Most critical discussions of European immigration policies are centered around the concept of Fortress Europe and understand the concept of the border as a way of sealing off unwanted immigration movements. However, ethnographic studies such as our own multi-sited field research in South-east Europe clearly show that borders are daily being crossed by migrants. These findings point to the shortcomings of the Fortress metaphor. By bringing to the fore the agency of migrants in the conceptualization of borders, we (...) propose to understand how borders are being shaped by taking as a starting point the struggles of mobility. Against the background of our two-year transdisciplinary research project TRANSIT MIGRATION European migration and border policies cannot be longer conceptualized as being simply oriented towards the prevention of migration. Since migrants cross the borders daily, what happens if the borders’ permeability is part of the way they work? If so, we have to investigate the mechanisms of border policies and practices anew. One is the concept of the border or migration regime. The other is the concept of the autonomy of migration. Our concept of ethnographic regime analyses is based on a transdisciplinary approach, comprising political studies, anthropology and sociology. (shrink)

Two important recent books on migration and justice argue for different approaches to how we should view borders. Alex Sager defends open borders, while Sarah Song argues for the rights of democratic communities to find their own balance between open and closed borders. While both authors present significant considerations in defence of their views, in this article I argue that a human-rights-oriented account of migration justice captures their strengths well while not sharing the weaknesses I (...) identify with each. In addition, the approach I favour offers some progressive pathways for holding each other to account in reducing migration injustice in our actual world, in ways that are both feasible and normatively compelling. (shrink)

The border is one of the most urgent issues of our times. We tend to think of a border as a static line, but recent bordering techniques have broken away from the map, as governments have developed legal tools to limit the rights of migrants before and after they enter a country's territory. The consequent detachment of state power from any fixed geographical marker has created a new paradigm: the shifting border, an adjustable legal construct untethered in space. This transformation (...) upsets our assumptions about waning sovereignty, while also revealing the limits of the populist push toward border-fortification. At the same time, it presents a tremendous opportunity to rethink states' responsibilities to migrants. This book proposes a new, functional approach to human mobility and access to membership in a world where borders, like people, have the capacity to move. (shrink)

This work offers a timely philosophical analysis of interrelated normative questions concerning immigration and citizenship in relation to the global context of multiple nation states. In it, philosophers and scholars from the social sciences address both fundamental questions in moral and political philosophy as well as specific issues concerning policy. Topics covered in this volume include: the concept and the role of citizenship, the equal rights and representation of citizens, general moral frameworks for addressing immigration issues, the duty to obey (...) immigration law, the use of ethnic, cultural, or linguistic criteria for selective immigration, domestic violence as grounds for political asylum, and our duty to refugees in general. The urgency of the need to discuss these matters is clear. Several humanitarian crises involving human migration across national boundaries stemming from war, economic devastations, gang violence, and violence in ethnic or religious conflicts have unfolded. Political debates concerning immigration and immigrant communities are continuing in many countries, especially during election years. While there have always been migrating human beings, they raise distinctive issues in the modern era because of the political context under which the migrations take place, namely, that of a system of sovereign nation states with rights to control their borders and determine their memberships. This collection provides readers the opportunity to parse these complex issues with the help of diverse philosophical, moral, and political perspectives. (shrink)

The suppression of trade barriers and liberalization of financial flows inherent to the expansive dynamic of globalization have not extended to international flows of workers. To impede the free movement of workers, restrictive migratory policies have been implemented, and borders have been fortified with walls and fences. In the face of this widespread phenomenon, this chapter presents an alternative consisting of three steps. First, it is noted that in the current migratory context, borders play a key role in (...) reproducing inequalities between countries. Next, it is argued that given the incompatibility of this function with global justice, it is necessary to seek some remedy to put an end to the suffering caused by this structural injustice, a suffering that is endured by an immense number of people unlucky enough to have been born on the wrong side of a border. After presenting a conception of borders that, unlike walls, would enable the movements of people, finally, a scenario is proposed in which the rights of political membership would be reassigned in a cosmopolitan manner and in which borders would usually remain open. Although this does not entail a radical suppression of the aforementioned injustice, its implementation would contribute to not only its reduction but also to the compensation of victims. (shrink)

