis. By comparatively focusing on the local dimension of the border, this paper questions the efficacy of the implementation of an intra-EU push-back regime by highlighting several factors which may affect its effectiveness, such as migrants’ agency, local governance of migrants mobility, pre-existence of local networks of supportive citizens or smuggling organizations, greater or lesser cooperation between police forces, transregional economic interests.