ABSTRACT
This chapter traces the turbulent and transient history of Calais. Calais is about footprints – ancient and recent, guarded and transient. It’s been traversed and crossed over by the desperate and the routine. Filled with hope and tarnished through violence – it speaks of the conflicted and unsettled nature of the border and border tensions. Calais–Dover has practical significance as a major route in and out of Britain for people and goods. The constant sprouting of refugee camps in Calais and the invocation to act by both charities and alt-right anti-immigrant groups to the growing numbers in Calais demonstrated a Britain wary of people sneaking into its borders. Calais’ border politics is rooted in a historicized spatiality dating to the premodern era where it is a gateway for refugees in search of sanctuary in Britain. Equally, it retains a violent past of expulsion and de-racination.
