Italian migrant camps in Albania: enforcing European enclosures through carceral integration

Abstract

This article examines the 2023 Italy–Albania agreement for the construction and operation of offshore Italian migrant detention camps in Albania. Looking at the larger history of colonial relations of power between the two countries, the authors trace how recent migration policies—and the emerging carceral capitalist industry in Albania—are entangled with racial hierarchies of global capitalism. By drawing attention to the Italy–Albania migrant deal, the authors analyze how these outsourcing practices of the European border regime utilize former socialist countries like Albania as zones of migrant detention, processing, and deportation. The authors argue that, through the premise of integration into the EU and the global racial capitalist circuit, candidate countries offer migrant control services in exchange for more favorable labor relations for its own citizens in the EU.