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This article looks at the dynamics of in/visibility as a power relation in Alpine tourist areas along the French-Italian border, specifically the Côte d’Azur coastline of Menton–Ventimiglia and the Alpine ski resorts of Montgenèvre and Clavière. Migration control in these regions relies on social and “ethno-racial” profiling by law enforcement officers. The structural social and racial inequalities in the Alpine region render “non-white” minorities and “non-legitimate” tourists hypervisible, resulting in the disproportionate targeting of foreigners from the “Global South.” To evade control, targeted migrants adopt strategies of invisibility, such as hiding in the mountains or using the “passing” strategy, which involves presenting themselves as legitimate travelers. These strategies of resistance against the border regime demonstrate the migrants’ nuanced understanding of the social relations of class and race at play in Alpine tourist areas. By circumventing obstacles to mobility and challenging the social-racial order imposed by the border, the migrants exercise their freedom of movement despite the restrictive border practices.

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Introduction

1Since 2015, Alpine territories on the French-Italian border have been militarized for migration control purposes as part of the “fight against illegal immigration.” Controls are implemented in the ski resorts of Montgenèvre (Hautes-Alpes, France) and Clavière (Val de Suse, Italy), as well as on the Mediterranean coastline of Menton (Alpes-Maritimes, France) and Ventimiglia (western Liguria, Italy) and in the Maralpin hinterland. Targeted identity checks are carried out at border crossings, border stations, and along major road and rail routes. Police practices leverage the topography, involving patrols by vehicle or on foot along hiking trails, as well as surveillance from elevated positions or via visual technologies such as drones. Yet, despite this militarization of the Alpine border areas, millions of travelers cross the French-Italian border every day without encountering controls, particularly those heading to the ski resorts of the Alps or the beaches of the Côte d’Azur (Figures 1 and 2).

  • 1 All figures are by the author of this article.

Figure 1 – A tourist and militarized border zone: the French-Italian border in the Alps1

Figure 1 – A tourist and militarized border zone: the French-Italian border in the Alps1
Figure 2 – A tourist and militarized border zone: the Maralpin region along the French-Italian border

2By exercising the power to legalize or illegalize, to block or permit movement, borders fabricate a social order: They reveal and reproduce the relations of class, gender, nationality, and “race” that structure societies. These power relations are reflected in space in the fields of visibility and invisibility. As Olivier Voirol notes, “What is visible and intelligible, what is recognized and endowed with legitimacy, is the crystallization of a power relationship” (Voirol 2005, pp. 116). Thus, visibility marks the dominant, while invisibility signals an abandonment of public attention. This observation aligns with Lise Piquerey’s analysis of dominant classes in Alpine ski resorts, where seeing and being seen is framed as a “class privilege” (Piquerey 2016, pp. 291–296). Her work focuses on social class relations in Alpine tourist spaces but overlooks the role of “race” in these dynamics. However, examining visibility in a border context invites a more complex understanding of the power relations that structure the visibility/invisibility binary.

3At European borders, people whose migration is deemed illegal are subject to a dual regime of visibilization and invisibilization, a phenomenon Alison Mountz describes as “in/visibility” (Mountz 2015): They are hypervisibilized in the media, which portrays them as threats; yet the true causes of their migration, the diversity of their experiences, and the violence they endure at the borders are invisibilized. Pierre Tevanian further analyzes the mechanics of racism through the notion of “exceptional bodies (...) sometimes exceptionally visible, sometimes exceptionally invisible,” drawing on Sidi Mohamed Barkat’s concept of bodies subjected to a state of exception anywhere, anytime (Barkat 2005). This state of exception translates into “heteronomy, the dispossession of (...) self-presentation. Unlike the ordinary body, which retains a certain freedom to appear and disappear as it pleases, to be more or less ‘conspicuous,’ to ‘manage its image,’ the exceptional body never appears as it would like to” (Tevanian 2017, p. 45). By contrast, whiteness, as the dominant position in social relations of “race,” is characterized by “enjoying [a] certain ‘social transparency’ [which] presupposes that one does not have to endorse any infamous mark, whatever it may be (color, veil, accent, patronymic...)” (Dorlin 2009, p. 13). Alpine border spaces are thus structured by a “struggle for places” (Guenebeaud 2017; Lussault 2009) that assigns racialized travelers a minority status and continually produces their in/visibilization.

