Line Richter | Independent Researcher (original) (raw)
Papers by Line Richter
Ethnography , 2022
This article investigates a particular moment of political tension and intimidation of sub-Sahara... more This article investigates a particular moment of political tension and intimidation of sub-Saharan migrants in Northern Morocco. Drawing on insights gained from collective fieldwork in Tangier, as well as from individual, longstanding ethnographic engagements with migrants from Guinea-Bissau and Mali, it describes the way West African migrants are policed, used as political capital and made the unwilling pawns of large-scale geopolitical negotiations. Targeted and intimidated as part of a diplomatic performance related to the bilateral dealings between Morocco and the European Union, their hardship is orchestrated to communicate the Moroccan state’s control of migration flows into the EU. The article clarifies the existential and social consequences of such staged persecution among migrants and elucidates how it is made sense of and managed through vernacular notions of ‘heat’, a metaphor for nonviable existence. As we shall see, such metaphors provide a window to a larger ‘social thermological’ register prevalent in making sense of precarious circumstance in both social life, social science and politics.
Geopolitics, 2021
In the ongoing global ‘war on migration’, no character has been more vilified than the ‘human smu... more In the ongoing global ‘war on migration’, no character has been more vilified than the ‘human smuggler’. Images of unscrupulous men taking advantage of innocent people flood the media and political discourse. Morocco, with its strategic geopolitical position as a main gateway between Africa and Europe, is no exception in this regard. In this article, I examine how the smuggler has come centre stage in the borderwork around the Europe–Morocco frontier. The concept of borderwork has gained traction in recent scholarship as a way of describing the complicated and rapidly changing empirical complexity of the creation and control of borders. This article further develops this notion, focusing on three intertwined aspects of the borderwork complex: policies, policing and practices of migrant smuggling. Rather than providing counter-arguments to the evil smuggler narrative (a task that has been admirably accomplished by many scholars) I here take an interest in the different intersecting forms of moral labour that go into anti-smuggling policies, local policing of migrants and practices of migrant smuggling, and make a preliminary case for the concept of moral borderwork. This concept allows us to consider how social concerns are raised, reproduced and handled in the borderwork complex. Based on long-term ethnographic fieldwork, the point of departure for this article is a particular moment in time during the summer and autumn of 2018 in Morocco, where black migrants were violently arrested and expelled in large numbers from the northern part of the country.
In Invisibility in African Displacements: From Structural Marginalization to Strategies of Avoidance. Bjarnesen, J. & Turner, S. (ed.). , 2021
Focaal, 2019
Drawing on extensive fieldwork among Malian migrants and connection men, this article investigate... more Drawing on extensive fieldwork among Malian migrants and connection men, this article investigates the sociality of facilitating migrant journeys and illegal border crossings in the Maghreb. Dominant discourses portray smugglers as participating in highly organized networks of unscrupulous people taking advantage of innocent migrants. I counter such narratives by zooming in on West African migrants involved in the facilitation of illegal border crossings. This bizness consists of ensembles of temporary practices and relations embedded in everyday life with linkages to historical and regional practices of brokering and hosting. This perspective invites us to move conceptually from focusing on different (stereo)types of smugglers to considering smuggling practices; to make sense of the phenomenon, we need to pay less attention to fixed social positions and more to the transient social poses adopted by those involved.
Based on ethnographic fieldwork among Malian migrants and migration brokers in Mali, Algeria, Mor... more Based on ethnographic fieldwork among Malian migrants and migration brokers in Mali, Algeria, Morocco, and France, this article investigates life in exile on the edge of Europe. Zooming in on the experiences of interlocutors in Morocco and Algeria, the article will explore the experiential dimensions of living in an extended liminality. Anthropologically, life in so-called places of transit, such as the Maghreb countries, has often been dealt with through the lens of liminality. In this article my aim is to build on the insights from such endeavors, and re-orient the focus by illuminating what this specific type of permanent liminality entails. I posit that a more suitable term to call this is 'limbo'. This, I argue, consists of three main features. First, the motivation for leaving Mali is for most migrants embedded in the lack of opportunities for social mobility: the Malian youth who end up leaving, are in Honwana's words, stuck in 'waithood' at home, in what many argue is a liminal social position. Second, social and political structures are not absent in the Maghreb, rather they are quite discernable and can be seen as continuations and mimicking of existing structures. Third, experiences of dramatic ruptures with humanity and morality are key characteristics of life on the edge of Europe.
Navigating Safety is the second report from the SADIS project. Overall, the project seeks to unde... more Navigating Safety is the second report from the SADIS project. Overall, the project seeks to understand the difference in reported work-related accidents among seafarers of various nationalities in the Danish International Ship register (DIS). Two strands of inquiry have been pursued in order to find answers to this difference, one strand focused on reporting practices (underreporting as a (partial) answer) and the other focused on safety culture. In this report we zoom in on safety culture as an explanatory path. Ethnographic methods have been used to answer this question. 48 Interviews at sea during 7 voyages where participant observation was also carried out, and 14 interviews and 6 focus group discussions on shore form the basis of the analyses. Culture is a guiding term in the report and we take a point of departure in two variants of the term, i.e. national culture (as related to multinational crewing) and safety culture. Instead of letting national culture be an explanation s...
