


































An Unseen Side of our Global Migrant Crisis

Review by: Mohamed Kamara

March 29, 2021

ISABELLA ALEXANDER-NATHANI, 2020, Burning at Europe's Borders: An Ethnography on
the African Migrant Experience in Morocco,  London and New York: Oxford University Press,
288 pp., ISBN 9780190074647.

Keywords: Human Rights, Refugee Crisis, Race, Africa, European Union

Burning at Europe’s Borders  addresses what is now universally known as the African migrant
crisis from a perspective that is not often given voice. A long-standing problem first brought to
the world’s attention by the tragic April 2011 shipwreck off the coast of Lampedusa, Italy, the
crisis is only expanding in North Africa and across the Mediterranean region. Much has been
said and written about the crisis and from multiple disciplinary and policy perspectives in recent
years. Ċetta Mainwaring’s At Europe's Edge: Migration and Crisis in the Mediterranean (OUP
2019), which focuses on European migration policies and the maritime danse macabre unfolding
off the coasts of small countries like Malta, is one good example. But regarding the oft-ignored
experiences of black Africans on terra firma in the Maghreb, no study is as thorough, sustained,
or intellectually rigorous as Alexander-Nathani’s book. 

Years  of  ethnographic  fieldwork,  during  which  Alexander-Nathani  embedded  herself  in
smuggling  rings  and  forest  camps  and  had  prolonged  interactions  with  diverse  groups  of
migrants and Moroccans, allowed her to obtain a panoramic view of the issue. Acknowledging
her  own privilege  as  a  white  American  working in  North  Africa,  even if  she is  not  always
immune from police harassment because of her gender and foreign status, Alexander-Nathani
writes with deep compassion for her subjects as well as a keen sense of what makes a compelling
story. Through a careful and theoretically sophisticated analysis of data that does not obscure the
human story behind it all, Alexander-Nathani presents us a holistic account of the lives of so-
called sub-Saharan Africans trapped on the fringes of Moroccan society—a liminal space where
they wait and prepare for a crossing into Europe that may or may never happen. 



An  engaged  writer,  filmmaker,  and  human  rights  activist,  Alexander-Nathani  problematizes
interconnected notions and realities of race, class, citizenship, identity, gender, legality, home,
and liminality as they play out in Morocco in both time and space. She characterizes African
migrants  as  “quintessential  postmodern  subjects”  (192)  thanks  to  their  uncanny  ability  to
constantly  remake themselves  by adapting  to  their  precarious  circumstances.  The organizing
principle of the book is ‘hrig,’ a Moroccan Arabic word for ‘illegal immigration,’ which also
means ‘burning.’ The term is used to refer to the literal burning of identification papers that link
migrants to their past. But as a metaphor for the ardent desire to forego one’s past for a better
future, the term could also denote the symbolic burning of oneself so as to be reborn. The author
uses the derivative ‘harraga,’ a Maghrebine word that can be translated to mean those who burn:
“A burner  is  one  who has  sacrificed  himself  or  herself  in  the  hopes  that  their  family  may
someday know a better world” (117). The meaning of the word could be expanded to include the
idea of burning or yearning for justice or for the recognition of the burner’s humanity in a world
that constantly dehumanizes him or her.

Even though the why of migration (its push and pull factors) is not a central concern of Burning
at  Europe’s  Borders, it  looms large  on  every  page  of  the  book.  Indeed,  Alexander-Nathani
acknowledges this when she wonders “if, among some migrant groups, researchers should begin
thinking about  the collection of ‘oral  futures,’ or imaginaries  of what  lies ahead, as  equally
important  as  ‘oral  histories,’ or  memories  of  what  was  left  behind” (160).  Additionally,  she
encourages the adoption of “visual life histories” wherein artifacts like photographs are used to
elicit  from  respondents  “different  kinds  of  narratives  about  their  experiences  of  mobility,
belonging,  liminality,  and  identity  in  transitory  spaces”  (146).  All  the  same,  the  author’s
intentional focus on the migrants’ present in Morocco allows the reader to tune out distractions
created by the ubiquitous media images of despondent Africa and tantalizing Europe.