4However, it is crucial to challenge the notion of an infallible, all-powerful border regime. Chiara Brambilla and Reece Jones emphasize the importance of “seeing from the view of people on the move” and “giving visibility back to stories of resistance and of autonomous movement, outside the purview of the sovereign power of the state” (Brambilla and Jones 2019). This paper interrogates the role of in/visibility not only as a mechanism of domination but also as a strategic tool for resisting the social-racial order imposed by borders. Migrants’ strategies of crossing and transgression contest and subvert the spatial order of Alpine border spaces, which relegates them to subaltern positions. This approach resonates with Tim Cresswell’s argument that “transgression (...) serves to highlight the mapping of the ideology imposed on space and place: in this way, marginality tells us something about ‘normality’” (Cresswell 1996, p. 14). Through acts of transgression, the boundaries of the visible and invisible between social groups – typically normalized and naturalized – are revealed and disrupted.

5The research presented here is part of a doctoral thesis in geography. It is based on a multi-faceted methodology: quantitative, qualitative (including interviews with residents of border towns and villages, law enforcement agencies, and people in migration), and ethnographic (participant observation within the solidarity movement for exiled people in the Briançonnais/Val de Suse area in 2018–2019, as well as non-participant observation in the tourist areas of MontgenèvreClavière and MentonVentimiglia).

6As a French person perceived as “white,” the social-racial order of the French-Italian border does not spontaneously appear to me, as my presence in the space is constructed as legitimate. It was through months of shared daily experiences in places of solidarity and transit with people undergoing controls that I learned to “see” the border and its effects. To limit the risks of “epistemic violence” (Spivak 2006) in the research relationship with people undergoing migration, I prioritized working with friends I had known for a long time, who regularly shared their analyses with me: Bandjan, Hamad, Hassan, Salah, Fatou, and Destin. The research took the form of dialogues over a long period, which were often conducted as free recorded discussions, sometimes revisiting border sites together. These research participants, who occasionally identify as “immigrants” or “exiles,” all crossed the French-Italian border several years ago. They come from various African countries and identify as “Black.” While their profiles are not representative of all illegal border crossers (who may also be Asian, Arab, Turkish, Kurdish, Kabyle, etc.), their experiences offer insight into the specific challenges faced by migrants perceived as “Black” at the French-Italian border.

Being ‘Hypervisible’ in Border Tourist Areas as a Mark of Social-Racial Domination

Police Profiling and the Racialization of Alpine Tourism

7The Alpine tourist areas on the French-Italian border present a paradox: Tourism stakeholders seek to attract foreign tourists, yet certain categories of foreigners are arrested, detained, and expelled under the banner of the “fight against illegal immigration.” Freedom of movement across the internal borders of the Schengen area is granted to European citizens and those holding a Schengen visa, contingent on criteria of nationality and economic resources. European borders thus establish a hierarchy of global economic relations, interwoven with social dynamics: Nationals of countries in the “Global South” face increasingly restricted international mobility, prompting some scholars to describe this system as a “global apartheid” between Western countries and the rest of the world (Besteman 2019).

  • 2 Source: Human Development Report, UNDP 2021. See: Table 2 – “Human Development Index Trend” and Tab (...)

8The following map (Figure 3) highlights the majority nationalities of tourists and those of migrants whose mobility is restricted at the French-Italian border, revealing that the opposition between desirable and undesirable foreigners is largely linked to the development conditions of their countries of origin. Tourists predominantly come from countries with the highest HDI, while migrants often come from countries with the lowest HDI.2 Moreover, this disparity reproduces colonial-era inequalities in access to mobility (Blanchard 2021; Ould Moctar 2020).

