The Bioeconomy of Sahel Borders

Informal Practices of Revenue and Data Extraction

Bibliographic Data

ID3948622
AuthorsLuca Raineri (0000-0001-6107-0019, Researcher of Security Studies at the Sant’Anna School of Advanced Studies, DIRPOLIS Institute, corresponding author)
Year2022
Volume27
Issue5
Pages1470-1491
Publication date2022-10-20
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessNo
TypeARTICLE
VenueGeopolitics (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 1465-0045 • E-ISSN: 1557-3028
PublisherInforma UK Limited (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1080/14650045.2020.1868439
OpenAlexW3154963227
LanguageEN
Citations received11
References cited33

As recent work in border studies has argued, EU-border externalisation is often achieved by exporting technocratic management templates and advanced surveillance technologies, prompting scholars to adopt the lens of biopolitics in studying borderwork. Outside of Europe, however, the paucity of resources and vastness of spaces mean that indigenous forms of agency continue to be a key factor of border governance. Focusing on everyday practices illuminated by ethnographic fieldwork, this article investigates EU border externalisation’s encounter with the Sahelian context. It argues that state and non-state actors form, deform and perform borders by extracting and capturing the material (economic) and immaterial (cognitive) resources that pass through liminal spaces. These dynamics shape a biopolitical economy of border control in which features of exceptionality, sovereignty and politics seem less compelling that those pertaining to the sphere of ordinary, hybridity and economy

Biopower · Business · Corporate governance · Economics · Economy · Geography · Hybridity · Liminality · Political economy · Political science · Politics · Social science · Sociology · Sovereignty · Technocracy · Cross-Border Cooperation and Integration · Global Security and Public Health · Migration, Refugees, and Integration