“Suspended lives”: probing the existential experiences of border(ing) between Italy and Morocco

Laura Menin
(Associate Researcher University of Sussex)

“Suspended lives”: probing the existential experiences of border(ing) between Italy and Morocco

In this lecture, I explore the existential and embodied experiences of border(ing) by focusing on the life-worlds that emerge from the interplay of transnational border control and national migration policies in both Italy and Morocco. I combine a macrostructural analysis of “EurAfrican” border regimes with ethnographic research conducted between 2008 and 2014 with (undocumented) migrants on both sides of the Mediterranean. Specifically, I trace the lives and words of Abdelkrim, a young Moroccan in his late 20s who migrated to Milan from Central Morocco, and of Sadibou, a young man aged 22 originally from Guinea Conakry who found himself ‘trapped’ in Morocco. Their biographies offer critical insights into the structural constraints that have produced subjects suspended in the borderland, against the backdrop of the increased ‘illegalization’ of migration. Going beyond questions of the production of legal status, ethnographic attention to subjectivity and everyday life enables a grasp of the social and existential implications of the EurAfrican border regimes and its ‘inward’ effects on national immigration policies. Taking as an ethnographic point of departure the biographical trajectories of Abdelkrim and Sadibou, my aim in this lecture is also to develop a theoretical reflection on the notions border(ing), ‘transit’ and ‘illegality’, and their genealogies and performative powers.