A curation of articles, essays, book reviews and interviews on critical geographical concerns. Today, the displaced in Calais are campless. Their lives are lived furtively in forests on the fringes of the city while they seek clandestine passage to the UK.
The Jungle was visually impressive: home to over 8, people at its largest, it was chaotic, sprawling and filthy yet organised, a dense little city of its own. Despite the makeshift precarity of the camp, remarkable places of commerce, learning and religious practice emerged Mould These were built by camp residents assisted by volunteers who came from across the UK, France and beyond in their thousands, to lend a hand while confronting the dehumanizing living conditions for migrants at the border first-hand Sandri As the Jungle grew it became hypervisible in the media, putting pressure on the state to act.
In October it was razed to the ground; its residents sent to processing centres across the country. When the Jungle disappeared, attention to the border zone largely went with it. Inevitably however, the displaced were quick to return to the border.
Yet the destitution of life in post-camp Calais has been far less visible, less outwardly overwhelming. No more makeshift schools and restaurants, no grocery shops to humanize those living in shacks sinking into the northern French mud.
Remembering the spectacular nature of the former camp that so etched itself onto a collective European imaginary, it is difficult to conceive of the understated, immaterial conditions that have replaced it. However, while most states apply this strategy figuratively, France is enforcing a hostile environment very literally. Shelter-building is constantly suppressed by police, and the displaced are routinely stripped of possessions and forced to live life in literal exposure to the hostilities of the natural environment.