If the book gifts us a composite picture of migration by privileging the unmediated voices of the
migrants  themselves,  it  also offers  a  searing indictment  of  Europe’s  dereliction  of  its  much
trumpeted  enlightenment  values.  European  politics  of  what  Alexander-Nathani  calls  “border
externalization” (xxxiii)—modeled by Australia and also practiced by the United States under
President  Donald  Trump—is  reminiscent  of  the  practice  of  ‘extraordinary  rendition’ which,
among other things, allows one country to circumvent its own laws and international conventions
by outsourcing to less powerful counterparts practices of abduction, detention, interrogation, and
torture.  This  Western  creation  of  ‘states’ of  exception  in  the  global  south  demonstrates  the
flagrant  willingness on the part  of countries  like Morocco to  serve as  implementers of  new
barbaric policies from former colonial powers.

Burning  at  Europe's  Borders is  a  gripping  ethnography  told  in  language  as  beautiful  and
poignant as the strivings of its subjects. Long after the reading of the book, readers will hear the
plaints of Phino, Khadija, and the teenage Bambino as they seek a safe crossing to tomorrow.
They will feel the angst of the Senegalese exchange student, Ousmane, and of Adil, the black
Moroccan  marginalized  in  his  own country.  They will  also  remember  the  voices  of  ‘white’
Moroccans and others who align themselves alongside and against the embattled migrants. In
this  sense,  Burning  at  Europe’s  Borders is  a  social  justice  handbook  anchored  in  an
uncompromising adherence to scientific research and the pursuit of truth. An important addition
to the annals of Anthropology, African Studies and the global study of contemporary migration,
no  curriculum  on  the  topic  will  be  complete  without  this  book.  More  generally,  it  is
indispensable reading for anyone interested in understanding the largest humanitarian crisis of



our time, one that is rendered all the more urgent by the deleterious effects of climate change and
the  alarming  resurgence  of  nationalisms  globally.  We (politicians,  policymakers,  academics,
students,  and ordinary citizens) ignore it  at  our peril.  “At the very least,” Alexander-Nathani
exhorts  us,  “it  is  our  global  responsibility  to  ensure  that  migration  journeys  do  not  trap
individuals in places as dangerous as – or even more than – those they are fleeing” (xxxiv).

This  book  comes  with  a  companion  website  [insert  link:
https://learninglink.oup.com/access/alexander-nathani-student-resources#tag_all-chapters],
including  chapter-by-chapter  discussion  questions  and  other  teaching  resources,  created  by
Oxford University Press. Another useful companion to Alexander-Nathani’s debut book is her
forthcoming  documentary  film,  The  Burning [insert  link:  https://www.smallworldfilms.org],
which chronicles the incredible journeys of three families from across the African continent as
they move toward the promise of safer shores.

Bibliography:

Mainwaring, Ċetta, 2019, At Europe's Edge: Migration and Crisis in the Mediterranean, London
and New York: Oxford University Press.

Mohamed Kamara is an Associate Professor of French and Africana Studies and is the Program
Chair of Africana Studies at Washington and Lee University. A refugee from Sierra Leone, he
earned his B.A. from Fourah Bay College (University of Sierra Leone), his M.A. from Purdue
University, and his Ph.D. from Tulane University in 2001. His research and teaching interests
span African history, French and Francophone literatures, post-colonialism, race, migration, and
refugee  studies.  In  addition  to  his  academic  research,  he  is  also  a  poet,  fiction  writer,  and
editorialist.

© 2021 Mohamed Kamara

https://www.smallworldfilms.org/
https://learninglink.oup.com/access/alexander-nathani-student-resources%23tag_all-chapters