In July 2016, we participated in a conference in Lesvos (Greece) on borders, migration, and the refugee crisis. The Crossing Borders conference was framed in contrast with the ad-hoc humanitarianism that was being implemented, to the extent that it seemed to offer an opportunity to think about the refugee crisis, militarism, and austerity capitalism in systemic terms. This paper is based on an intervention we staged in the closing panel of the Crossing Borders conference, where we (...) read a statement we collectively wrote with fourteen other participants. The intervention was the outcome of frustration as we saw stereotypes and dynamics of knowledge production that reproduced the division between "us" and "them," further marginalising migrants and refugees, elevating international experts while silencing locally affected people. We use this incident and the text of this intervention as a starting point to analyse the growing academic industry in relation to what has been constructed as "Europe's refugee crisis." Our intervention sought to contest several kinds of borders—linguistic, epistemic, activist, methodological, political, historical, and internalised— which are uncritically reproduced in this academic industry. (shrink)

The ethics of immigration has emerged as a topic of considerable interest among political philosophers. The subject includes normative questions related to various dimensions of global migration, including territorial admissions, admission to citizenship, and the rights and duties of noncitizen residents. The central issue in these debates is whether liberal democratic states have a moral right to restrict immigration. On one side of the issue, philosophers argue that states have a moral right to exclude immigrants in most cases. On (...) the other, proponents insist that a commitment to fundamental liberal values, such as freedom and equality, requires states to maintain mostly open borders. This chapter surveys the main lines of argument in this debate, along with recent contributions by feminist philosophers. (shrink)

This special issue consists of four articles, contributed by David Owen; Désirée Lim, Sahar Akhtar and (as co-authors) Mollie Gerver, Miranda Simon, Patrick Lown and Dominik Duell. These contributions address issues related to migration policies with the aim of bringing normative theories of migration and discrimination into dialogue. These theories describe the various types of discrimination inherent in the domestic and global migration systems, as well as assess arguments, pro et contra, about whether these forms of discrimination (...) are permissible. (shrink)

Editor's introduction to special issue of Essays in Philosophy: Migration and Mobility.

Our main thesis is that the U.S. has a duty of justice to adopt an open-border policy with regard to economic migrants because it is significantly responsible for the unjust social and economic conditions that bring such migrants to its borders. From this perspective, President Bush’s recent “guest worker” proposal is morally objectionable because it is designed more to serve U.S. business interests than the interests of the migrants. We address three objections to opening borders: it will worsen (...) the economic condition especially of low-skilled native workers; it will harm developing countries by increasing the so-called “brain drain”; and it is preferable to discharge our responsibility to the global poor by increasing development assistance instead of adopting an open-border policy. (shrink)

Many philosophers argue that the right of self-determination confers to states a right to exclude would-be migrants. Drawing on the case of anti-colonial struggles of the 20th century, I argue that self-determination should be thought of as fundamentally a claim against intergroup hierarchy. This means that self-determination only grants a right to exclude in cases where immigration poses a genuine oppressive threat. Cases involving immigration into wealthy and powerful states rarely meet this criterion, and so talk of self-determination as grounding (...) a right to exclude in such cases is misguided. (shrink)

Much mainstream political philosophy assumes that states have a broad right to decide who is granted entry and membership into their political community. On this conventional view, admission of migrants and refugees is understood as mostly a matter of general humanitarian duty or voluntary beneficence rather than as a specific obligation of justice. Through an analysis of climate-related migration from Central America's Dry Corridor to the United States, I argue that many such migrants may in fact be owed admission (...) as reparation for injustice, and that the character of this injustice raises broader challenges for the conventional view. (shrink)

Anne McNevin’s book provides a valuable contribution to ongoing debates about the plight of irregular migrants in the context of neoliberal hegemony. It combines detailed analysis of contemporary movements that resist the ever-increasing controls over borders and movement, together with critical assessments of a range of contemporary theorists on the question. McNevin’s central argument is that neoliberalism not only delineates the migrant subject in various ways, but also traps activists into replicating many harmful assumptions about ‘deserving’ versus ‘undeserving’ migrants. (...) She further argues for a resurrection of the political subjectivity of migrant communities, by both exploiting the crisis engendered at the nexus of neoliberal economics and the sovereign subject, and resisting the framework set by those paradigms. (shrink)

