Introduction: An Afro-Europeanist Perspective on EurAfrican Borders

This volume traces the African ramifications of Europe’s southern border. While the Mediterranean Sea has become the main stage for the current play and tragedy between European borders and African migrants, Europe’s southern border has also been “offshored” to Africa, mainly through cooperation agreements with countries of transit and origin. By bringing into conversation case studies from different countries and disciplines, this volume seeks to open a window on the backstage of this externalization of borders. It casts light on the sites – from consulates to open seas and deserts – in which Europe’s southern border is made and unmade as an African reality, yielding what the editors call "EurAfrican borders." It further describes the multiple actors – state agents, migrants, smugglers, activists, etc. – that variously imagine, construct, cross or contest these borders, and situates their encounters within the history of uneven exchanges between Africa and Europe.