Desired freight and undesired migrants: Security and market forces at internal EU borders

Based on a comparison between two intra-EU border securitization processes in the aftermath of the so-called EU “refugee crisis” of 2015, this article aims to contribute to literature on migration control by stressing the role that market-security dynamics play in state borderwork. The comparison between the French/Italian and the Austrian/Italian borders suggests that the containment of undesired mobility may be better understood in light of economic processes (shared commercial interests between states and the interests of the security industry) whose dimensions are easily quantifiable and comparable but rarely taken into account in research on borders and migration. The analysis highlights that these economic processes, together with other historical, political, social and geomorphological factors, are crucial to explain the emergence of different “local border control regimes” in terms of police cooperation, states’ sovereignty practices and the reconfiguration of migratory routes. As an additional argument, the article brings out the nuances of the EU’s uneven core-periphery dynamics with respect to migration management. Indeed, it shows the active role of peripheral countries, such as Italy, in negotiating, contesting, or actively assuming their role of migration “gatekeepers”.