Mapping Illegality: The i-Map and the Cartopolitics of “Migration Management” at a Distance

Abstract

Cartographies for “migration management” are part and parcel of controversial border practices far from conventional borderlines. Focusing on the i-Map, this study renders how the European Union's current practices of remote border control are visualised among migration policy circles and expert security actors through a “mapping migration matrix”. The lines portraying migration flows in recurrent maps generate a shared expert language and a common geographical imaginary reinforcing practices of contention and classification of those assumed to move toward the European Union irregularly. It is argued that illegality is constructed in ways that target border crossing long before any border is crossed, making someone illegal at the very moment and place where s/he might decide to migrate. This paper analyses the cartopolitics and limits of cartographic expertise in the production of a “routes thinking” able to legitimise extra-territorial interceptions and practices of remote border control.