‘Finding common ground’? Transnational spaces of negotiation, co-production and resistance in deportation practices and norms in Europe

Deportation is a highly politicised and contested policy area in Europe which, in the past two decades, has undergone significant changes, most notably efforts by EU institutions to increase ‘standardisation’ and operational cooperation among member states. This has included establishing the Return Directive (2008), Return Handbook (2014), ‘readmission agreements’, countless strategy papers, and increasing Frontex’ mandate in this area. While important research has examined deportation practices in Europe, and the institutional and political dynamics underpinning them (e.g. Borrelli 2021; Eule 2018; Leerkes and van Houte 2020; Slominski and Trauner 2018, 2021), there remains limited understanding of the role of transnational relationships and learning among (non)state actors in shaping implementation. This paper aims to fill this ‘gap’ by showing how multiple actors from across national and organisational borders influence, co-produce, and contest implementation norms and practices related to deportation in Europe. Specifically, it focuses on ‘transnational spaces of mid-level negotiations’ (Ostrand 2022), or ‘grey areas’ (Darling 2022) of migration governance – situated between policy design and ‘street-level’ implementation – where operational actors and organisations learn, negotiate, and translate how to put policy into practice. In doing so, this paper goes beyond much of the literature on migration governance, which largely concentrates either on formal policies ‘on paper’ or ‘street-level’ dynamics. Mid-level spaces of mutual ‘sense-making’ and learning, however, are significant as they influence the way deportation practices are understood and implemented on-the-ground. These spaces include EU (co)funded initiatives like the European Return and Reintegration Network (ERRIN) and the Forced-Return Monitoring (FReM) projects, which comprise multiple operational actors from across European states, Frontex and the International Centre for Migration Policy Development (ICMPD). Drawing on semi-structure interviews, freedom of information requests and documentary analysis, I find considerable interest by national actors to engage in transnational and multi-organisational spaces of operational learning and collaboration. In many ways, they create ‘communities of practice’ (Infantino 2019) among practitioners who actively co-produce and learn practical knowledge. Through the FReM projects, for instance, actors from ICMPD, national bodies and Frontex collectively define what ‘forced return monitoring’ means in practice and how to implement it at the national and Frontex-level. In this way, norms and practices on deportation in Europe are highly interconnected and shaped, to varying degrees, by transnational interactions and relationships. Yet, as we will also see, there are substantial instances of contestation and resistance by national actors regarding ‘appropriateness’ and ‘best practices’, such as when and how to use force. This exposes the messy and inconsistent dynamics of operational cooperation and (non)standardisation. I argue that it is important to examine these transnational ‘grey areas’ of migration governance to better understand evolving implementing norms and deportation practices in Europe.