Ethnography , 2022
This article investigates a particular moment of political tension and intimidation of sub-Sahara... more This article investigates a particular moment of political tension and intimidation of sub-Saharan migrants in Northern Morocco. Drawing on insights gained from collective fieldwork in Tangier, as well as from individual, longstanding ethnographic engagements with migrants from Guinea-Bissau and Mali, it describes the way West African migrants are policed, used as political capital and made the unwilling pawns of large-scale geopolitical negotiations. Targeted and intimidated as part of a diplomatic performance related to the bilateral dealings between Morocco and the European Union, their hardship is orchestrated to communicate the Moroccan state’s control of migration flows into the EU. The article clarifies the existential and social consequences of such staged persecution among migrants and elucidates how it is made sense of and managed through vernacular notions of ‘heat’, a metaphor for nonviable existence. As we shall see, such metaphors provide a window to a larger ‘social thermological’ register prevalent in making sense of precarious circumstance in both social life, social science and politics.
Geopolitics, 2021
In the ongoing global ‘war on migration’, no character has been more vilified than the ‘human smu... more In the ongoing global ‘war on migration’, no character has been more vilified than the ‘human smuggler’. Images of unscrupulous men taking advantage of innocent people flood the media and political discourse. Morocco, with its strategic geopolitical position as a main gateway between Africa and Europe, is no exception in this regard. In this article, I examine how the smuggler has come centre stage in the borderwork around the Europe–Morocco frontier. The concept of borderwork has gained traction in recent scholarship as a way of describing the complicated and rapidly changing empirical complexity of the creation and control of borders. This article further develops this notion, focusing on three intertwined aspects of the borderwork complex: policies, policing and practices of migrant smuggling. Rather than providing counter-arguments to the evil smuggler narrative (a task that has been admirably accomplished by many scholars) I here take an interest in the different intersecting forms of moral labour that go into anti-smuggling policies, local policing of migrants and practices of migrant smuggling, and make a preliminary case for the concept of moral borderwork. This concept allows us to consider how social concerns are raised, reproduced and handled in the borderwork complex. Based on long-term ethnographic fieldwork, the point of departure for this article is a particular moment in time during the summer and autumn of 2018 in Morocco, where black migrants were violently arrested and expelled in large numbers from the northern part of the country.
In Invisibility in African Displacements: From Structural Marginalization to Strategies of Avoidance. Bjarnesen, J. & Turner, S. (ed.). , 2021
Focaal, 2019
Drawing on extensive fieldwork among Malian migrants and connection men, this article investigate... more Drawing on extensive fieldwork among Malian migrants and connection men, this article investigates the sociality of facilitating migrant journeys and illegal border crossings in the Maghreb. Dominant discourses portray smugglers as participating in highly organized networks of unscrupulous people taking advantage of innocent migrants. I counter such narratives by zooming in on West African migrants involved in the facilitation of illegal border crossings. This bizness consists of ensembles of temporary practices and relations embedded in everyday life with linkages to historical and regional practices of brokering and hosting. This perspective invites us to move conceptually from focusing on different (stereo)types of smugglers to considering smuggling practices; to make sense of the phenomenon, we need to pay less attention to fixed social positions and more to the transient social poses adopted by those involved.
Based on ethnographic fieldwork among Malian migrants and migration brokers in Mali, Algeria, Mor... more Based on ethnographic fieldwork among Malian migrants and migration brokers in Mali, Algeria, Morocco, and France, this article investigates life in exile on the edge of Europe. Zooming in on the experiences of interlocutors in Morocco and Algeria, the article will explore the experiential dimensions of living in an extended liminality. Anthropologically, life in so-called places of transit, such as the Maghreb countries, has often been dealt with through the lens of liminality. In this article my aim is to build on the insights from such endeavors, and re-orient the focus by illuminating what this specific type of permanent liminality entails. I posit that a more suitable term to call this is 'limbo'. This, I argue, consists of three main features. First, the motivation for leaving Mali is for most migrants embedded in the lack of opportunities for social mobility: the Malian youth who end up leaving, are in Honwana's words, stuck in 'waithood' at home, in what many argue is a liminal social position. Second, social and political structures are not absent in the Maghreb, rather they are quite discernable and can be seen as continuations and mimicking of existing structures. Third, experiences of dramatic ruptures with humanity and morality are key characteristics of life on the edge of Europe.
Navigating Safety is the second report from the SADIS project. Overall, the project seeks to unde... more Navigating Safety is the second report from the SADIS project. Overall, the project seeks to understand the difference in reported work-related accidents among seafarers of various nationalities in the Danish International Ship register (DIS). Two strands of inquiry have been pursued in order to find answers to this difference, one strand focused on reporting practices (underreporting as a (partial) answer) and the other focused on safety culture. In this report we zoom in on safety culture as an explanatory path. Ethnographic methods have been used to answer this question. 48 Interviews at sea during 7 voyages where participant observation was also carried out, and 14 interviews and 6 focus group discussions on shore form the basis of the analyses. Culture is a guiding term in the report and we take a point of departure in two variants of the term, i.e. national culture (as related to multinational crewing) and safety culture. Instead of letting national culture be an explanation s...