At the crossroads of border studies and urban sociology, this article examines the social, political, and symbolic practices of doing and undoing borders in a mid-sized French city. This study demonstrates that the bordering process extends far beyond global cities and national borders into the everyday spaces of mid-sized urban centers. Through walk-along interviews with residents, semi-structured interviews with local politicians and stakeholders, and participant observation, I analyze how the figure of the “crimmigrant” is constructed through legal frameworks, materialized in urban space, and both reinforced and resisted through daily practices. The research reveals how recent European and French legislation creates “gray spaces” of control that transform ordinary urban centers into sites of bordering, while simultaneously showing how local stakeholders develop practices that “undo” these imposed borders. The case study contributes to border studies by demonstrating the ubiquitous nature of contemporary border practices and their contestation in non-metropolitan contexts.
Helen Klein (Tue,) studied this question.