“EUROPE OF MOBILITY” PUT TO THE TEST BY ITS SOCIAL AND SYMBOLIC BOUNDARIES
“EUROPE OF MOBILITY” PUT TO THE TEST BY ITS SOCIAL AND SYMBOLIC BOUNDARIES

Summary/Abstract: Today, the right to free movement embodies a popular “Europe of mobility” for European citizens, while the EU, as an institution, is facing a crisis of legitimacy. In this sensitive context, the external borders of Schengen are under strain due to uncertain geopolitics and crises in European neighbourhoods. This study aims to rehistoricise such a “Europe of mobility”, built through speeches and successive achievements within the European construction and establishing a formal right to free movement. It is concerned symmetrically with the real right of mobility for citizens. In the mobilities for study, work or tourism, strong inequalities persist. This study aims to contribute to putting them into words and speeches through a series of comprehensive interviews on the constraints to mobility. Inequalities of access and symbolic costs of mobility constitute as many customs and informal tolls that weigh the imagination of “free movement for all” by the reality and make social and symbolic borders visible. Adherence to the discourse of a “Europe of mobility” does not protect against these inequalities, and can produce social disillusionment for candidates to mobility which are confronted with failure.

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