Postcolonial Challenges to Migration Control: French-Moroccan Cooperation Practices on Forced Returns
Résumé
Analyses that develop a postcolonial critique of international relations and security studies have outlined the project of 'decolonizing' these disciplines and have underlined the importance of taking into account actors from the South. I seek to do so here through the study of migration policies, in particular by looking for the agency of state actors in so-called countries of origin. This article shows that the study of practices of cooperation is a good strategy for decolonizing the study of international relations. Based upon the example of mid-level cooperation on deportation between France and Morocco, this article focuses on two devices and the practices used for international cooperation on migration controls: the posting of immigration liaison officers and the statistical evaluation of cooperation. This case study shows that such practices open brokering spaces in the transnational security field and allow state actors from the South to challenge the dominance of the North.