Unhitched Control: Disjointed Bordering Practices at the French-Italian Alpine Frontier

Migration governmentality is enforced through multiple actors which are driven by partially divergent political and economic rationales and interests. Focusing on the French-Italian border, the article interrogates how to account for the irreducible heterogeneity of practices of migration governance which are presented as harmonised and coordinated but that, at a closer glance, appear unhitched. The paper starts by introducing the concept of ‘unhitched control’ and, drawing on that concept, it pushes forward a twofold argument. First, it contends that partially discordant practices and rationalities ultimately converge in choking migrant lives and their infrastructure of life-support. Second, it argues that an exclusive focus on securitisation and security practices sidelines the multiple socio-political and economic components of unhitched control. In order to illustrate such a point, the article focuses on the Franco-Italian border, which is a key border crossing point for migrants, shaped by a long history of migrant passages. Building on archival sources, the piece mobilises a historical approach to investigate how modes of unhitched control in the second half of the last century converged in channelling labour mobility. In the last section it centres on the present context, investigating how unhitched control impacts on migrants’ movements and lives.