Navigating the transnational government of children and youth in motion. A double gaze crossed: young Moroccans and young people from West Africa between Spain and France

Abstract

After accompanying young Africans on the move to Europe, this article offers a cross-cutting look at the transnational governance of migrant children and young people. Based on a multisite ethnography between Morocco, Spain and France, the authors reflect on the ways of navigating the contexts and regulations that affect the daily lives and interests of migrant children and adolescents. We focus on the cases of Spain and France, the first European territories crossed by the children after leaving Morocco. We propose to make the analysis more complex by including the experiences of both Moroccan youth (self-described as harraga) and young people from West and Central Africa (self-described as adventurers). In this article, we defend the idea that young people are global actors who, in a restrictive transnational field, develop specific strategies of mobility and survival within coercive and antagonistic normative universes. These ways of navigating are both resistances to the transnational governance of children and youth on the move and its direct consequence, with differentiated effects on the harraga and the adventurers, who must invent differentiated strategies with long-lasting effects on their life trajectories.