The ‘Borders of Berlin’: West African protests and the coloniality of Euro-African deportation cooperation

Abstract

This article examines diaspora-led protests in Germany and actions in West Africa opposing Euro-African deportation cooperation after 2015. Drawing on ethnographic fieldwork (2015–2021) with West Africans facing deportation in Germany and activists, it investigates how the protests effectively challenged the role of West African authorities and embassies in German deportations. As the European Union sought to increase ‘returns’, the protesters contested this framing of deportation, which presupposes symmetrical nation-states, reciprocity, and harmonious belonging. They exposed colonial continuities in European deportation policies and asymmetries in sovereignty, mobility, and access to resources. Building on longstanding West African diaspora critique, the protesters denounced Euro-African borders as the ‘Borders of Berlin’, traced to the 1884–1885 Berlin Conference and reinforced after the fall of the Berlin Wall. They urged African governments to reject deportations and subordination to Europe, reframing migration as decolonisation and redress. Yet, by voicing demands as citizens to nation-state representatives, they also affirmed the identities and nation-states created by the Borders of Berlin. The article contributes to scholarship on colonialism’s influence on European borders and externalisation by centring the analyses and agency of marginalised actors in shaping deportation, Euro-African relations, and international law. It challenges the view of externalisation as Europe’s territorial expansion, highlighting colonial continuities and violence within Europe. Moreover, it underscores the persistence of the national as a frame for resistance and the fragility of the Borders of Berlin as a radical, decolonising imaginary, in contrast to the nation-state order enforced through deportations.