CIAO DATE: 09/2013
August 2013
Danish Institute for International Studies
Migration brokers are important participants in the increasingly commercialized policing of borders. Focusing on connections between migration brokers and state authorities, a new DIIS Working Paper by Maybritt Jill Alpes asks how migration brokers relate to the realm of the law, as well as how the law relates to migration brokerage. By examining illegality only when it becomes visible to aspiring migrants and brokers in the context of departure, the paper illuminates how state regulation is intimately intertwined with the emergence of migration brokerage. The argument of the paper provides a counter-point to studies of migration and illegality that often adopt an implicitly statist perspective by categorising brokers as either legal or illegal, as well as by framing brokers as agents that work ‘against’ the state. The paper draws on case material from Anglophone Cameroon, in the work of two NGOs that engage in so-called ‘travel consultations’. It contributes to on-going discussions within the ‘Migration Industry and Markets for Migration Control Network’.
Resource link: Migration brokerage, illegality, and the state in Anglophone Cameroon [PDF] - 132K