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Paper short abstract:

Our research is about illegal border practices concerning the movement of both humans and goods in the Spanish cases of Andalusia and Alicante. In the context of globalisation and EU border control, how can officially closed areas become 'footbridges'.

Paper long abstract:

Our research is about the derogatory border practices in the common-law concerning both human and goods movement.

In a context in which the EU domestic physical border devaluation goes with a foreign border self-protection will faced with international migrations, the border areas importance is increasing.

The concept of border, very often understood as a sovereignty and territorial competence limit within a State, could be nowadays defined as « une combinaison de propriétés (mise à distance, filtrage, affirmation politique, distinction) dont les effets sur l'espace sont particulièrement marquants (différentiels, discontinuités, risques, entre-deux) tant dans les représentations sociales que dans les pratiques des acteurs qui leur donnent forme et sens. » (Groupe Frontière, 2004). Indeed, we do not think about the concept of state border, but about the different ways of crossing it in an illicit way. How some officially closed areas can become "footbridges"? Which are the possible modalities of these crossings? Which non-state rules are these crossings based on? These questions invite us to think about the process leading to the existence of spaces situated more or less beyond the legal limits. We call theses spaces "zones troubles" (Tarrius, 2002). The creation of this kind of areas can be justified if we consider two "distances": on one hand, the distance existing between the legal rule and the social practices and, on the other hand, the distance existing between a social experience that goes beyond the national frame and a legal administration which is still being developed within this frame.

Through the identification of the different common-law border derogations, the comprehension of the ideas justifying their modalities and the comparison of several border areas, we hope to be able to answer to double aim: a) testing the concept of "zone trouble" pertinence in order to understand the particularity of some UE regions (which would be somehow beyond their own working legal frame) and b) building this notion as a general analytic category.

A first survey led us to Andalusia, which is a region based on this "espace-mouvement" represented by the Mediterranean (Braudel, 1949). In a period of ten years, this region has become one of the most important accesses to the Schengen Area. Andalusia has also experienced a situation of permanent movement as in it we can find immigration, emigration, frontier movements (goods or tourism). However, it is one of poorest Spanish regions, specialized in some activities generating social and ecological damages. Moreover, its parallel economy -licit and illicit products- is particularly developed. So this region appears as a real "social laboratory", a problematic space of articulations between mobility and settled state, identity and non-identity, near and far, legal and illegal. We have brought up three main elements which could help us to constitute the notion of "zone trouble": 1/ an asymmetrical interdependence relationship between Andalusia and the rest of Spain-EU; 2/ a geo-political position of frontier and "area crossing" opened to international and transnational migrations and to different ways of licit and illicit products; 3/ a recent tourist development.

So we develop our research domains by analysing the relationships between economy and movement, opening and closing, licit and illicit, local and global, and the existence of specific movement experiences to the "zones troubles" and by analysing too how the globalisation and the flows that come with contribute to their construction.