Paper short abstract:

The paper examines how African migrants perceive European borders and how social media influences the perceptions. Neglecting citizens stokes fear of migration in Europe and eliminates fear of roads to perdition—seen as roads to nirvana—and fortress Europe borders in Africa.

Paper long abstract:

The African Union and European Union (EU) hold an important relationship through the Joint Africa-EU Strategy, an emblem of a rich relationship that, nonetheless, has a troubled past and faced challenges in its evolution. Some challenges they face in the 21st century exceed the ability of either to address alone. Migration signifies such complex inter-dependencies in the relationship. This paper investigates African migrants’ perceptions of European borders and how social media influences the perceptions, in order to make sense of reports that migrants from Africa continue attempting to migrate to Europe despite border enforcement, measures by the AU and EU to improve living conditions in the migrant-sending countries and the risks and horrors involved in the migration processes. The analysis in the paper is based on a review of relevant scholarly literature that situates it in prevailing discourses on migration and borders, and primary data gathered through semi-structured face-to-face personal interviews and focus group discussions based on the snowball sampling method. The region covered in the exercise stretches from the Atlantic seaboard in West African to the Gulf of Alden and Indian Ocean coast of the Horn of Africa. While the neglect of citizens by politicians stokes fear of migration in Europe, in Africa it eliminates fear of roads to perdition—perceived to be roads to nirvana—and Europe’s fortress borders.