Print Price: $34.99

Format:
Paperback
288 pp.
5.5" x 8.25"

ISBN-13:
9780190074647

Copyright Year:
2020

Imprint: OUP US

Burning at Europe's Borders

An Ethnography on the African Migrant Experience in Morocco

Isabella Alexander-Nathani

Series : Issues of Globalization:Case Studies in Contemporary Anthropology

Burning at Europe's Borders: An Ethnography on the African Migrant Experience in Morocco draws a close lens on our global migrant and refugee crisis and the world's largest population of migrants and refuges. The author examines the process of "the burning" among those who have fled violent conflict and extreme poverty across the African continent and now find themselves trapped under brutal conditions at Europe's southernmost borders in North Africa. "Hrig," the Arabic term for "illegal immigration," translates to "burning." It signifies migrants' physical burning of identification papers, in order to avoid repatriation if arrested on their long journeys north, but also the symbolic burning of their past lives in hopes of reaching a better future on European shores.

This book exposes the political agreements that have led to Europe's control over African borders and the illicit practices that continue to mold Morocco, Algeria, and Libya into holding cells for the world's most vulnerable. The creative mixed-methods project design included over three years of ethnographic research in African smuggling rings, hidden migrant camps, and EU-funded detention centers; a large-scale demographic survey of the region; oral history and what the author terms "oral future" collection; and community filmmaking practices.

Burning at Europe's Borders introduces new ways of engaging in anthropological research in the modern era, weaving individual human stories and images into the analysis of global migration flows at our world's most critical border crossings.

Burning at Europe's Borders is a volume in the series ISSUES OF GLOBALIZATION: CASE STUDIES IN CONTEMPORARY ANTHROPOLOGY, which examines the experiences of individual communities in our contemporary world. Each volume offers a brief and engaging exploration of a particular issue arising from globalization and its cultural, political, and economic effects on certain peoples or groups.

Readership : This is an ethnography for undergraduates in introductory cultural anthropology courses.

Reviews

• "Burning at Europe's Borders is a breathtakingly ambitious and bold account of the travails of migration across Africa and the racialized severities of border enforcement in Morocco, Algeria, and Libya. An outstanding achievement."
  --Nicholas de Genova, Editor of The Borders of "Europe": Autonomy of Migration, Tactics of Bordering
  
  
• "Alexander-Nathani's debut book is an important and innovative contribution to our understanding of Europe's migration crisis. Her moving prose and nuanced analysis shine a much needed ethnographic light on the lives of African migrants and refugees."
  --Jason de Leon, Author of The Land of Open Graves: Living and Dying on the Migrant Trail
  
  
• "Alexander-Nathani is paving the way for a new generation of human rights activists. She has spent her career on the frontlines, willing to sacrifice her life in the fight to advance human rights in unseen corners of the world. Her work has lifted the voices of the most vulnerable and convinced world leaders that we can no longer talk about human rights without talking about race. She is a true freedom fighter, and this book is poised to lead her legacy."
  --Reverend Jesse Louis Jackson, Civil Rights Activist
  
  
• "Burning at Europe's Borders has exquisitely readable prose and compelling ethnographic vignettes. In reading it, I was reminded of a former graduate advisor's summation of good ethnographic writing: good ethnography affords the reader the joy of getting lost. This has all the makings of a fabulous cross-over book: it is exciting, timely, and well-written."
  --Madeline Campbell, Worcester State University
  
  
• "I'm most impressed by the ethnographic fieldwork that went into the project--the long-term, sustained interaction with West Africans in Morocco--as well as with Moroccans who have migrated. This is the kind of work that anthropologists should be doing. I would assign it in a heartbeat."
  --John Schaefer, Miami University of Ohio
  
  
• "Alexander has access to an impressive population of people who are risking their lives to cross the borders into Europe. There is much ethnographic and narrative richness in the stories that she shares."
  --Asale Angel-Ajani, City University of New York