Eroded and Reconfigured: The dwelling infrastructures of illegalised migration along the Belgian-French route to the UK
Findings of the 2nd and 3rd nodes of Belgium’s Ethnographic Antennea, Brown Bag seminar at the Center of Ethnic and Migration Studies – CEDEM, Institute for Social Science Research (IRSS), University of Liège.
When: 03 Decembre 2024
Place: Bâtiment 31, Pl. des Orateurs 3, Liège, Belgium
Researcher: I. Oubad
This presentation explores the grassroots dwelling infrastructures that emerge to support migrants abandoned and illegalized under Belgium’s enforcement of the Dublin Regulation. Despite the attempts to restrict migrant people to prescribed territories, we see the formation of infrastructures through which denied international protection seekers (DIPS) navigate predicaments of abandonment and containment.
Formations like locals’ host networks, collective housing, emergency shelters, makeshift squats and encampments enable the dwelling and onward movement of the “unauthorised” beyond the arrival cities. Through mobile ethnography (Boas et al., 2020) and activist engagement (Routledge, 2013), I explore these migration infrastructures along a crucial circuit—connecting Brussels, the Tournai region, and the Opale Coast— an itinerary frequented by those aspiring to reach the UK, where the Dublin Regulation has less restrictions on their being.
Drawing on findings emerging from ongoing fieldwork, I will discuss the infrastructuring politics (Meeus et al., 2019) underpinning adaptive strategies of people, places and networks encountering the ambivalence of organised abandonment (Gilmore, 2007) and the constant displacement imposed by zero-point-de-fixation
