FORGING MEMBERSHIP: A brief account of unofficial life in Calais

Par Alessandro de Donato – tiré du mémoire de Master II écrit dans le cadre de la formation MIM

INTRODUCTION

In Calais, you can look at the border in the eye. You can see it shifting from a fence to a person, firmly attached to the ground or confidently moving in a uniform. Here, the border is made of interactions. With every expulsion, or eviction, this institution reveals its relational nature, its social roots as it were. Drawing from first-hand ethnographic material, the following article considers the France-UK border as a complex set of official and unofficial practices reifying putative social divisions. In other words, the border is here analysed in its everyday arbitrary spatialisation and categorisation of single individuals based on collectivising attributes such as the birthplace. Specifically, I argue that by studying the circumstantial formation and validation of unofficial migrant networks one may indirectly shed some light on the widespread mechanisms underpinning official State membership. Following this interpretation, it is at the margins of society, amongst the ‘excluded’, that one can catch a glimpse of the foundational nature of State responsibility, which arguably depends on two opposite evocative world views: the universalising appeal of legal codes and the exclusiveness of nationalism.

THE FRANCE-UK BORDER

France and the UK share a long history of bilateral protocols on immigration dating back to the early 90s. (Tyerman, 2019) Over the years and in line with other Western policies on immigration, the two countries have gradually militarised the access to the port and the Eurotunnel, and outsourced border controls to third countries. To put everything into perspective, it is estimated that between 2010 and 2016, the UK Home office spent £315.9 million “to deter illegal immigration in Calais and the surrounding region”. (Care4Calais, 2019) Nonetheless, the increase in controls and physical barriers has not stopped new arrivals, and in 2020, the Special Rapporteur on adequate housing found that boat crossing attempts had been four times higher than the previous year.(OHCHR, 2020)

Since the demolition of the infamous Jungle in 2016, Calais municipality invested in routine evictions, regularly pushing people out of the city centre with the clear yet unspoken intention of keeping the displaced population out of sight and in a ‘manageable’ size. (HRO, 2020) Throughout 2020, an average of 1,300 individuals lived in the city’s unauthorised settlements. (OHCHR, 2020)

As for the actual crossing attempts, people in transit would either break into British cars’ boots or pay for an illegal boat passage. However, as numerous witnesses told me, with the intensification of regular checks and the installation of high fences on the motorways, spontaneous crossings are now much harder to plan and organise. Consequently, it is very unlikely to make it to the other side without relying on the many well-equipped unauthorised organisations operating in the area — these include international smuggling networks, mafia-like gangs, impromptu associations, and near-socialist collectives.

In the following paragraphs, I will be addressing these organisations in virtue of their circumstantial necessity and constant response to the official border enforcement. The information was gathered during my stay in Calais and Dunkirk, where I recorded 38 conversations with people living in the cities’ informal camps, and kept a journal of the municipal evictions and clearings. To keep this article concise, I will be directly addressing the results and the overall picture painted by the people I had the opportunity to speak with.

THE UNOFFICIAL SIDE OF THE COIN

Describing any social organisation in non-Manichaean terms is particularly tricky. However, some reiterated testimonies from different people of different backgrounds allowed me to reconstruct a rather clear picture of the social mechanisms governing unofficial life in Calais in spring 2021.

During my stay, the biggest organisations had direct control over specific areas, be it a parking lot, a camp or a part of the beach. Access to these areas was strictly reserved to the members, meaning that outsiders — virtually anyone deemed untrustworthy or who did not contribute financially — were barred from entering and violently sanctioned if caught on the territory. Membership, as lucrative or selfless as it might be, meant protection. It meant having exclusive access to the city’s most desired hotspots, a potential place to set your tent in a rarely-evicted area, and access to precious information regarding police night shifts. Moreover, membership entailed having fellow members protecting you from other ‘communities’. In several instances, I was informed of the following mechanism: if a person belonging to the X group was caught in the Y-controlled parking lot, they would be beaten and expelled. This would often prompt the X community to slash Y tents at nighttime. Membership was therefore socially validated, and it elicited a contextual sense of belonging, ‘a sense of groupness’ in the words of Rogers Brubaker. (Brubaker, Cooper 2000) Being part of a collectivity provided what everyone in that desperate situation was aiming for: a likelier chance to cross and a shorter and slightly ‘safer’ waiting period.

I argue that these unofficial mechanisms closely resonate with the formation and validation of their official counterparts. In both instances, membership is bestowed upon the applicants after proving their trustworthiness, which — as I will address shortly — is closely linked to ‘national’ or ‘cultural’ assumptions, and/or their active financial contribution to the provision of the much-desired service.

In Calais, the different organisations were often nationally coherent, yet — as I was told on several occasions — the national attribute did not entail direct membership, nor it prevented other country nationals from applying. In five instances, I was told that the national ‘requirement’ was rather a matter of trust. People who did not share a common language could not be trusted because a single tip-off could jeopardise the whole crossing procedure.

