HELPING REFUGESS IN CALAIS: A FORAGE THROUGH THE STATE SECURITY/HUMAN RIGHTS IMPASSE

Abstract

In the midst of the EU refugee “crisis”, this thesis places a magnifying glass over the Calais refugee camp in France, where securitisation policies adopted by the French and British governments have failed to conclusively shut down the camp. Starting out as a temporary migrant centre to host a maximum of 900 in 1999, Calais camp reached a peak of 10,000 migrants in 2016 and its permanence is now undeniable. The migrants assert their own agency and mobility to subvert state policies, leading to an impasse as the camp is repeatedly rebuilt after forced shut downs. The authorities, NGOs and migrants alike are all trapped in a state of limbo, and Calais has now come to symbolise the EU’s failure to cope with the migrant crisis. The central questions of this thesis are: Why have securitisation policies been ineffective in Calais and what are the migrants’ motivations? Can the states’ and migrants’ perspectives be reconciled?

A survey was carried out among volunteers at Help Refugees, a predominant NGO in Calais, to elucidate the motivations behind the migrants’ determination to reach the UK despite the camp’s debilitating conditions. It was found that the migrants were largely motivated by personal factors which the state fails to take into account when it employs securitisation policies. The second half of this thesis introduces the New Mobilities Paradigm (NMP) to not only explain the ineffectiveness of securitisation policies in Calais, but also to provide a third, alternative lens for analysis. Challenging sedentarist theories and shifting the focus to mobility, the NMP offers a breakthrough in the existing normative binary between securitisation and human rights.