Figure 3 – Nationalities of tourists and migrants blocked at the French-Italian border

Figure 3 – Nationalities of tourists and migrants blocked at the French-Italian border

Figure 4 – European tourists and African migrants on Ventimiglia beach

Figure 4 – European tourists and African migrants on Ventimiglia beach

Bachellerie, October 2016

9In practice, the distinction between desirable and undesirable travelers is far from clear-cut, as nationality and socio-economic conditions are not immediately visible. It is the gaze of the police that determines who has the right to travel in Alpine border tourist areas. Destin, a Cameroonian immigrant who crossed the French-Italian border in 2018, explains that migration control often takes the form of racial profiling, particularly on the bus route between Oulx (Italy) and Briançon (France):

  • 3 Recorded discussion with Destin, May 2019.
  • 4 Ibid.

“When [the police] get on, they look around. If they see white people somewhere, they don’t really check; they go straight to the Blacks. If there are North Africans, it’s even worse! (...) They have this ‘facial crime’.”3 Nationality becomes conflated with physical appearance. As Destin observes: “When they look at someone, they don’t know if he’s French or Italian, but if he’s white, it means he doesn’t have to worry about papers. They don’t ask him for a passport or anything.”4

10Simon, a soldier on a “Sentinel” military patrol deployed at the border to combat terrorism and control migration, refers to an informal racial classification used among soldiers to identify the “types” and “origins” of individuals as a basis for determining whom to control:

  • 5 Recorded discussion with Simon, July 2023.

“N-A equals North African. (...) If the guy looks as much Berber or Afghan to you as Lebanese or Iranian, he might be a ‘North African.’ So it’s visual, it’s physical, it’s stereotypical (...) ‘Type A‘ for Black Africa. (...) So, first thing, [in the mission] you refer to that.”5

11The police and military gaze thus becomes a vector of racialization in the border zone, linking phenotype to geographical origin and a presumed condition of illegality. This perception of racial otherness can also stem from the local population, as some residents of Montgenèvre and Menton report individuals they identify as “migrants” to the border police (PAF).

12In Alpine tourist towns and villages, the presence of people perceived as “Black,” “Arab,” or “Asian” is often regarded as unusual, strange, or “out of place” (Cresswell 1996). As a result, racialized migrants become hypervisible in the border space, which increases the likelihood of their arrest. Nacira Guénif-Souilamas (2006, pp. 7–27) describes this as “visual incarceration”:

“The body delivered up to the gaze is thus exposed to the topographical survey of signs that authorize disapproval, then, where appropriate, punishment - racism, discrimination, humiliation, imprisonment.”

13Ethno-racial profiling means that racialized citizens and foreigners with legal status, whether tourists or residents of the border areas, are also subject to controls. This gives rise to altercations, as illustrated by Bandjan, an exile from Guinea, who recounted an incident involving a “Black” traveler:

  • 6 Recorded discussion with Bandjan, February 2023.

“When we got to Clavière [the bus driver] told [a passenger] that it was risky, that with the luggage and all that, he couldn’t get through. [The passenger] got angry. (...): ‘Who told you I’m a migrant?’ (...) He had his papers, I don’t know his situation, but he had no problem crossing. (...) He felt insulted, being mistaken for an undocumented immigrant.” 6

14By contrast, in Alpine tourist areas, “white” individuals make up the “invisible majority,” those who “go unnoticed” (Brun and Cosquer 2022, p. 34). Several studies have shown that white people overwhelmingly dominate mountain resorts (Frohlick 2005; Harrison 2013; Martin 2004). Tourism advertising constructs “natural” environments as “white spaces” (Anderson 2015; Cromwell 2022; Sallenave 2022), giving the impression that these spaces are only frequented by “white” people, reinforcing the impression that “Black people have no place in Nature” (Martin 2004, p. 528).

  • 7 On average, across the two border areas: 31% are managers and professionals (engineers, independent (...)
  • 8 According to a Crédoc summary note, 20% of managers and 17% of high-income earners go on winter hol (...)

