ABSTRACT

The ‘coloniality’, porosity, and ‘ungovernability’ of borders in West Africa, have engendered undocumented migration, in which most people engage to visit their kin and for economic reasons such as herding, farming, fishing, hunting, and trading. This occurs concurrently with human smuggling, human trafficking, gun-running, terrorism, and money laundering. The rise in these cross-border criminal activities and the resultant insecurity have put irregular migration into the mainstream of political and academic conversation, generating national, regional, and global concerns. Against this backdrop, this paper examines the nexus between irregular migration and insecurity along ‘ungoverned’ borders in West Africa, based on a review of relevant literature on migration, security, and governance in scholarly journals, books as well as relevant reports, newspaper, and media accounts. The overarching question which this raises and is addressed in this paper is: How does the coloniality and porosity of ungoverned borders in West Africa engender and/or entrench cross-border insecurity? Addressing this question suggests the need to provide sufficient governance mechanisms that involve both state and non-state actors in order to reduce the ungoverned spaces in this part of Africa.

摘要

西非边界的“殖民地”，多孔性和“不可治理性”导致了无证移民，大多数人出于经济原因（例如放牧，耕种，捕鱼，狩猎和贸易）从事探亲活动。这与人口走私，人口贩运，枪支袭击，恐怖主义和洗钱活动同时发生。这些跨境犯罪活动的增加以及由此带来的不安全感使非正规移民成为政治和学术对话的主流，引起了国家，地区和全球的关注。在此背景下，本文基于对学术期刊，书籍以及相关报告中有关移民，安全和治理的相关文献的回顾，研究了西非“未受管制”边界沿线的非正常移民与不安全之间的联系，报纸和媒体帐户。本文提出并解决的最重要的问题是：西非未受控制的边界的殖民和多孔性如何造成和/或加强跨境不安全？解决这一问题表明，有必要提供一种涉及国家和非国家行为者的充分治理机制，以减少非洲这一部分的未被管理的空间。