Smugglers and Smuggled Migrants: Amid Sudanese Passeurs in the Border Regime of Ventimiglia

Abstract

The French-Italian border has been characterised by its permeability over the decades, with an ample and heterogeneous set of social actors taking part in smuggling practices. As a direct result of French politics addressed at preventing asylum seekers’ mobility, informal economies of migrant smugglers revitalised. The chapter focuses on the specificities of smugglers’ organisations in Ventimiglia and its surroundings after four years of reintroduction of border controls. Through informal conversations, in-depth interviews and ethnographic fieldwork, this chapter aims to produce an alternative insight by focusing on the symbolic and material role of Sudanese border-crossing facilitators. Indeed, while Sudan was among the main countries of origin of migrants transiting across Ventimiglia, a Sudanese network of smuggling developed in order to specifically met compatriots’ demands of crossing the border. In particular, we aim at shedding light on practices of organisation, rules, self-perceptions, material conditions, and economical, ethical, and political motivations.