Trapped by stand-by borders

This paper recalls what occurred between February 2011 and March 2013, respectively the beginning and the end of the so called ‘North Africa emergency’ and aims at underlining how the changes in the configuration and meaning of territorial borders seriously affect the lives of those who had to leave a country for another, as their legal or illegal status and their rights depend on shifting administrative and migration control procedures. Starting from Weber’s (2006) analysis of manipulation of borders by authorities the paper wants to argue that in the Italian case the borders shifted to a ‘stand-by’ position: not really closed, not really open, since controls, when performed, had effects unforeseeable in advance, as the end of North Africa emergency shows.