Two images on the Euro-Meditteranaen encounter. A research on the Italy-Tunisia Cross-border Cooperation programme in a mediterranean framework of migration and cross-border mobility issues
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2017-06-28
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en
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Abstract
As part of the European Neighbourhood Policy, Italy and Tunisia are doing a Cross-Border Cooperation Programme. However, this entails a Mediterranean area that has been known as a migration hotspot with disastrous images of migrations in recent years. While the ENP can be considered a geopolitical tool of the EU to be able to manage the external borders of Europe by creating a buffer zone with its neighbouring states, this research investigates with a discourse analysis how an ENP programme, such as the unique sea-crossing Italy-Tunisia Programme, deals with the very abstract top-down policy language at implementation level, within the Mediterranean framework of migration and cross-border mobility issues. Drawing mainly on Border studies, it is argued how the Mediterranean borderland can destabilize the classical concept of the ‘border’, using border imaginaries from the people implementing the Programme on the ground. Also, using a postcolonial lens, their experience of mobility issues during the Programme is used to expose a certain ‘European cosmopolitanism’ within ENP policy. The long-term perspective on migration of the participants, as part of their Mediterranean border imaginary and discourse, and strong cultural connectedness across the Mediterranean sea, the Italy-Tunisia Programme puts ENP and migration dialogue in new perspective.
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Faculteit der Managementwetenschappen