Borderwork and security in West Africa: transnational practices and technologies

Across West Africa, and particularly in the Sahel region that straddles it, states have adopted new policies, technologies, and foreign relations in the hopes of countering cross-border threats such as irregular migration, terrorism, and transnational organized crime. While the hardening of international borders across Europe and North America has been dramatic and subject to considerable study, particularly since the attacks of 9/11, we know comparatively little about the practices around border security in non-Western contexts. Paying closer attention to border security in areas such as West Africa shows us how the governance of security is increasingly transnational, and how border security is increasingly tied to statebuilding agendas. This talk relates to my research on the everyday practices behind new border security practices and relations adopted by states in West Africa, with emphasis on Senegal and Mauritania. It draws on this fieldwork to present three cases on police cooperation on migration management, the construction of border posts, and the use of new biometric identification technologies. Using these three cases, I argue that borders in West Africa are socio-technical spaces in which we see new forms of transnational security governance. These relations, often between African actors and international interveners, are conduits through which we can observe the interaction (and projection) of knowledges about security, and in turn, how these aim to build and reshape state structures.