Much modern discussion of the morality of migration begins with the concept of coercion, and takes the coercive nature of border enforcement as especially salient in the moral analysis of migration policy. Much migration control, however, begins not with overt coercion, but with what I term manipulations; these are ways of making migration more difficult that do not resemble canonical cases of coercion. Examples include the alteration of the physical pathways between states, attempts to deceive or (...) mislead prospective migrants about what they will discover upon arrival, and the deliberate use of abstract and complex rules to make legal migration difficult or impossible. I argue that these manipulations are worthy of independent moral examination—and that the tradition of classical liberalism has resources with which to undertake this examination. (shrink)

This chapter introduces and discusses the concepts that are in-depth articulated in the volume. International migration is presented here as a test bench where the normative limits of institutional order, its contradictions and internal tensions are examined. Migrations allows to call into question classical political categories and models. Pointing at walls and fences as tools that reproduce enormous inequalities within the globalized neo-liberal system, this chapter presents the conceptual tensions and contradictions between migration policies and global justice. We (...) challenge the conceptualization of justice as a relationship between citizens of the same country and the State and argue that, in our globalized world, nation-state cannot constitute the basic unit of the theories of justice. We argue that an integral approach that includes the complex and interconnected forms of structural inequalities and transcends the borders of national sovereign states is required. Avoiding the methodological nationalism and the exclusionary biases that inform current migration and border control policies, this chapter finally places attention on the most marginalized subjects of the migration chain: migrant women workers. We point out the importance of addressing transnational structural inequalities and bringing social reproduction to the center of global justice theories. (shrink)

The review assesses first and foremost the capability of Mezzadra and Neilson’s book to radically tackle some urgent issues concerning both capital’s regulation of migratory movements and the subjective autonomy these latter incessantly express. The main original contribution of the text is a conception of the border as an epistemic device through which to address and act upon a variety of social processes, from migration policies to labour transformations, from capital’s restructuring to governmental regulations. Subsequently, two crucial topics are (...) critically discussed: 1) the methodological link between epistemology and conflictual subjectivity ; 2) the compelling – but problematic from a practical perspective – way in which the issue of political organisation is situated against the current phase of capitalist development by means of concepts such as translation and the common. (shrink)

The philosophical debate on the freedom of movement focuses almost exclusively on long-term migration, what I call, migration as settlement. The normative justifications defending border controls assume that the movement of people across political borders, independent of its purpose and the length of stay, refers to migration as settlement. “Global mobility,” “international movement,” and “immigration” are oftenused interchangeably. However, global mobility also refers to the movements of people across international borders for a short length of (...) time such as travel, short-term and circular migration. While most scholarly attention has focused on long-term migration, the vast majority of cross-border movement of people (approximately 85% of all cross-border movements in 2019) is short-term. The existing literature offers normative arguments for border controls, which are grounded on states’ right to self-determination, the freedom of (dis)association, the welfare state, the duty to compatriots, and brain drain. In this paper, I argue that these arguments do not justify excluding travelers, short-term and circular migrants from the territory. (shrink)

Feminist philosophical approaches to migration justice typically employ nonideal methodologies and relational normative frameworks to theorize the complex relationships among intersecting social identities, structural injustice, and global migration. This chapter discusses three such feminist approaches. The first investigates the connections between structural injustice and migration policy, focusing on immigrant admissions and refugee determination. The second explores the feminization of labor migration, with an emphasis on global care chains. Finally, the third feminist approach employs intersectional methodologies to (...) argue that specific US immigration policies work to the detriment of migrant women, particularly women of color. (shrink)

This article explores precarity as a conceptual framework to understand the intersection of migration and low-waged work in the global south. Using a case study of cross-border migrant domestic workers in South Africa, I discuss current debates on framing and understanding precarity, especially in the global south, and test its use as a conceptual framework to understand the everyday lived experiences and strategies of a group that face multiple forms of exclusion and vulnerability. I argue that a form of (...) negotiated precarity, defined as transactions which provide opportunities for survival but also render people vulnerable, can be a useful way to make sense of questions around legality and formality in the context of poorly protected work, insecure citizenship and social exclusion. Precarity as a negotiated strategy shows the ways in which people interact with systems and institutions and foregrounds their agency. But it also illustrates that the negative outcomes inherent in more traditional notions of precarity, expressed in physical and economic vulnerability, and discrimination in employment relations, mostly hurt the poor. This suggests the importance of an intersectional approach to understanding precarity in labour migration studies. (shrink)

