Whether on billboards, films, or other medium, messages from “do not come” to “it is dangerous” are a consistent part of European states’ to discourage irregularised migration from Africa.
Yet, evaluations have reported time and time again that such campaigns are not “effective” – if that is even the right question. Why do states keep investing in anti-immigration information campaigns?
In this episode, Silindile Mlilo speaks with Cecilia Schenetti and Rossella Marino to unpack some of the power relations behind the design and implementation of these campaigns, including how migrants themselves are engaged, framed, or co-opted in them.
We learn that with the many different actors and conflicting motivations involved in these campaigns, migrant information campaigns are full of contradictions, and our guests argue that they are central to how border regimes are produced, navigated, and contested.
Cecilia Schenetti is a PhD candidate at the Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences of Maastricht University and part of the research group Globalisation, Transnationalism and Development. Cecilia’s PhD research project investigates the production, implementation, and reception of migration information campaigns between the Netherlands and Senegal. Before starting her PhD, she worked for an NGO in Senegal in the development and cooperation sector.
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Rossella Marino has a PhD in Social Work and Social Pedagogy from Ghent University. Her research has revolved around European migration governance in The Gambia, where she has done extended fieldwork. She currently teaches Social Work and Social Pedagogical literature and Comparative Social Work at Ghent University.
Further reading provided by the interviewees:
From Rossella Marino:
1. Marino, R., Schapendonk, J., & Lietaert, I. (2022). Translating EUrope’s Return Migration Regime to The Gambia: The Incorporation of Local CSOs. Geopolitics, 28(3), 1033–1056. https://doi.org/10.1080/14650045.2022.2050700
2. Marino, R., Schapendonk, J., & Lietaert, I. (2023). The moral economy of voice within IOM’s awareness-raising industry: Gambian returnees and Migrants as Messengers. Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies, 50(6), 1355–1370. https://doi.org/10.1080/1369183X.2023.2206001
3. Rossella Marino, Arla Mannersuo, Inês Francisco, Ine Lietaert, At the Crossroads between Care and Control: A Cross-Country Comparison of Assisted Return, Journal of Refugee Studies, Volume 36, Issue 3, September 2023, Pages 337–358, https://doi.org/10.1093/jrs/feac059
4. Marino, Rossella, and Ine Lietaert. "12. The legitimisation of the policy objective of sustainable reintegration." Handbook of return migration (2022): 167.
Rossella Marino would like to thank all the returnees who have shared their stories with her and her supervisors, Ine Lietaert and Joris Schapendonk.
From Cecilia Schenetti
1. Schenetti, C., Mazzucato, V., Wyatt, S., & Schans, D. (2025). Navigating contradictions: justifications and imaginaries of the initiators of European migration information campaigns. International Migration, 63(3). https://doi.org/10.1111/imig.13366
2. Schenetti, C., & Mazzucato, V. (2024). Doing and contesting borderwork in Senegal: local implementers of migration information campaigns. Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies, 50(12), 2803–2821. https://doi.org/10.1080/1369183X.2024.2323670
3. Schenetti, C. (in press). The affective registers of migration information campaigns: Emotional violence and responses from Senegalese youth. Journal of Ethnic and Racial Studies.
Cecilia Schenetti would like to thank her PhD Supervisors: Prof. Valentina Mazzucato, Prof. Sally Wyatt, Dr. Djamila Schans.