Lampedusa as an instrument of the EU’s B/Ordering and Othering regime: the ‘visa border’, the ‘iron’ and the ‘camp border’

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2022-07-01
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en
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The purpose of this thesis is to analyse the impact of the global mobility divide as part of the architecture of the EU's external border regime on the trajectories of undocumented African migrants to Lampedusa. To this end, I begin my analysis on this island as it is used as an external border of the Schengen area due to the presence of the hotspot centre and border control techniques. Lampedusa has allowed me to understand the mechanisms through which the EU external border is concretely involved in the application of the global mobility divide, which creates privileges and/or irregularities. The consequences of the global mobility divide are in fact the decision on who can travel without restrictions and who needs a visa. In this sense, the movements of a large proportion of African migrants become irregular because these people cannot obtain visas to enter and stay in the EU (de Haas et al., 2020). As a result, they are considered undocumented and, by virtue of their status, must contend with the rest of the EU three-fold border mechanism: the "externalisation policy," the "iron curtain," and the "camp" (Van Houtum & Bueno Lacy, 2020b), which seek to limit their mobility on the way to the EU. The EU three-fold border mechanism violates the right to freedom of movement, which is enshrined in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) as one of the fundamental human rights (United Nations, 1948).
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Faculteit der Managementwetenschappen