Megan Denise Smith, Anna Marino

Shaping European Borders Beyond Europe: A Comparative Analysis of Two Spanish Borderscapes
2025

What happens at European borders shapes the way we talk and think about migration flows and migrants. Borders of the European Union (EU) permeate European society even though they are constructed as a far, easily neglected fortress. Through this piece, we delve into the analysis of two Spanish – and EU – borderscapes beyond the European continent, located geographically on the African continent: the Canary Islands, an archipelago off the coast of northwestern Africa and the Spanish enclaves of Ceuta and Melilla bordering Moroccan territory. We analyze these borderscapes separately to then outline similarities and differences in their development. We argue that a.) these borderscapes, EU borders beyond geographical Europe, are utilized by Spain and the EU as territories where they can continue experimenting a perpetrated migration management based on securitization and militarization b.) such migration management is not effective nor pragmatic, looking at most recent consequences of securitization and externalization practices at the local and regional levels, c.) national and supranational institutions’ focus on border security when looking at human migration has generated a gap in the governance in these local realities. Local NGOs and other grassroots community associations have been trying to fill this gap becoming proper migration governance actors in their own right.