The Rights of Capital and the Limits of Man: Representing the "Borderless" World in The Jungle

The play The Jungle by Joe Murphy and Joe Robertson narrates the lifespan of a real refugee camp in Calais, France, with refugees of various nationalities building the camp together in a limited space before it is demolished by the French authorities. This article uses textual analysis to investigate the play’s representation of a borderless world within the camp itself to see whether it demonstrates an alternative to the larger world order configured by national borders and regulations on who and what may cross them. Specifically, it compares the mobility of humans and capital across borders as key elements of a borderless world. Relevant passages from The Jungle are selected and analyzed through close reading, using the original script as the primary source and existing documentation and research as secondary sources. The analysis draws on Kenichi Ohmae’s concept of a borderless world, Masao Miyoshi’s concept of the transnational class, and Harald Bauder’s and Giorgio Agamben’s work on territoriality. Research findings show that Salar’s restaurant becomes a means of asserting the camp’s legitimacy because its economic value appeals to the priorities of the nation-state, even as the refugees themselves remain excluded from secure political recognition and freedom of movement. While the play’s camp imagines a community beyond national borders, economic inequalities, divisions between national groups, and competing attachments to territory complicate this possibility. Ultimately, The Jungle exposes the asymmetry between the relatively unrestricted movement of capital and the constrained mobility of refugees, while showing how attempts to challenge the existing world order remain entangled in its structures.