PUBLI : Elsa Tyszler, “From controlling mobilities to control over women’s bodies : gendered effects of EU border externalization in Morocco”, Comparative Migration Studies, 2019

• revue Compa­ra­tive Migra­tion Studies
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Résumé

Taking the pers­pec­tive of the Central and West African women blocked at the Moroccan-Spanish border, reveals how EU poli­cies, in expor­ting their anti-migrant war to African coun­tries, seem to have rein­forced a conti­nuum of male domi­nance : by crea­ting, along the migra­tory route, a succes­sion of spaces where African women must resist and/​or succumb to multiple rela­tions of power and domi­na­tion in order to be able to cross the secu­ri­tized borders, controlled by a plura­lity of actors but often all men. Brea­king with binary and essen­tia­list views that often present them as merely passive subjects of their migra­tion, the women inter­viewed disclose hidden mecha­nisms and effects of the exter­na­li­za­tion of EU migra­tion control poli­cies on the bodies and lives of those who fight for their freedom of move­ment. Based on 30-months of ethno­gra­phic research in Morocco and the Spanish enclaves of Ceuta and Melilla, this article aims to show how EU border exter­na­li­za­tion provokes racia­lized and gendered vulne­ra­bi­li­za­tion of people seeking mobi­lity and notably rein­forces gender-based violence against migrant women. There are several levels of violence against women seeking mobi­lity at borders, we will focus on two : violence emana­ting from certain men who are part of the orga­ni­za­tion of the cros­sing, and violence exerted by the States poli­cing the border. Both of these cases illus­trate the inter­ac­tion between mobi­lity control poli­cies and control over women’s bodies as an effect of border externalization.