The proximity of the past in Mauritania. EU border externalisation and its colonial antecedents

Abstract

Taking as its backdrop certain transformations entailed by the colonial encounter, this article explores European Union (EU) border externalisation in Mauritania. It draws a parallel between these two historical instances by highlighting three socio-spatial changes brought about by colonialism, and then illustrating how they have been reaffirmed through EU border externalisation. These domains are territorial delimitation, human mobility, and collective belonging. Such a perspective does not remove the agency of state actors from the externalisation process. Indeed, while the linear model of territorial delimitation was a colonial imposition, there is now a convergence of interest around its reinforcement. Furthermore, externalisation in its post-crisis phase becomes characterised by disagreement and contestation between EU and Mauritanian state actors, as the latter appropriate categories and technologies of externalisation for their own purposes. Nonetheless, it will be shown that the scope in which this agency is enacted is ultimately conditioned by the colonial shift in socio-spatial organisation.