Federica Infantino – författare

This book explores the everyday practices of border control and implementation of mobility policy in the European Schengen area by analyzing consular visas services on the edges of the territory. Using an original case study, private contractors that implement EU visa policy on governments’ behalf, the author focuses on visa application centers located in Morocco and run by the two major contractors of European Member States, the transnational corporations VFSGlobal and TLSContact. The analysis builds on ethnographic research that encompasses the making of EU visa policy at the European, national and local levels. It aims at uncovering the reasons that have led to the adoption of outsourcing as a normal and legitimized mode to implement EU visa policy and the effects of that choice.

This book explores the everyday practices of border control and implementation of mobility policy in the European Schengen area by analyzing consular visas services on the edges of the territory. Using an original case study, private contractors that implement EU visa policy on governments’ behalf, the author focuses on visa application centers located in Morocco and run by the two major contractors of European Member States, the transnational corporations VFSGlobal and TLSContact. The analysis builds on ethnographic research that encompasses the making of EU visa policy at the European, national and local levels. It aims at uncovering the reasons that have led to the adoption of outsourcing as a normal and legitimized mode to implement EU visa policy and the effects of that choice.

As the controversy over immigration control continues to unfold on a global level, this timely book explores the widespread involvement of private companies in UK detention and removal policies. Based on original empirical data, the book pulls back the curtain on the day-to-day practices of the UK Home Office and private service providers, providing critical insights about the inner workings and failings of their processes. Offering a unique analysis of the enactment of power and state sovereignty, this organizational ethnography will inform scholarly, policy and society debates.

This book examines the timely topic of controlling the borders of the European Schengen Area. It considers the state perspective on border regulation, subjecting day-to-day practices of EU visa policy implementation to close analytical scrutiny. The objects of the analysis are three European Member States—France, Belgium, and Italy—that implement EU visa policy in Morocco, a country whose nationals are considered to be a migratory ‘risk’ for the EU. The book focuses on the implementation of EU visa policy in the consulates of Belgium, France and Italy in Casablanca. The empirical research and the comparative perspective make this book distinct. The book uses a ‘comprehensive implementation approach’ by taking account of the local, national and supranational locations of policy-making. It builds on in-depth pioneering fieldwork and a comparative research design that includes those three locations. The research design has determined the evolving of the puzzle and the realizing of the unanticipated: cross-national differences diminish when policy is put into practice. Extensive research into the visa sections of those EU Member States provides highly original material that sheds light on the obscure black box of EU visa policy implementation, therefore contributing to policy studies, migration studies, and studies on the European Union.