Gender at the Border: Mobility, Agency, and Strategies at European Borders.

This article analyses the mobility strategies and experiences of women and trans* migrants at internal European borders. Uniting theoretical insights from gender and border studies, I examine the specific gender-based strategies that these categories of migrants employ to continue their travels, in order to draw attention to the gendered and sexed consequences of movement restrictions in Europe. The study focuses on two case studies, Ventimiglia and Trieste (Italian-French and Slovenian-Italian borders), which represent two ‘bottleneck’ areas where migrants arrive from the major routes (the Central Mediterranean and the Balkan). The methodology combines life-story interviews with women and trans* migrants who have been travelling across Europe and participant observation, aiming to collect different mobility (and crossing) strategies and interpret them in relation to the different borders. The findings highlight how migrants mobilise their gender identities in order to continue their travels forward and survive in hostile environments. Their strategies range from entering into contractual sexual relationships, to hiding one’s gender identity or playing with gender expression, to travelling different routes altogether. The theoretical emphasis on gender identity as agential draws attention to the intersection between ‘safe’ travelling and trafficking/smuggling, thus emphasising and adding complexity to the connections between movement restrictions and heightened vulnerability to sexual exploitation/servitude for groups who are already particularly at risk of G/SBV. Based on these findings, this article underscores the need for further research into the interconnections between gender (identity, performance, perception...) and mobility strategies with a specific demographic and geographical focus, aiming to develop a framework which fills the gap that is left within border studies by its largely gender-neutral approach.