Drawing from ethnographic research in the Research Triangle of North Carolina and Williamsburg, Virginia, the authors build on Anzaldúa's conceptualization of “borderlands” to analyze how borders of social membership are constructed and enforced in “el Nuevo South.” Our gender analysis reveals that intersecting structural conditions—the labor market, the organization of public space, and the institutional organization of health care and other public services—combine with gendered processes in the home and family to regulate women's participation in community life. Enforcers of (...) borders include institutional actors, mostly women, in social services and clinics who occupy institutional locations that enable them to define who is entitled to public goods and to categorize migrants as undeserving “others.” We reveal how a particularly configured matrix of domination transcends the spheres of home, work, and community to constrain women migrants' physical and economic mobility and personal autonomy and to inhibit their participation in their societies of reception. (shrink)

The first annual Alchemy Lecture brings four deep and agile writers from different geographies and disciplines into vibrant conversation on a topic of urgent relevance: humans and borders. Borders, Human Itineraries, and All Our Relation captures and expands those conversations in insightful, passionate ways. Architect, artist, and urban theorist Dele Adeyemo (UK/Nigeria) calls attention to the complexity of Black infrastructures, questioning how "the environments that surround us condition the possibility of our being." Poet Natalie Diaz (US/Mojave/Akimel O'otham) writes: (...) "Like story, migration is the sensual movement of knowledge," and asks, "What is the language we need to live right now?" Philosopher Nadia Yala Kisukidi (France) suggests there is no diasporic life "without the dynamics of fabulation, where we pass down, from generation to generation, the stories of our ancestors who walked barefoot for many months." And cultural theorist Rinaldo Walcott (Canada) asks us to consider inheritances beyond white supremacist logics: "What might it mean to live a life, if we can't risk desiring and working towards utopia?" As each Alchemist considers the legacies of anticolonial struggle, the future of the planet, and the textures of Black and Indigenous life, their essays speak to each other in multiple ways, creating something startling and revelatory: a vision of the world as it is, and as it could be. (shrink)

Irrespective of length of stay or voluntariness, (im)migration is the movement of individuals across borders. From national identity to labor markets, (im)migration affects various dimensions and spheres of social life. Currently, 3.6% of the global population are international (im)migrants, underscoring its profound significance in contemporary debates on humanitarianism, ethical governance, socioeconomic realities and sustainability. The analysis of (im)migration as a business is relevant since it raises important questions about precarious conditions and situations including marginalization, exploitation, and (...) vulnerability in which (im)migrants often find themselves, and about the much-needed policy and management and organizational practice responses needed to address them. This Special Issue aims to bring (im)migration to the attention of business and management researchers interested in ethics. The intention behind it is to enhance the current understanding of (im)migration in order to develop comprehensive policies, foster inclusive societal and organizational frameworks, and focus on the ethical issues raised by (im)migration for organizations and management, as well as the complex realities faced by (im)migrants all over the world. Moreover, we aim to call for new research perspectives and streams that would address the novel challenges that (im)migrants encounter as a result of technological advancements, climate (in)justice, the ‘dark side’ of the business of international (im)migration, and new—or the lack thereof—migration policies. (shrink)

With the themed issue “The Critical Phenomenology of Borders and Migration,” we at Puncta wish to highlight the need for a continued systematic reflection on the lived experiences of migrants in relation to the political and social structures that inform these experiences. By claiming that critical phenomenology can be a fruitful approach to this work, we insist that the complex lived experience of migrants should not only be acknowledged and included in the form of examples and anecdotes, but (...) systematically integrated and interrogated in philosophical conversations on migration-related matters. The hope is that critically attuned phenomenological analyses of migrant lived experiences may contribute to offer new knowledges indispensable for understanding what is actually at stake—philosophically, politically, ethically, and existentially—with the particular situations that migrants, border-crossers and border-dwellers continually negotiate. (shrink)

The research hypothesis that we call border as method offers a fertile ground upon which to test the potentiality and the limits of the topological approach. In this article we present our hypothesis and address three questions relevant for topology. First, we ask how the topological approach can be applied within the heterogeneous space of globalization, which we argue does not obey the dialectic of inclusion and exclusion. Second, we address the claim of neutrality that is often linked to the (...) topological approach. Our point is that in mapping a space of flows and porous borders, the topological approach must be grasped in its ambivalence; it can become a tool for control as well as a tool for the expansion of freedom and equality. Finally, we argue that it is useful, perhaps even necessary, to locate the topological approach on the border, investigating concrete practices of border crossing that challenge the very possibility of a neutral mapping. (shrink)

