“Now is the real Jungle!” Institutional hunting and migrants’ survival after the eviction of the Calais camp

Abstract

The refugee makeshift settlement of Calais, globally known as the “Calais Jungle”, was dismantled in October 2016. Its existence, as a spectacle repeatedly spread by the media all over the world, was a key element in the representation of the so-called “migration crisis” in Europe. One year after the end of the camp, this article focuses on a new scenario in which dispersed settlements keep reappearing and migrants are hunted by the authorities and the police on a daily basis, observing the everyday life of the many who continue to reach this borderland in the hope of crossing to the other side, by any means and at any risk. This ethnographic and visual sociology project follows a group of young Afghans, identifying the crucial phases that structure widespread daily routines and a broad moral landscape: survival, the hunt, and the attempt to get across.