ABSTRACT This paper views migration management campaigns through the lens of involuntary immobility and containment development, which aim to geographically localise Gambian desires and imaginations, to the extent that they are being subjected to border controls that discriminate and dehumanise irregular migrants. Migration Information Campaigns (MICs) advocate a sedentary bias that positions Gambian migrants with the injustice of migration departheid, whereby Western states intentionally implement a racialized mobility regime. I present the results of ethnographic field work undertaken in The Gambia, West Africa during the period 2018 through 2022. Border externalisation measures in all their forms are having dire consequences for the youth of the Gambia. So‐called development is cloaked in containment development initiatives, which are benefiting few and damaging to many. MICs have been documented to be ineffective, and the respondents in this study say the same. Expanding beyond their ineffectiveness, however, is the perpetuation of global mobility injustice, which hasn't clearly been articulated in the literature. Against the backdrop of Gambians pleading for more open visa acquisition, the EU is far more likely to spend their time and money working on campaigns to do just the opposite: keep Gambians at home. Gambian youth are making choices to take dangerous routes to Europe and other international destinations because visas are elusive and their economic prospects at home remain bleak. The discrepancy between MICs and the wishes of Gambian youth to migrate and the associated injustice they feel is presented. This work therefore contributes to the recent and growing literature on migration departheid and mobility justice.
Cathy Conrad Suso (Sat,) studied this question.