15A questionnaire survey that I carried out among 200 tourists and/or residents, who were selected at random on the snow front in Montgenèvre and Clavière (February 2023), and on the beach or in tourist cafés in Menton and Ventimiglia (July 2023), showed that managers and higher intellectual professions were the most represented category among participants (even though employees constituted the majority in Menton–Ventimiglia).7 Most participants were also university graduates (68% on average across both areas). These results align with broader sociological trends in Alpine tourism, which attracts individuals from the upper social classes, with high-altitude regions considered more elitist than the coast or mid-altitude mountains.8

Figure 5 – Tourists skiing in Montgenèvre, unaffected by mobile migration control in the resort. (Bachellerie, April 2018)

Figure 5 – Tourists skiing in Montgenèvre, unaffected by mobile migration control in the resort. (Bachellerie, April 2018)

Bachellerie, April 2018

16The questionnaire further revealed that the vast majority of individuals frequenting Alpine border areas were exclusively citizens of Europe, North America, and Australia or New Zealand countries (so-called “Global North” nations and members of the OECD), with no origins from other regions of the world: 96% in Montgenèvre–Clavière and 79% in Menton–Ventimiglia. Although the questionnaire did not ask participants about their ethnic or “racial” identification, with rare exceptions, this majority – originating exclusively from the “Global North” – corresponded to individuals I perceived as “white” during fieldwork. In this way, the minority status of people from the “Global South” and/or “non-white” groups contributes to their hypervisibility in the tourist areas that make up the border zone.

17However, observations made in tourist areas along the French-Italian border challenge the notion that these are exclusively “white spaces” (Anderson 2015; Pallister-Wilkins 2022). Along the coastline between Menton and Ventimiglia, I noted the presence of numerous individuals that I perceived as “non-white”, both citizens and foreigners, including African market vendors, construction workers, delivery personnel, and restaurant employees. The luxury restaurant next to the PAF post at Pont Saint-Louis (Menton) and the vacation village on the border between Montgenèvre and Clavière employ many salaried workers from South America, Africa, or Asia, sometimes on seasonal work visas.

18These observations highlight the extent to which international migration, particularly from the “Global South” to the “Global North,” is integral to the functioning of the tourism economy. However, this integration is framed within a limited scope that legitimizes the presence of migrants in Alpine spaces solely in a professional capacity.

19The logic of “spacing” between “white” and “non-white” bodies in border tourist areas does not always produce a binary relationship between “white” tourists and “non-white” workers. In Montgenèvre and Clavière, I observed the (rare) presence of skiers I perceived as “non-white,” particularly among groups of young people from leisure centers. On the beaches of Ventimiglia and Menton, I encountered numerous locals and tourists speaking Arabic dialects from the Maghreb. In Ventimiglia town center, again based on the languages spoken, I identified certain groups of “Black” individuals as African tourists and others as African-Americans. Thus, “racial” criteria alone are not enough to fully understand the mechanisms of police targeting.

Inspection as a Means of Defining ‘Legitimate’ and ‘Illegitimate‘ Mountain Sports Enthusiasts

20Studies of police migration control in urban areas have shown that ethno-racial stereotypes are consistently combined with other criteria to identify “irregular migrants” (Babels 2019; Casella Colombeau 2015; Guenebeaud 2023; Mouhanna 2009), such as mode of travel, appearance, and behavior. In Alpine border areas, the social composition and codes specific to the mountain tourism milieu reconfigure the criteria for identifying undesirables. Analyses of the social relations of “race,” class, and gender that structure mountain tourism spaces show that practices adopted by “white” upper-class men are considered more legitimate than those of other groups (Moraldo 2017; Piquerey 2016; Sallenave 2022). Yet, representations of social markers distinguishing “legitimate” from “illegitimate” mountain practitioners make it easier for law enforcement to spot “outsiders.” Simon, the soldier mentioned in section 1.1, highlights the role of mountain tourism “codes” in police targeting:

