BORDER ECONOMIES Lampedusa and the Nascent Migration Industry

Given extensive media coverage, the island of Lampedusa became a prominent symbol of undocumented mobility in the Mediterranean. The intensification of border controls, the Schengen treaty and the externalisation of borders to the European ex-colonies in North Africa fostered informal economic activities. Moreover, mobile actors invented new strategies to adapt or to circumvent impediments to free movement. Whereas new forms of Foucault’s concept of gouvernementalité have been critically scrutinised, the interplay between the informal and the formal, institutionalised border economies has escaped attention so far. Based on long-term and multi-sited anthropological fieldwork on Lampedusa and Tunisia, this addresses the border regime and the nascent migration industry that involves various local, national and supra-national actors such as th