The Symbolic Representation of Borders in the Protest Against ‘Fortress Europe': The New Geographies and Strategies of the Movements for the Rights of Migrants

The Symbolic Representation of Borders in the Protest against ‘Fortress Europe’: The New Geographies and Strategies of the Movements for the Rights of Migrants.

In the last two decades, the integration of member-states’ immigration and asylum policies at the European Union level has led to a process of transformation and delocalization of borders. In particular, the external dimension of these policies is related with the diffusion of borders across member-states and third countries territories. Consequently, the binary demarcation between the inside and outside of states’ territories is increasingly blurred, and the specific governmental practices and technologies that were once situated at the edges of territories can now be encountered across countries.

In this paper, I propose to explore the consequences of these evolutions on the social movements for the rights of migrants in Europe. Focusing on the symbolic dimension of protest events, I argue that the changing nature of European borders has influenced their organization and strategies. In particular, I show that, since the end of the 1990s, these movements have represented and used the border as a symbolic space in which new forms of protest are constructed.

This analysis is based on the observation of a selection of European networks mobilizing for the rights of migrants. The evolution of the symbolic dimension of their protest since the end of the 1990s has been investigated through three complementary methods: protest-event analysis, frame analysis, and visual analysis.