Secondly, it’s the way they dress. (...) When they’re suspect, it’s these aspects. Those who don’t [correspond] to the so-called codes [of] mountain tourism. Guys who cross Montgenèvre in winter in flip-flops, that’s something, [or] wearing a little girl’s pink T-shirt, a sports bag all torn, you’ll say: ‘That’s not a common hiker, that one.’ (...) You quickly realize the difference [with] a ‘North Face,’ [or] two young people with the faces of engineers who are doing their gap year trip on foot over three months (...) And then, of course, afterward, you understand if there are three or four of them, tired, sweating, fleeing the gaze of the military authority or the cop.

21The representation of legitimate mountain enthusiasts by law enforcement is based on clothing brands, which reflect social capital (Bourdieu 2014 [1982]), and mastery of the social codes specific to Alpine tourism, which constitutes spatial capital (Lévy and Lussault 2003). However, non-European migrants in Alpine border areas rarely wear clothing considered suitable for mountain activities (e.g., sportswear, raincoats, warm clothing in winter, or light clothing in summer). They often have little or no knowledge of the spatial practices necessary in the mountains, such as interpreting signage or navigating trails. In addition, they frequently lack the right snow equipment (e.g., skis, snowshoes) or in rough terrain (e.g., hiking boots). These factors expose their position as “outsiders,” making them particularly visible in the border zone and easier for police to identify.

22Thus, “whiteness” in the Alpine region refers less to skin color than to a dominant position in “a racialized social space” (Brun and Cosquer 2022, p. 93): a condition that intertwines “race,” social class, and the spatial capital constituted by mastery of mountain tourism codes.

Making Ourselves Invisible: Subverting the Social-Racial Order of the Frontier

Doing the sociology of the police: the double consciousness of exiles

  • 9 Recorded discussion with Fatou, September 2023.

23The exiles who took part in this research are acutely aware of their own visibility in the Alpine border area. Fatou, a Senegalese immigrant, remembers how tourists looked at her when she crossed the border on the hiking trails in Montgenèvre: “It was during the day (...) People were out walking. People were cycling. They looked at us a lot because we had bags. So they knew very well that it’s immigrants crossing.”9

24Salah, an exile from Sudan, reflects on how his condition as a “migrant” was visible, betrayed by his body due to the stark social contrast with the local population.

  • 10 Recorded discussion with Salah, June 2023.

“We, the people who’ve just arrived, are visible. (...) In Menton, people are (...) very chic. So it’s very easy to tell us apart. Even between Black people who live in Menton and those who have just arrived, in fact. It’s very clear. (...) If I’m a policeman, it’s very easy [to see] that. (...) For example, the body that’s rested (...): The one who’s just arrived, his body is tired, he’s had a long journey, it’s clear. You can see it in his face, in his morphology. The way he dresses, his shoes. Because already, we don’t have the money to buy things and... That’s it. Even us, we tried, you know, to ‘look good,’ dress up, etc., put on a shirt, black pants, but it didn’t work.”10

25Salah is aware of the role of appearance (clothing, accessories) and habitus (body posture and positioning, see Bourdieu 2014 [1982])) in police identification strategies. This reflects the “double consciousness” analyzed in 1903 by W. E. B. Du Bois (2007). In addition to their own perception of the world, racialized individuals are acutely aware of how they are perceived by the majority group. This awareness of visibility compels migrants to observe police strategies (Le Courant 2022) and develop avoidance techniques to escape the police gaze. Hamad, an exiled Sudanese, describes this process:

  • 11 Recorded discussion with Hamad, January 2023.

“The police have lots and lots of information about us. But at the same time, we’re also trying to do the ‘sociology’ of the police. So, if you like, it’s like a game of cat and mouse. In the end, we’re struggling, but I think they are too. It’s not an easy mission for them.11

26Double consciousness enables migrants to identify the criteria for police profiling and analyze social relations in the border zone in order to deceive the police. In this way, they can subvert the spatial order and thwart the obstacles to their mobility.

