Seventeenth Global Studies Conference

Abstract

The discourse on African irregular migration to Europe mainly frames insecurities around human smuggling and trafficking. Such narratives often shape criminalization policies aiming to address smuggling activities in sending regions. However, this tends to omit migrants’ agency and their abilities to make their own choices on their migratory journey. Overshadowing migrants’ expressions of agency is at the center of the disconnect between policy and their lived realities. For instance, their abilities to navigate both state and non-state actors intervening at these lower levels of governance. Research showed that relying solely on deterrence policies/laws neglect the human insecurities migrants face which is exacerbated due to their use of new clandestine channels. How do migrants in transit navigate sub-national governance systems - amid criminalization policies/laws - to express their agency to practice mobility? Using the case of Niger in West Africa as a transit region, the present paper applies critical approaches to examine the experiences of African migrants in transit. It relies on seven focus groups discussions with 31 migrants in Niamey and Agadez and shows the precarious nature of terrestrial border management in West Africa which has enabled a context where mobility is neither legal nor illegal. Indeed, where border crossings are informal. As such, these discussions elicit the lived realities of migrants as well as the form that migration governance takes at the bottom levels through their interactions with local enforcement authorities.