VISA REQUIRED

This research project from Farida Souiah focuses on visa policies and how individuals and social groups in Algeria confront them. The project is structured around three main axes:

Axis 1:

This first axis, rooted in the sociology of international relations, aims to deepen the questions initially explored in my doctoral thesis based on the Algerian context mobility and migration as diplomatic and political problems. I examine how visa policies are negotiated and implemented in postcolonial contest, interrogating the capacity of states whose nationals face mobility constraints to contest these limitations.

Axis 2:

The second axis examines how individuals and social groups experience and interpret mobility constraints. It focuses on the representations, sensations, and emotions of those caught in the mobility system. It conceptualizes borders as administrative ordeals that can be insurmountable for some. I build upon the work of Stef Jansen, on “humiliating entrapment though documentary requirements” and his anthropology of the everyday geopolitics.

Axis 3:

The third axis deal with the business of international (im)mobility analyzing illicit and licit economic organizations who play a role in the visa application process.