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Contesting Citizenship: Irregular Migrants and New Frontiers of the Political
Irregular migrants complicate the boundaries of citizenship and stretch the parameters of political belonging. Comprised of refugees, asylum seekers, "illegal" labor migrants, and stateless persons, this group of migrants occupies new sovereign spaces that generate new subjectivities. Investigating the role of irregular migrants in the transformation of citizenship, Anne McNevin argues that irregular status is an immanent (rather than aberrant) condition of global capitalism, formed by the fast-tracked processes of globalization.
McNevin casts irregular migrants as more than mere victims of sovereign power, shuttled from one location to the next. Incorporating examples from the United States, Australia, and France, she shows how migrants reject their position as "illegal" outsiders and make claims on the communities in which they live and work. For these migrants, outsider status operates as both a mode of subjectification and as a site of active resistance, forcing observers to rethink the enactment of citizenship. McNevin connects irregular migrant activism to the complex rescaling of the neoliberal state. States increasingly prioritize transnational market relations that disrupt the spatial context for citizenship. At the same time, states police their borders in ways that reinvigorate territorial identities. Mapping the broad dynamics of political belonging in a neoliberal era, McNevin provides invaluable insight into the social and spatial transformation of citizenship, sovereignty, and power.
McNevin casts irregular migrants as more than mere victims of sovereign power, shuttled from one location to the next. Incorporating examples from the United States, Australia, and France, she shows how migrants reject their position as "illegal" outsiders and make claims on the communities in which they live and work. For these migrants, outsider status operates as both a mode of subjectification and as a site of active resistance, forcing observers to rethink the enactment of citizenship. McNevin connects irregular migrant activism to the complex rescaling of the neoliberal state. States increasingly prioritize transnational market relations that disrupt the spatial context for citizenship. At the same time, states police their borders in ways that reinvigorate territorial identities. Mapping the broad dynamics of political belonging in a neoliberal era, McNevin provides invaluable insight into the social and spatial transformation of citizenship, sovereignty, and power.
- GenresNonfiction
240 pages, Hardcover
First published May 10, 2011
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Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
March 19, 2017
Somewhat fragmented and a little stilted in places, but still impressive and interesting. Fundamentally, McNevin's project is the advancement of radical democracy (ala Chantal Mouffe) through disruptive amelioration of citizenship regimes – I'm not convinced, but she's doing good work.
August 1, 2011
In comparing the experiences of irregular migrants in the U.S., Australia, and France, Anne McNevin reminds us that our "ways of living in political relation to others exceed and defy conventional modes of citizenship in social and spatial terms" (148). She examines the way contemporary strategies of states in relationship to irregular migrants operate spacially and how the resistant actions of such migrants produce new forms of subjectivity, a new form of political belonging, that challenges the very legitimacy of neoliberal citizenship and the neoliberal state.
McNevin embraces the term "irregular migrant" despite its imperfections (the norming function of regular) as preferable to other available terms. She defines irregular migrants as "noncitizens who have crossed state borders or remain in state territory without the host state's explicit and ongoing sanction. As a consequence, they do not possess the status that fully legitimizes their presence or that makes certain rights associated with citizenship or legal residence available to them. Irregular migrants may be labor migrants who have entered a state illegally or overstayed their visa, or they may be the children of such migrants. They may be stateless persons or asylum seekers whose refugee status is not yet formally established" (19).
Central to her work is Engin Isin's explanation that the constitution of political membership always involves "new and unique forms of exclusion . . .For Insin, the citizen and its others are mutually constitutive" (17). Similarly, she uses Laurent Dubois to argue that "citizenship is shaped as much by those on its edges as by those at its nominal center" (94). Drawing on Laclua and Mouffe's understanding of the political, she suggests that the terms in which irregular migrants, denied substantive citizenship, assert their rights to justice, cause a rupture or reformulation of the legitimacy of the neoliberal subject-citizen.
In her second chapter, she "shows how sovereignty and citizenship are being remade in globalizing states with respect to neoliberalism" (41). She suggests that the securing of borders is a performance not meant to keep irregular migrants out but to perform/enforce the legitimacy of the state in territorial terms while also providing for the restructured neoliberal state's labor needs.
Her third chapter draws on Australia's refugee politics to examine the "extra-territorial" policing of borders through on-shore locations designated "off-shore" thus subverting existing refugee laws. She uses Australia as a case example for the neoliberal polices and border policing results described in chapter 2.
Chapter 4 describes the Acts of Contestation of the Sans-Papiers in France. This chapter is grounded in a theory of contestation. She finds three ways in which we can interpret the actions and claims to belonging of the Sans-Papiers. First, they claim rights that reaffirm and reinforce the nation-state as they ask that its boundaries of membership simply be extended. Second, in claiming their belonging, the Sans-Papiers suggest that citizenship is not simply a legal category and ask us to think differently about the racialized and gendered discourses of citizenship and the bodies that make up the national community. Finally, she suggests their actions "undermines, in slow, subtle, and incomplete ways, the legitimacy of citizenship itself and raises the possibility that political life might be ordered according to toehr frames of reference" (116). This, drawing on Balibar, may be a new subjectivity of globalization we do not yet have the frame to adequately understand or articulate.
