Burning at Europe's Borders: An Ethnography on the African Migrant Experience in Morocco draws a close lens on our global migrant and refugee crisis and the world's largest population of migrants and refuges. The author examines the process of "the burning" among those who have fled violent conflict and extreme poverty across the African continent and now find themselves trapped under brutal conditions at Europe's southernmost borders in North Africa.
"Hrig," the Arabic term for "illegal immigration," translates to "burning." It signifies migrants' physical burning of identification papers, in order to avoid repatriation if arrested on their long journeys north, but also the symbolic burning of their past lives in hopes of reaching a better future on European
shores.

This book exposes the political agreements that have led to Europe's control over African borders and the illicit practices that continue to mold Morocco, Algeria, and Libya into holding cells for the world's most vulnerable. The creative mixed-methods project design included over three years of ethnographic research in African smuggling rings, hidden migrant camps, and EU-funded detention centers; a large-scale demographic survey of the region; oral history and what the author terms "oral
future" collection; and community filmmaking practices.

Burning at Europe's Borders introduces new ways of engaging in anthropological research in the modern era, weaving individual human stories and images into the analysis of global migration flows at our world's most critical border crossings.

Burning at Europe's Borders is a volume in the series ISSUES OF GLOBALIZATION: CASE STUDIES IN CONTEMPORARY ANTHROPOLOGY, which examines the experiences of individual communities in our contemporary world. Each volume offers a brief and engaging exploration of a particular issue arising from globalization and its cultural, political, and economic effects on certain peoples or groups.