'We’re Not Going Back': Resistances and Coalitions at Two European Borders

This presentation examines protests that contest the discretionary closing of borders, acted by people who have experienced difficulties crossing those borders: migrants from outside Europe and their local supports. Through a comparison between the case of migrants locked up in a detention center on the small Italian island of Lampedusa & migrants retained in Ventimiglia, at the French-Italian border, this study seeks to show that, facing a coercive legal system, these migrants are also able to seize upon opportunities for agency that ordinary exceptions to the law made possible. Drawing on a qualitative survey conducted in Lampedusa in 2013-2014 and in the Roya valley (2017-ongoing), and inspired by the approaches of critical border studies and socio-legal studies, this presentation shows that the context and the moment in which the protests took shape are highly significant for the issues oft he movements. Moreover, the fact of protesting on the margins of the law, to contest the legitimacy of that very law, enabled new forms of „citizenship-through-action“ to arise.