British newspapers, space and the migrant 'jungles' of Calais

Abstract

In September 2009 French riot police in the full gaze of the media demolished an illegal migrant camp in Calais known locally as ‘the Jungle’ and dispersed its occupants who in two years had grown from a handful to over 800 (Garnham 2009). This paper explores how British newspapers’ use of the jungle metaphor constructed a particular social imaginary of illegal migration and migrant camps at a time when shelters were a focus of policy and public concern. The jungle signified a barbaric space characterised by environmental degradation and lawlessness that encroached on white ordered civility. This was used to justify the demolition of the camp and the dispersal of its occupants. However, mini-camps sprung up almost immediately all along the French coastline (Allen 2009c) and newspapers expressed local fears that these could grow into mini-jungles (Allen 2009a) – a fear realized a year later with the emergence and demolition of the ‘new jungle’ in a small village near Dunkirk (Finan and Allen 2010). We argue that the perniciousness of the jungle metaphor rendered the migrants’ need for shelter illegitimate by consigning them as the uncouth and uncivilized sub-human violating fortress Europe.