It was not uncommon to hear newcomers say that they had been directed to their respective national organisations as soon as they set foot in the area. Often, this direct repartition followed racialising criteria based on widespread assumptions. ‘Eritrean-looking’ B., for example, was directly pointed to the Eritrean group and presumptively excluded from the Afghan or the Sudanese ones despite his Ethiopian nationality. Given that he did not speak an Eritrean language, he was then excluded from the former group as well. However, in places like Dunkirk, different nationalities could have access to the main Kurdish system, as long as they paid in cash before the crossing as opposed to the usual Kurdish-only post-crossing money transfer. To speak a non-mutual language or to have insufficient money would cause a complete ostracisation from both the official and unofficial border manifestations.

A LARGE-SCALE PARKING LOT

The presumptive association between single individuals and their supposedly ‘natural’ organisations largely fits in Anderson’s imagined community trope — a group whose cohesion is a matter of socially validated assumptions rather than concrete relational bonds. (Anderson, 2006) This polarising social classification is the foundation of virtually any large-scale social movements, yet it risks losing track of the multifaceted social composition of the collectivity. It is the case of nationalism where institutions are substituted with ideological totems alluding to a presumed natural unity. (Brubaker, 2004) Similarly, borders have been labelled as symbols of national cohesion by European political leaders such as Theresa May and Marine Le Pen. (Time Staff, 2017) (Pecqueux, 2018) However, such an exclusive classification of State responsibilities overshadows the universal entitlements listed in international codes like the Refugee Convention. So when foreign citizens are allocated a varying grade of visa requirements depending on their origin, they are redirected to an alleged monolithic social organisation that is though of as ‘inherently’ responsible for them — their state, or rather their ‘nation’. (Brubaker, 2002) Yet, if we get rid of what Mitchell would call the Sate effect — which is the oblivious juxtaposition of complex social practices with a broader natural order — we are left with the legally binding responsibility for States to respect everyone’s rights under their jurisdiction or at their borders. (Mitchell, 1992)

Today, in Calais, people under French jurisdiction are left in refugee camps with little to no access to basic human rights. (HRO, 2020) Similarly, the UK, after ‘taking back control of its border’, is denying hundreds their universal right to seek asylum and is currently working on a plan to outsource asylum applications. (UNHCR, 2021) If we were to blur the distinction between legal and illegal entry status, official and unofficial social organisations, what would be the difference between a parking lot in Calais and the current European framework? Who is responsible for upholding human rights for individuals whose ‘natural’ institutions do not offer protection and safety?

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Anderson, B. R. O. (2006). “Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism”. Rev. ed. London ; New York: Verso.

Brubaker, R. ; Cooper, F. (2000) “Beyond Identity”, in Theory and Society, Vol. 29, No. 1

Brubaker, R. (2002) “Ethnicity without Groups”, in European Journal of Sociology / Archives Européennes De Sociologie / Europäisches Archiv Für Soziologie 43, no. 2: 163-89.

Brubaker, R. (2004) “In the Name of the Nation: Reflections on Nationalism and Patriotism”, in Citizenship Studies, 8:2, 115-127

Mitchell, T. (1992) “The Effect of the State”, in Misr fi al-khitab al-amriki, translated by Bashir al- Siba’i, Damascus: Dar `Iybal

Mitchell, T. (1991) “The Limits of the State: Beyond Statist Approaches and Their Critics” in The American Political Science Review , Vol. 85, No. 1, pp. 77-96

Tyerman, T. (2019) “Everyday Borders in Calais: The Globally Intimate Injustices of Segregation”, Geopolitics

ARTICLES AND REPORTS

Care4Calais (2019) “Hunted, Detained, Deported, UK-French co-operation and the effects of border securitisation on refugees in Calais”, Report, Care4Calais

European Commission (2017) “Report from the Commission to the European Parliament, the European Council and the Council, Progress report on the European Agenda on Migration”, SWD(2017) 372 final

European Network on Statelessness, (2021) “Submission to the UK Government Home Office Consultation on it”, ‘New Plan forImmigration’, May 2021

HRO (2020) “Observations of State Violence at the French-UK Border”, Annual Report 2020

OHCHR (2020) “Report of the Special Rapporteur on adequate housing as a component of the right to an adequate standard of living, and on the right to non- discrimination in this context”, OHCHR

Pecqueux, O. (2018) “Marine Le Pen à Calais: «Il faut renvoyer les clandestins chez eux»” [Marine Le Pen in Calais: “We must send the illegal immigrants home”]. La Voix du Nord

Time Staff, (2017) “Read Theresa May’s Speech Laying Out the U.K’s Plan for Brexit”, Time

UNHCR (2021) Observations on the New Plan for Immigration Policy statement of the Government of the United Kingdom, May 2021

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