Hiding: From Camouflage to Passing

27Faced with the processes of hypervisibilization that expose them to arrest, migrants in the Alpine tourist border zones protect themselves by trying to hide. Bandjan, an exile from Guinea, explains:

  • 12 Recorded discussion with Bandjan, December 2023.

“Even sometimes, when we see civilians in the distance, we hide. We try to take the riskiest paths where the police don’t dare go looking for us, where citizens don’t dare take the road. (...) And we put our lives in even greater danger. (...) We climb to the top of the mountain. We take dangerous routes so they don’t have fun chasing us.” 12

28Crossing the border in hiding requires leveraging every resource offered by the environment to become invisible. Most people wait until nightfall, hoping darkness will make them appear less visible. During their journey, they rely on buildings and vegetation to conceal themselves. They also use the mountain topography to evade the police gaze, climbing higher up the mountain, passing behind exposed slopes, and avoiding urbanized, lit, and frequented areas. However, this strategy increases their exposure to mountain risks, such as getting lost, falling, or freezing (Bachellerie 2018).

Figure 6 – Photograph taken during a guided walk with Bandjan, evoking the conditions of his crossing between Clavière and Montgenèvre

Figure 6 – Photograph taken during a guided walk with Bandjan, evoking the conditions of his crossing between Clavière and Montgenèvre

Bachellerie, 2023

29To minimize danger, some people use an alternative strategy: Rather than camouflaging their bodies, they conceal their migrant status by disrupting the social and racial categories that distinguish groups permitted to travel from those whose mobility is restricted. This is what Hassan, a Sudanese exile, did at the station in Cannes when he crossed the border in the 1990s:

  • 13 Recorded discussion with Hassan, April 2022.

“We had no Italian currency, only French francs. We paid attention to our clothes, the cut. The important thing was to arrive one or two at a time (...) well-dressed, with magazines, [like] tourists. There we were, next to [the policemen] at the counter. So you could see we weren’t hiding, we weren’t afraid.” 13

30This strategy was also favored by Hamad, a Sudanese exile:

  • 14 Recorded discussion with Hamad, January 2023.

“I showered and got dressed. I left all my luggage in the camp. I went by the newsstand. It was to look a bit like a citizen. (...) People in difficulty like me don’t have time to think about reading newspapers or books (...).
I got there with the newspaper in my hand (...) I took my ticket (...) On the train, the police got on. I said in English: ‘I’m a student, I have an important appointment with a friend in Nice, and I’ll be back later today.’ Strangely enough, he believed me. (...) On the same train, other people tried to get on, but they were arrested.” 14

31The strategy mobilized by Hassan and Hamad is known as “passing.” This term first emerged in the second half of the 19th century in North America, during segregation, to describe the experience of “mixed-race” people passing for “white” (Belluscio 2006). It is estimated that, during the segregationist era, around 20% of men categorized as “Black” disappeared from the African-American population as they joined the “white” population (Brun and Cosquer 2022, p. 34).

  • 15 Recorded discussion with Hassan, April 2022.

32While racial assignment is based on bodily attributes that cannot necessarily be changed, class assignments are more malleable. To no longer be perceived as “migrants,” Hamad and Hassan identified the legitimate profiles of “Black” citizens authorized to cross the border. As Hassan noted, “There are Black people in France, but there can’t be more than two, otherwise, it’s immediately obvious.”15 Hamad had similarly identified in advance the profiles through which he could “pass” as a man perceived as “Black”:

  • 16 Recorded discussion with Hamad, January 2023.

“They’re able to identify these people thanks to a code, in fact. And I said to myself: ‘There are Black European citizens who manage to get through, but they simply have a style that’s a bit different from ours, so I’m going to try to play by that code (...) of a European citizen settled here, or an international student who studies in Italy or France.”16

33Thus, mobilizing passing as a border-crossing strategy highlights the reality that national borders are, above all, structured by social and symbolic borders, rooted in interwoven relations of class domination and “race” (Guenebeaud 2017).