This paper addresses the role of global migration and the nature of national borders within the co-constitution of class and race. We begin with Marx’s critique of the value-form – a critique that rests upon a distinction between the ‘essence’ of social reality and its immediate appearances. The paper elaborates how Marx’s understanding of the emergence of a society based upon generalised commodity production leads to a certain conception of the ‘political state’ and citizenship – and thus (...) class='Hi'>borders and national belonging. This reveals the distinctive territorial forms of capitalism vis-à-vis those found in pre-capitalist societies, and moves us away from transhistorical conceptions of borders and the nation-state. In the second half, the paper turns to look at what this conception of borders and migration might mean concretely for how we think about the co-constitution of race and class today. Here the focus is on three crucial aspects of the contemporary world market: (1) the relationship between the cross-border movements of labour and processes of class formation, (2) migration and the determination of the value of labour-power, and (3) coercive and unfree labour. (shrink)

Representations of critical geography and border studies have developed concepts and methodologies for exploring the multifaceted and contradictory image of contemporary borders. Artists, scholars and social activists show increased interest in the narrative and visual documenting of border’s closures. The border’s visuality becomes a supporting argument for dissent and protest, giving the ‘visual evidence’ of the extremely quick border’s re-territoriality. As a result, important events allow one ‘to extracts sameness even from what is unique’ (W. Benjamin). The mass (...) class='Hi'>migration and the pandemic return us to the reality of the human world with their non-freedom and illness. In the migration case, Europe has dealt with an ‘alien body’, and in the pandemic, with an ‘infected or sick body’. The relationship between the image and the viewer is an important starting point in the representation of mass migration and pandemic. Mitchell’s metaphor of ‘live images’ help us better understand the sense and reasons of new biological and politic events. Nowadays, the development, materialisation, and embodiment of European borders are the stable visual symbol of our existence. (shrink)

For several years Michael Blake has been among the most important contributors to the philosophical literature on immigration. This book is therefore greatly anticipated, and develops a number of fruitful arguments. Although I will argue that the account is unsuccessful or incomplete at key points, it’s clearly an important work of relevance to those working on immigration, as well as to political philosophers more generally. In particular, Blake provides powerful arguments against the claim that “open borders” are required by (...) liberal principles of justice, develops his own “jurisdictional” account justifying immigration restrictions and the acceptable limits to these restrictions, and, in the most interesting and novel part of the book, discusses the role of virtues and values other than justice in relation to immigration policy, focusing specifically on the virtue of mercy. This last section of the book has potential for starting a rewarding line of research for political philosophers working on many topics, not just immigration. (shrink)

Temporary labor migration programs have been among the most controversial topics in discussions of immigration reform. They have been opposed by many, perhaps most, academics writing on immigration, by immigration reform activists, and by organized labor. This opposition has not been without some good reasons, as many historical temporary labor migration programs have led to significant injustice and abuse. However, in this paper I argue that a well-crafted temporary labor migration program is both compatible with liberal principles (...) of justice and likely to be an important part of a sensible immigration policy for the near future, at least. I show how the many injustices and high potential for abuse of earlier programs may be avoided. I also show good reason to favor a well-crafted temporary labor migration program over either the more likely alternative outcome of officially tight borders (which would almost certainly maintain our current dependence on large-scale unauthorized immigration) and the much less likely option of nearly open borders. As increased labor migration of all sorts is an intrinsic part of increased economic globalization, it is especially important to craft guidelines for just temporary labor migration programs if we are to both gain the advantages of globalization and protect the rights of workers. (shrink)

I revisit themes from Against Borders: Why the World Needs Free Movement of People (2020) in dialogue with Gillian Brock's Justice of People on the Move (2020) and Sarah Song's Immigration and Democracy (2019). We share the conviction that current border regimes are deeply unjust but differ in what migration justice requires. Brock and Song continue to give states significant discretion to exclude people from entering and settling in their territories, whereas I contend that migration justice demands (...) open borders. I reject the claim that state self-determination justifies migration restrictions. Central arguments for open borders highlight the role that restrictive border controls and the state category of ‘immigrant’ play in upholding racialised hierarchies and exploitative economic relations, as well as in inflicting violence against mobile people. (shrink)

