ABSTRACT
This chapter focusses on migrants’ first encounter with the Visa Information System (VIS) at the consulates. It describes three sets of practices that migrants mobilise to appropriate an entry-ticket to Europe, namely a Schengen visa. These practices are stigmatised by authorities as ‘visa shopping’, ‘document fraud’ and corruption. By analysing three different modes of appropriation of Schengen visa, the chapter demonstrates that migrants’ practices of appropriation share six central features irrespective of their form. Furthermore, the chapter shows that the European border regime operates as an apparatus of capture that tries to recuperate migrants’ practices to make them productive for its own development.
