Surveillance, Survival, and Incentives to Stay: Three Approaches to Governing ‘Irregular’ Migration from the Gambia

Sammanfattning: Gambian migrants have been amongst the top-nationalities arriving to European shores by ‘irregular’ means. While ‘irregular’ migration is often extremely risky and dangerous, the Gambian government has only been limitedly engaged in governing this migration. Instead, several non-state actors have stepped in. This thesis explores different approaches to governing migration from the Gambia towards Europe. Specifically, it asks: How is ‘irregular’ migration from the Gambia towards Europe governed? This is answered through a qualitative case study based on semi-structured interviews, participant observation and documentary data collected in the Gambia. Drawing on the concept of governmentality, specifically as used by Tania Li (2007), it is shown that different actors, techniques, and rationalities are constituting three distinct but interacting and mutually reinforcing governmental assemblages. These are categorised as the security-, humanitarian- and development assemblages. In these assemblages, the issue of migration is problematised and rendered technical, and consequently rendered non-political. Implementers of migration governance however point to economic and political structures exceeding the scope of their programmes posing a limit to what they can achieve. However, while there is a limit to government, actors continue their work, with all its unintended effects, since the three governmental assemblages are mutually reinforcing and dependent.