There is a broad consensus on the legitimacy of states to control immigration. However, this belief has recently been questioned, among other reasons, due to the contradiction with current practices in emigration and internal mobility. The principle of symmetry states that any restriction on immigration should also apply to emigration; or that, to the contrary, if there is a right to emigrate, there should be a corresponding right to immigrate. The principle of coherence posits that every reason one might have (...) for moving within a country also counts for moving between countries. This article proposes to extend the coherence principle from external to internal migration, arguing that the same reasons that justify restrictions on mobility across borders justify restrictions on mobility within borders too. Therefore, either freedom of movement is a fundamental right or the right of the political community to control mobility prevails. The interests at stake are in both cases the same, so asymmetry is not warranted. This leads us to an apagogical argument for open borders. (shrink)

This article argues that vehicles, roads and routes merit a much more central place in theorizations of migration politics. This argument is developed in terms of three theses. First, the study of migration politics should examine how vehicles feature in the public mediation of migration and border controversies. Second, it is important to analyze vehicles as mobile sites of power and contestation in their own right. Third, an understanding of the materiality of transportation helps to explain how (...) the vehicle can sometimes become a site of strategic political action. These arguments are in turn used to develop a concept of viapolitics as a contribution to literatures on migration, mobilities and power. Viapolitics orients us to see migration from the middle, that is, from the angle of the vehicle and not just the state. It also seeks to connect migration studies to the history of problematizations, cultural types and the mythopoetics of the road. (shrink)

The volume gathers theoretical contributions on human rights and global justice in the context of international migration. It addresses the need to reconsider human rights and the theories of justice in connection with the transformation of the social frames of reference that international migrations foster. The main goal of this collective volume is to analyze and propose principles of justice that serve to address two main challenges connected to international migrations that are analytically differentiable although inextricably linked in normative (...) terms: to better distribute the finite resources of the planet among all its inhabitants; and to ensure the recognition of human rights in current migration policies. Due to the very nature of the debate on global justice and the implementation of human rights and migration policies, this interdisciplinary volume aims at transcending the academic sphere and appeals to a large public through argumentative reflections. Challenging the Borders of Justice in the Age of Migrations represents a fresh and timely contribution. -/- IN A TIME when national interests are structurally overvalued and borders increasingly strengthened, it’s a breath of fresh air to read a book in which migration flows are not changed into a threat. We simply cannot understand the world around us through the lens of the ‘migration crisis’-a message the authors of this book have perfectly understood. Aimed at a strong link between theories of global justice and policies of border control, this timely book combines the normative and empirical to deeply question the way our territorial boundaries are justified. Professor Ronald Tinnevelt, Radboud University Nijmegen, The Netherlands.- -/- THIS BOOK IS essential reading for those frustrated by the limitations of the dominant ways of thinking about global justice especially in relation to migration. By bringing together discussions of global justice, cosmopolitan political theory and migration, this collection of essays has the potential to transform the way in which we think and debate the critical issues of membership and movement. Together they present a critical interdisciplinary approach to international migration, human rights and global justice, challenging disciplinary borders as well as political ones. Professor Phil Cole, University of the West of England, UK.-. (shrink)

The article challenges the orthodoxy of current critical readings of the European crisis that discuss the failings of the EU in terms of the triumph of ‘neo-liberalism’. Defending instead a liberal view on international migration, which stresses the potentially positive economic, political and cultural benefits of market-driven forces enabling movements across borders, it details the various ways in which European regional integration has enabled the withdrawal of state control and restriction on certain forms of external and internal (...) class='Hi'>migration. This implementation of liberal ideas on the freedom of movement of persons has largely been of benefit to migrants, and both receiving and sending societies alike. These ideas are now threatened by democratic retrenchment. It is Britain, often held up as a negative example of ‘neo-liberalism’, which has proven to be the member state that most fulfils the EU’s core adherence to principles of mobile, open, non-discriminatory labour markets. On this question, and despite its current anti-immigration politics, it offers a positive example of how Europe as a whole could benefit from more not less liberalization. (shrink)