  • 17 Recorded discussion with Fatou, September 2023.

34As Zdanowicz (2015) notes, “passing is a tactic that is not accessible to everyone. Some bodies are excluded from it, bodies for which passing is impossible.” While passing can subvert racial boundaries, phenotypic characteristics continue to influence access to this strategy, revealing the existence of a colorist racial order at the border – one that lighter-skinned migrants can transcend more easily (Bachellerie 2020; Tyszler 2019, p. 448). Self-confidence, reinforced by cultural and social capital, also seems to be an essential prerequisite for employing the passing strategy. Hassan and Hamad, the only exiles among the participants in this research to have used this tactic, are both university graduates in their countries of origin. Hassan believes that his education gave him the confidence to navigate a foreign environment and cross the border alone, without the protection of a group, making him less noticeable. Hamad acknowledges that not everyone feels “legitimate” enough to pass “as a European citizen, [some] think it’s not going to work anyway.” Most people who cross the border, like Bandjan, Salah, or Fatou, do not consider this type of strategy viable. They assume that they have no choice but to cross the border by hiding in the mountains: “I’ve never (...) asked myself the question. [For me], we’ll cross on foot (...) We’ll walk to cross. We’ll hide to go back.”17

35Thus, the “spatio-corporeal tactic” of passing (Zdanowicz 2015) can be understood as subversion by migrants of the dual social and racial assignment that prohibits them from crossing. It involves “desert[ing] the place that [they] have been assigned in the process of categorization” (Zdanowicz 2015). These discreet acts of resistance and transgression by marginalized individuals at the border can be analyzed through James C. Scott’s concept of infra-politics, which manifests in practices that remain invisible to those in power. Infra-politics “is perfectly suited to avoiding surveillance because it is carried out individually, in small groups, and, when carried out on a larger scale, resorts to the anonymity of popular culture or to real disguises” (Scott 2006). These tactics are essential for escaping the police gaze, but they can also constitute “underground resistance” (Scott 2006) to the social-racial order of the border.

Conclusion

36This research shows that relations of class and “racial” domination structure Alpine tourist areas and produce visibility dynamics that render minority populations hypervisible. Migrants are acutely aware of these social relations at the border and employ visual strategies to exercise their freedom of movement and resist the positions imposed on them. While the majority of people try to make themselves invisible in order to cross the border, some migrants choose instead to make their cause visible.

  • 18 Italian term originally referring to a military garrison, but also to the occupation of a place as (...)

37At the end of June 2015, a self-managed encampment (nicknamed the Presidio18), composed of migrants from Sudan, Eritrea, Somalia, and Côte d’Ivoire, along with their supporters, formed on the rocks by the sea opposite the border post. This encampment sought to demand the right to cross into France, resisting attempts at expulsion by the Italian police (Le Maquis 2017; Trucco 2016). A leaflet drafted by the occupiers reflects their intent to make their cause visible, as shown by their physical reappropriation of the border space through the Presidio :

  • 19 « Appel à tous les migrants », signed by « Migrants de Vintimille pour la Liberté, 11 juin 2015 », (...)

“We stand up and demand our rights as refugees at a time when we are suffering from precariousness, hunger, and wandering. The European Union and the whole world are watching us (...) To all the migrants of the world (...) to the migrants of Ventimiglia, Rome, Milan, Paris, let us carry this fight within us (...) Don’t try to cross borders in hiding, because it’s not in our nature.” 19

38By occupying the border zone, these individuals asserted both their right to pass through and their right to be there without hiding: In so doing, they transgressed the “order of the visible” (Voirol 2005) and reclaimed their place within the Alpine tourism landscape.

39Thus, it can be argued that in/visibility is not merely an instrument of domination but can also serve as a strategy of resistance: By selecting modes of resistance that align with their interests – choosing between visibility or invisibility – migrants reclaim control of their own visibility in public space and challenge the regime of visibility imposed on them by the social-racial order at the border.

