Externalized “migration management” in West Africa involves different infrastructures of monitoring, control, and blockage of mobility. By taking the Kantchari/Makalondi borderland between Burkina Faso and Niger as a case, we study infrastructures that condition (im)mobility. We analyze infrastructures that both support migrant mobility and serve the European idea of keeping Africans in their place, but also analyze how these infrastructures are subverted, challenged, and used by the ones who are supposed to be immobilized by them in order to remain mobile. Hence, we develop a relational view of the infrastructure of (im)mobilities as a dynamic network of social organization, economic order, and technological integration.

西非外部化的“移民管理”涉及监测、控制和封锁流动的不同基础设施。我们以布基纳法索和尼日尔之间的 Kantchari/Makalondi 边境地区为例，研究了影响（不）流动性的基础设施。我们分析了既支持移民流动又服务于让非洲人留在原地的欧洲理念的基础设施，但也分析了这些基础设施如何被那些本应被他们固定住以保持流动的人所颠覆、挑战和使用。因此，我们发展了一种将（非）移动性基础设施作为社会组织、经济秩序和技术整合的动态网络的关系观点。