In this paper I present two reasons why generalized skill-selection--a policy whereby skill, education, and economic independence are indefinitely prioritized in immigration decisions--is pro tanto unjust. First, such policies feed into existing biases, exacerbating status harms for low-SES citizens. The claim that we prefer the skilled to the unskilled, the educated to the uneducated, and the financially secure to the insecure is also heard by citizens. And there is considerable overlap between this message and the stereotypes and biases that set (...) their social status. Skill-selection can reinforce these biases, offering state support for the claim that they are less desirable as members of the society. -/- Second, the need for skilled immigrants ordinarily depends upon and reinforces failures of fair equality of opportunity (FEO). According to the dependency thesis, the need for skilled migrants stems from a failure to ensure domestic FEO. Many low-SES residents would desire to work, for example, as doctors or nurses. However, unequal education, as well as poverty and debt, have made such opportunities largely inaccessible. According to the reinforcement thesis, skill-selection disincentivizes the pursuit of FEO. A state that can meet domestic labor needs through less costly immigration policies will be disinclined to pursue programs designed to equalize opportunities for low-SES residents. -/- Generalized skill-selection in high-income countries like the US is, therefore, pro tanto unjust. However, this is not an argument for excluding the skilled. Skilled immigrants can be admitted through other policies—open borders, family-reunification, or a lottery—without the state signaling that the skilled are more desirable or perpetuating failures of FEO. And states can, responding to local emergencies, temporarily select for particular professions without contributing to these injustices. These concerns only arise when skill is generally and indefinitely prioritized. (shrink)

This paper aims to establish connections between the theoretical debates on migration and multiculturalism. In the former, there are two dominant positions: the open borders approach and another approach that argues for the legitimacy of border control based on several considerations (we will call it controlled borders approach). In the second, based on the autonomy granted to groups, a distinction is made between strong and weak multiculturalism. It is generally believed that an open borders approach is (...) connected to strong multiculturalism and that a controlled borders approach should be conjoined with weak multiculturalism. This paper prompts us to consider the possibility of developing further theoretical options and, as a result, enriches the debate by showing possibilities that have been largely overlooked so far. In particular, the paper sketches two unprecedented positions, one coming from the combination of open borders approach and weak multiculturalism, and another coming from controlled borders approach and strong multiculturalism. (shrink)

All migration politics are reproductive politics. The nation-state project of controlling migration secures the racialised demographics of the nation, understood as a reproducible fact of the social and human body, determining who is differentially included, who is excluded, and who is exalted. In this commentary, we put forward a provocation about methodological heteronormativity and its omnipresence in the discourse surrounding the so-called “refugee crisis.” By methodological heteronormativity, we refer to the ways states, supranational organisations, hegemonic ideologies, but also (...) solidarity movements and critical scholars construct the figure of the (un)deserving “refugee.”. (shrink)

Can state sovereignty justify privileged receiving countries exercising authority over non‐members in a third country to safeguard their own interests? Under the current migration governance of the EU, state sovereignty is manifested in migrant interdiction, interception and detention policies employed to prevent unauthorized migrants from reaching the EU, and even from attempting to embark on cross‐Mediterranean journeys. While reinforcement of the Schengen region's external borders is a key aim of the EU's internal migration politics, collaboration with third (...) countries regarding migration control has, in the last decade, become a key feature of its external migration policy. In close collaboration with third countries, the EU has managed to curb the outflux of migrants from transit and sending countries. In effect, irregular migrants are prevented from exiting as well as from entering. This article explores the justifiability of such practices, by questioning commonly invoked models of justification such as the sovereignty “model”, with a special focus on partnership agreements regarding migration control between the EU and Libya. (shrink)

In this paper, I argue that taking basic human rights seriously—and the basic right to subsistence in particular—requires acknowledging that, given certain conditions, people in need have a right of necessity to take, use and/or occupy the property of others in order to get out of their plight. I explore the implications of this for the phenomenon of illegalized migration for subsistence reasons, and suggest that receiving countries ought not to deny entry to these migrants. On the contrary, those (...) seeking to enter should be morally permitted to do it. The reason is that, just as basic rights should serve as internal limits to any minimally reasonable system of property rights, so should they serve as limits to any minimally reasonable system of territorial rights. After developing this idea, I address some objections to the principle and its application, and conclude by pointing to the immediate, mediate and final duties that this principle gives rise to. (shrink)

