"New Keywords: Migration and Borders" is a collaborative writing project aimed at developing a nexus of terms and concepts that fill-out the contemporary problematic of migration. It moves beyond traditional and critical migration studies by building on cultural studies and post-colonial analyses, and by drawing on a diverse set of longstanding author engagements with migrant movements. The paper is organized in four parts (i)

How are images used in the aim of governing migration? This article probes this question through the example of the International Organization for Migration’s (IOM) information campaigns (ICs) in Cameroon, through which it seeks to ‘manage the perception’ of potential illegal(ized) migrants to the European Union (EU). Taking the self-reflexive perspective of a filmmaker who has documented migrants’ rights violations in several projects and is thus struck by the use of imagery of suffering migrants as a deterrent, I first draw a comparison with the practice of colonial educational cinema, which I argue bares many similarities with the IOM’s ICs. Second, I inscribe them within broader trends in migration management, which have in common a simultaneous spatial expansion beyond the EU’s boundaries and a broadening of the domains they attempt to shape. I then attend to the particular ‘media dispositif’ the IOM constitutes in its campaign in Cameroon and question the actual effects of its campaigns.

This article, primarily focused on Europe, charts some of the momentous transformations in bordering practices, migration and global mobility that have been sparked by the new coronavirus pandemic. In a first part it argues that since the onset of the pandemic, the enduring 'global mobility apartheid' which uses citizenship and visa restrictions to police the differential access to mobility founded on race and class, has been supplemented by a fluctuating 'sanitary apartheid', seeking to separate populations designated as at risk of Covid-19 infection from those designated as Covid-free. While these logics are distinct, where states have conflated them, we have seen eruptive and mutating border violence. In a second more normative part the article seeks to rethink the demand for freedom of movement in the context of the pandemic, arguing that allowing migrants who today are illegalised to move in safe and legal ways is also the condition to implement sanitary measures to protect the health of migrants and sedentary populations alike. Adopting a mobility justice approach, the article also argues that the excessive mobility of the privileged through air travel that has been a major factor in spreading the virus and contributes to ecological destruction should be limited. Ultimately this article calls for re-thinking the politics of (im)mobility in the context of the pandemic as part of the process of transformation towards a more just and sustainable world.

Migrant deaths in border-zones have become a major social and political issue, especially in the context of the Euro-Mediterranean refugee/migrant crisis. While media, activists, and policy makers often mention precise figures regarding the number of deaths, little is known about the production of statistical data on this topic. This article explores the politics of counting migrant deaths in Europe. This statistical activity was initiated in the 1990s by civil society organizations with the purpose of shedding light on the deadly consequences of “Fortress Europe” and of challenging states’ control-oriented political strategies. In 2013, the International Organization for Migration (IOM) started to count migrants’ deaths: while this intergovernmental organization seems to follow up on civil society initiatives, it actually works with different political objectives. Rather than criticizing states, IOM aims at conciliating the control of irregular migration with the prevention of deaths. IOM’s statistics on border deaths illustrate the humanitarianization of the border, as denunciation of migrants’ deaths and life-saving activities become integrated in border management and border control. In producing statistics on border deaths, IOM depoliticizes this data and challenges the critical framework that was central to earlier civil society initiatives. Finally, the article explores ways in which statistics on border deaths are being repoliticized to challenge European states’ immigration policies.