Chapter 5 moves to the United States. She analyzes here the rhetoric of the mass mobilizations of 2006 paying particular attention to the spatial dimensions of the political. I want to quote one of the passages I found most useful: "From this perspective, the point of transition from 'illegal' to 'legal migrant holds no guarantee of escape from precarious working conditions and an insecure future. Legality and illegality are merely statuses deployed as strategies of governance that mask broader hierarchies of mobility and labor that determine access to many substantive rights. This is not to say thatlegalization makes no difference. Ease of daily life is profoundly related to the piece of paper that justifies presence in the United States through conventional means. The point is, rather, to recognize the limits of legalization as a critical responses to the neoliberal rationality that governs migration control, not least on account of the unresolved issue of future irregular flows and a likely new underclass of hyperillegalized migrant" (126).
McNevin embraces the term "irregular migrant" despite its imperfections (the norming function of regular) as preferable to other available terms. She defines irregular migrants as "noncitizens who have crossed state borders or remain in state territory without the host state's explicit and ongoing sanction. As a consequence, they do not possess the status that fully legitimizes their presence or that makes certain rights associated with citizenship or legal residence available to them. Irregular migrants may be labor migrants who have entered a state illegally or overstayed their visa, or they may be the children of such migrants. They may be stateless persons or asylum seekers whose refugee status is not yet formally established" (19).
Central to her work is Engin Isin's explanation that the constitution of political membership always involves "new and unique forms of exclusion . . .For Insin, the citizen and its others are mutually constitutive" (17). Similarly, she uses Laurent Dubois to argue that "citizenship is shaped as much by those on its edges as by those at its nominal center" (94). Drawing on Laclua and Mouffe's understanding of the political, she suggests that the terms in which irregular migrants, denied substantive citizenship, assert their rights to justice, cause a rupture or reformulation of the legitimacy of the neoliberal subject-citizen.
In her second chapter, she "shows how sovereignty and citizenship are being remade in globalizing states with respect to neoliberalism" (41). She suggests that the securing of borders is a performance not meant to keep irregular migrants out but to perform/enforce the legitimacy of the state in territorial terms while also providing for the restructured neoliberal state's labor needs.
Her third chapter draws on Australia's refugee politics to examine the "extra-territorial" policing of borders through on-shore locations designated "off-shore" thus subverting existing refugee laws. She uses Australia as a case example for the neoliberal polices and border policing results described in chapter 2.
Chapter 4 describes the Acts of Contestation of the Sans-Papiers in France. This chapter is grounded in a theory of contestation. She finds three ways in which we can interpret the actions and claims to belonging of the Sans-Papiers. First, they claim rights that reaffirm and reinforce the nation-state as they ask that its boundaries of membership simply be extended. Second, in claiming their belonging, the Sans-Papiers suggest that citizenship is not simply a legal category and ask us to think differently about the racialized and gendered discourses of citizenship and the bodies that make up the national community. Finally, she suggests their actions "undermines, in slow, subtle, and incomplete ways, the legitimacy of citizenship itself and raises the possibility that political life might be ordered according to toehr frames of reference" (116). This, drawing on Balibar, may be a new subjectivity of globalization we do not yet have the frame to adequately understand or articulate.
Chapter 5 moves to the United States. She analyzes here the rhetoric of the mass mobilizations of 2006 paying particular attention to the spatial dimensions of the political. I want to quote one of the passages I found most useful: "From this perspective, the point of transition from 'illegal' to 'legal migrant holds no guarantee of escape from precarious working conditions and an insecure future. Legality and illegality are merely statuses deployed as strategies of governance that mask broader hierarchies of mobility and labor that determine access to many substantive rights. This is not to say thatlegalization makes no difference. Ease of daily life is profoundly related to the piece of paper that justifies presence in the United States through conventional means. The point is, rather, to recognize the limits of legalization as a critical responses to the neoliberal rationality that governs migration control, not least on account of the unresolved issue of future irregular flows and a likely new underclass of hyperillegalized migrant" (126).
November 21, 2016
If you're looking for a theoretical take on immigration, hang out with McNevin for a while. She tended to tie my brain in knots, but making it through the book is a worthwhile endeavor if:
a) If you're a political theorist and LIVE FOR THIS SORT OF THING
b) Your curious about just how in-depth academic conversations regarding immigration go
a) If you're a political theorist and LIVE FOR THIS SORT OF THING
b) Your curious about just how in-depth academic conversations regarding immigration go
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews