ABSTRACT
This chapter addresses the concept of the ‘border’ in order to shed light on the power dynamics underlining the mobility of refugees across European internal borders. The ethnography allows the grasping of the crossing-border mobility of refugees as a social practice to cope with the structural constraints, together with their subjective perception of which are the borders that hinder their lives.
The production of borders within the national territories by the European Union, its member states, and the local municipalities is here highlighted. Notably, the temporary and precarious legal status emerges as an internal border that hinders refugees in their attempts to build a ‘normal’ life. The tension between the multi-directional and fragmented mobility of refugees and the EU internal borders leads to the production of ‘migration spaces’ within our cities and national territories. These are places where the practices of border enforcement collide with the everyday practices of refugees which autonomously build their lives. ‘Border places’ within national territories are produced, together with ‘transit sites’ through which the mobility of refugees is developed. Finally, this chapter develops the concept of the ‘interstice’ as an analytical tool to understand the outputs from the tensions and frictions between migrant mobilities and the attempt to block and filter them.