Critics of state sovereignty have typically challenged the state’s right to close its borders to foreigners by appeal to the liberal egalitarian discourse of human rights. According to the liberty argument, freedom of movement is a basic human right; according to the equality or justice argument, open borders are necessary to reduce global poverty and inequality, both matters of global justice. I argue that human rights considerations do indeed mandate borders considerably more open than is the norm (...) today but that, no matter how radical in its critique of state sovereignty, human rights discourse fails to address a crucial feature of this ideology. It is not enough to engage in a substantive moral argument about what the state’s moral duties are. One must also address the procedural political question of who has the legitimate authority to decide what rights and duties to act on in cases of disagreement. In addition to human rights discourse, I argue, border activists must also draw on the challenge posed to the doctrine of state sovereignty by the democratic theory of popular sovereignty. According to democratic theory, the people subject to the state’s coercive exercise of political power, and not the state itself, is ultimately the sovereign arbiter of political questions. And because foreigners are subject to the state’s border laws, democratic theory requires granting them a participatory say in setting those laws. (shrink)

Do liberal states have a moral duty to admit immigrants? According to what has been called the “conventional view”, this question is to be answered in the negative. One of the most prominent critics of the conventional view is Joseph Carens. In the past 30 years Carens’ contributions to the open borders debate have gradually taken on a different complexion. This is explained by the varying “ideality” of his approaches. Sometimes Carens attempts to figure out what states would be (...) obliged to do under otherwise perfectly just conditions (i.e., he attempts to establish an ideal). At other times, he is more interested in what to do, given the (not fully just) world that we actually live in. In my view, the relevance of the ideal/non-ideal theory debate to the open borders debate (and the ethics of migration more generally) has not yet received sufficient attention. My aim in this paper therefore is to show in detail how Carens’ varying approaches affect his critique of the conventional view. To this effect I analyze three of his papers: “Aliens and Citizens: The Case for Open Borders” (1987), “Realistic and Idealistic Approaches to the Ethics of Migration” (1996), and “Who Should get in? The Ethics of Immigration Admissions” (2003). (shrink)

ASEAN agricultural workers represent one of the most vulnerable groups of workers regardless of citizenship. While bilateral agreements focus on general migration governance mechanisms, the specifics of agricultural workers’ rights and protections fall outside their scope. Due to the seasonal nature of cross-border agriculture, these are flexible precarious workers readily available to employers in the borderlands that often do not invest in worker health and social security. The Article reveals how foreign migrant agricultural workers with and without work permits (...) continue to fall between the gaps of national labor protection laws, due to both legal structural exclusions as well as the particular vulnerabilities of being noncitizen workers in remote, unsafe workplaces. This Article documents some of the developments during 20172019 in migrant employment in export cash crops. The next challenge for the future is developing mechanisms for bilateralism to lower migration costs, with a commitment to genuinely safe migration, as well as the establishment of long-term equitable working conditions for all migrant workers. The major findings demonstrate how the two main reasons for the discrepancies between the BLA and labor protections have to do with the noninterventionist approach of ASEAN and a series of technical exclusions in Thailand’s labor law and regulation. (shrink)

Since 2015, the ‘refugee crisis’ is possibly the most photographed humanitarian crisis in history. Photographs taken, for instance, in Lesvos, Greece, and Bodrum, Turkey, were instrumental in generating waves of public support for, and populist opposition to “welcoming refugees” in Europe. But photographs do not circulate in a vacuum; this book explores the visual economy of the ‘refugee crisis,’ showing how the reproduction of images is structured by, and secures hierarchies of gender, sexuality, and ‘race,’ essential to the functioning of (...) bordered nation-states. Taking photography not only as the object of research, but innovating the method of photographìa— the material trace of writing/grafì with light/phos—this book urges us to view images and their reproduction critically. Part theoretical text, part visual essay, "Reproducing Refugees" vividly shows how institutional violence underpins both the spectacularity and the banality of ‘crisis.’ This book goes about synthesising visual studies with queer, feminist, postcolonial, post-structuralist, and post-Marxist theories. "Reproducing Refugees: Photographìa of a Crisis" offers theoretical frameworks and methodological tools to critically analyse representations, both those circulated through hegemonic institutions, and those generated from ‘below’. It carves a space between logos and praxis, ways of knowing and ways of doing, by offering a new visual language that problematises reified categories such as that of the ‘refugee’ and makes possible disruptive, alternative, resistant perceptions. The book contributes to the fields of migration and border studies, critically engaging visual narratives drawn from migration movements to question dominant categories and frameworks, from a decolonial, no-borders, queer feminist perspective. (shrink)