03.04.2024 : Speaker series – Brice Arsène Mankou

On Wednesday, April 3, 2024, join Brise Arsène Mankou (Université de Rouen Normandie) for a new event as part of our winter 2024 speaker series, titled: “L’Europe et la surveillance des frontières”. The conference will take place from 2:00 PM to 3:30 PM at the University of Montreal, 3200 Jean-Brillant Street, Room B-3250.

The conference will be in French. No registration is required.

Abstract:

“In the context of the adoption of the immigration law in France, Europe persists in closing its borders through strict policies towards migrants. This Europe, supported by the far right, places border surveillance at the heart of migrant control. The Mediterranean and Lampedusa become floating cemeteries (Mankou, 2022), where inhospitable rules are established as border control rules to better monitor and punish migrants (Michel Foucault, 1975). With the closure of the Sangatte camp in Pas de Calais in 2003 and the subsequent destruction of the Calais Jungle, the situation of migrants at the Franco-British border has become even more complex and violent. Condemned to aimless waiting, migrants from the Horn of Africa experience new forms of outdoor confinement. This transforms the Calais border into an open prison for migrants (Mankou, 2013) detained at the border. It is the contemporary paradox of the border, considered both as an impossible passage zone and as a no man’s land without an exit.”