Paisajes migrantes en la frontera estirada: la condición postcolonial de la frontera hispano-marroquí

Abstract

This dissertation, titled Paisajes migrantes en la frontera estirada. La condición postcolonial de la frontera hispano-marroquí (Migrant landscapes of a stretched border. The postcolonial condition of the Spanish-Moroccan border), researches contemporary political practices, representations and counterrepresentations of the border extended between Spain and Morocco in regards to migration movements. Looking from the colonial difference, it is observed that certain colonial continuities are clearly present in the governability of this external border of Europe regarding human mobility, and also in several important aspects of its research. This dissertation addresses such a political and epistemological framework through travel, observation, participation, imagery and orality. On it, modern border landscapes and passages of power and resistance are described as a result of an in-depth fieldwork developed from 2011 to 2014 in the cities of Tétouan, Ceuta, Tangier, Tarifa, Algeciras and Madrid. Emerging geopolitics involved in the process of regional integration of the European Union (EU) are closely observed from a Political Geography viewpoint. The geometry of the political space in Europe is more and more complex, exhibiting multiple territorial strategies that are frequently paradoxical and ambivalent. Within these political designs, borders may be configured, transformed, removed or rebuilt, bringing about a topological and functional change both within and without the European Union. Since border control was suspended along the inner borders of Member States in 1995, outer borders have undergone a process of redefinition alongside their geographical environment. The reality of an area of free movement within Europe under principles of freedom, safety and justice applicable inwards has been linked to a process of legitimization of outward borders. This process of bordering, as it appears in relation to the sustainability of the inner socio-spacial order (Houtum et al. 2005) and linked specifically to mobility management, is established by concentric relationships between geopolitical, geoeconomic and geocultural power spheres. In the current context, the Neighbourhood region has become one of the areas of political action from where the EU develops its externalization strategy through institutions and practices of control and management by the "EU-at-distance" (Casas- Cortes et al. 2013: 41). Such an externalization strategy gives birth to a process of reconfiguration of regional development models, expanding the role of the EU beyond its territory. Mobility policies, and in particular governability of migration flows, are prime examples of this tendency. As a consequence of the regional integration process of the EU, which is closely linked to a definition of a "gated" Summary 267 European community (van Houtum and Pijpers 2007). A new border control regime, in many cases paradigmatic, has appeared...