Loading...
Making “Mediterranean Migrants”:Geopolitical Transitions, Migratory Policy, and French Conceptions of the Mediterranean in the 20th Century
Kozakowski, Michael A.
Kozakowski, Michael A.
Title / Series / Name
Cahiers de la Méditerranée
Publication Volume
89
Publication Issue
Pages
Author
Editors
Keywords
France
Migration
Discourses
Geopolitics
Intellectual History of the Mediterranean
Migration
Discourses
Geopolitics
Intellectual History of the Mediterranean
Files
URI
https://hdl.handle.net/20.500.14018/29057
Abstract
Despite the fact that most migrants in mid-20th century France came from the western Mediterranean, the relationship between conceptions of migrants and conceptions of the Mediterranean is poorly understood. This article analyzes both how French policy debates about migrants borrowed from discourses about the Mediterranean and its inhabitants, as well as how these debates reveal changing ideas about the Mediterranean as the frontier of “Europe.” To this end, the article examines four periods of geopolitical reconfigurations when migratory patterns and policies were reworked: as a result of World War I, in the wake of World War II, during the 1950s and 1960s with decolonization and European integration, and in the midst of economic crises and European enlargement since the 1970s. During the course of the 20th century, the concept of the “Mediterranean migrant,” as well as the “Mediterranean” itself, increasingly referred to persons from the southern shore of the Mediterranean, rather than from Southern Europe. This shift, in conjunction with an increasingly united Europe, has several implications for migrants’ inclusion in the nation-state and European Union.
Topic
Publisher
Place of Publication
Type
Journal article
Date
2014-12-01
Language
ISBN
Identifiers
10.4000/cdlm.7776