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Notes

1 All figures are by the author of this article.

2 Source: Human Development Report, UNDP 2021. See: Table 2 – “Human Development Index Trend” and Table 3 – “Inequality-adjusted Human Development Index.”

3 Recorded discussion with Destin, May 2019.

4 Ibid.

5 Recorded discussion with Simon, July 2023.

6 Recorded discussion with Bandjan, February 2023.

7 On average, across the two border areas: 31% are managers and professionals (engineers, independent professionals, secondary and higher education teachers), 27% are employees (personal care workers, retail staff, police officers, military personnel, firefighters), 14% are in intermediate professions (primary school teachers, health-related intermediate professions, social work, religious ministry, technicians, supervisors), 13% are artisans, shopkeepers, or business owners, 6% are students, 5% are seasonal workers, 3% are manual laborers, 2% are unemployed, and 2% are minors. (Source: questionnaire results)

8 According to a Crédoc summary note, 20% of managers and 17% of high-income earners go on winter holidays to mountain resorts. This is the case for only 6% of lower-income groups, such as workers and employees, or those earning less than €1,350. Source: Crédoc, “Moins d’un Français sur dix part aux sports d’hiver”, Note de synthèse n°40, January 2024.

9 Recorded discussion with Fatou, September 2023.

10 Recorded discussion with Salah, June 2023.

11 Recorded discussion with Hamad, January 2023.

12 Recorded discussion with Bandjan, December 2023.

13 Recorded discussion with Hassan, April 2022.

14 Recorded discussion with Hamad, January 2023.

15 Recorded discussion with Hassan, April 2022.

16 Recorded discussion with Hamad, January 2023.

17 Recorded discussion with Fatou, September 2023.

18 Italian term originally referring to a military garrison, but also to the occupation of a place as a form of civil protest.

19 « Appel à tous les migrants », signed by « Migrants de Vintimille pour la Liberté, 11 juin 2015 », quoted by Le Maquis 2017, pp. 61.

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Table des illustrations

Titre Figure 1 – A tourist and militarized border zone: the French-Italian border in the Alps1
URL http://journals.openedition.org/rga/docannexe/image/13874/img-1.png
Fichier image/png, 2,1M
URL http://journals.openedition.org/rga/docannexe/image/13874/img-2.png
Fichier image/png, 2,1M
Titre Figure 3 – Nationalities of tourists and migrants blocked at the French-Italian border
URL http://journals.openedition.org/rga/docannexe/image/13874/img-3.png
Fichier image/png, 598k
Titre Figure 4 – European tourists and African migrants on Ventimiglia beach
Crédits Bachellerie, October 2016
URL http://journals.openedition.org/rga/docannexe/image/13874/img-4.jpg
Fichier image/jpeg, 367k
Titre Figure 5 – Tourists skiing in Montgenèvre, unaffected by mobile migration control in the resort. (Bachellerie, April 2018)
Crédits Bachellerie, April 2018
URL http://journals.openedition.org/rga/docannexe/image/13874/img-5.jpg
Fichier image/jpeg, 416k
Titre Figure 6 – Photograph taken during a guided walk with Bandjan, evoking the conditions of his crossing between Clavière and Montgenèvre
Crédits Bachellerie, 2023
URL http://journals.openedition.org/rga/docannexe/image/13874/img-6.jpg
Fichier image/jpeg, 447k
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Référence électronique

Sarah Bachellerie, « Making Oneself In/Visible in Alpine Tourist Areas: Migrants’ Visual Strategies of Resistance on the French-Italian Border »Journal of Alpine Research | Revue de géographie alpine [En ligne], 112-3 | 2024, mis en ligne le , consulté le 21 mars 2025. URL : http://journals.openedition.org/rga/13874 ; DOI : https://doi.org/10.4000/139u0

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Sarah Bachellerie

Associate researcher at the Pacte Laboratory - Temporary teaching and research assistant at the Institute of Urban Planning and Alpine Geography

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