Abstract
Through an analysis of how the French consulate in Cameroon deals with marriage-related visa applications, this chapter seeks to contribute to our understanding of how border security plays out in state practices on the ground. The chapter seeks to trace the socio-cultural norms of relatedness and ethical expectations that are implicit in interviews and other procedures performed by consular staff. These procedures are of limited importance for actual immigration decisions, but instead serve a symbolic function: they perform, rather than implement, the border. Interviews, in particular, elicit confessions from applicants and reinstate the normativity of kinship and gender roles that the French state wishes to impose. By focusing on consulate officers’ affective politics of security, the chapter takes the French consulate as a paradigmatic case study of the security concerns that emerge in the EurAfrican border zone.
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Notes
- 1.
Trying to feminize the acting of committing fraud, the man is here inventing a new word. With faussiere, he is referring to a person who commits fraud.
- 2.
Because of my general focus on the departure projects of migrant women in the overarching research project, this chapter does not attempt to compare the place of marriage for men and women in Cameroon.
- 3.
‘Ma vie est détruite pour ces femmes sans foi ni loi qui ne souhaitent que rentrer en France pour la nationalité et envoyer tout l’argent de leur ‘blanc’ à Yaoundé. J’ai été racketté de l’escalier de l’avion jusqu’au retour. J’ai payé mes actes de mariage ‘bidon’ contre deux bouteilles de Whisky et 50,000 Francs CFA.’
- 4.
‘Un réseau fort bien organisé en France, (le noyau dur à Paris) renseigne vos belles Camerounaises sur toutes les prestations disponibles. Sans scrupule et sans amour, elles en savent plus que les français en terme d’allocations. Un seul but: envoyer le plus d’argent possible en Afrique.’
- 5.
Interestingly, the commodification process is supposed to operate exactly opposite to the discourse of mail-order brides.
- 6.
‘Le ‘chéri blanc’ n’est qu’une marchandise, tout comme les enfants conçus et nationalisés bien sûr. Elles ne reculent devant rien. Sachez qu’une femme qui ne convient pas, au Cameroun, est répudiée sur le champ sans explication, alors imaginez l’information sur la protection sociale française!?! En France c’est un divorce interminable. Et elles s’en fichent de coucher pendant trois ou cinque ans en faisant semblant d’être amoureuse!!!’
- 7.
Those travellers with official orders of mission, administrative agents or people in possession of a return ticket were exempted from this regulation.
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Alpes, M.J. (2017). Marriage at the Embassy: Securing the EurAfrican Border in Cameroon. In: Gaibazzi, P., Dünnwald, S., Bellagamba, A. (eds) EurAfrican Borders and Migration Management. Palgrave Series in African Borderlands Studies. Palgrave Macmillan, New York. https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-349-94972-4_8
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