Transnational migration Theory and method of an ethnographic analysis of border regimes

The events of Ceuta and Mellia in 2005 and the intensified fencing off of the Spanish enclaves that followed, or the invention of ‘Frontex’ as the EU border control agency, certainly seem to support the metaphor of ‘Fortress Europe’ as an encapsulation of the new Europeanised migration and border control realities. The metaphor may also have contributed to the antiracist movement by helping to create a critical discourse on European migration policy. However, as we will outline in this article, we are highly critical of the ‘Fortress’ paradigm. The original text in French is published in: Carolina Kobelinsky et Chowra Makaremi (eds.), Le confinement des étrangers en Europe: perspectives de terrain, Paris: Editions du Croquant, coll. Terra, in November 2008