Resisting bare life : civil solidarity and the hunt for illegalized migrants

While European governments have pursued illegalized migrants for decades, the techniques through which they do so have taken a more radical turn since 2015. Focusing on the particular case of Belgium, this paper documents how its Federal government has increasingly tried to “police” migrants into the European refugee regime, while migrants and citizens have continued to resist these efforts through a series of “political” actions. Drawing on ethnographic work with the Brussels‐based Citizen Platform for the Support of Refugees, I pursue two aims: first, I demonstrate how the Belgian state has consciously produced a humanitarian crisis as part of a broader “politics of exhaustion”; and second, I explore the specific forms and types of humanitarian action that emerge from citizens’ response to these policies. I do so by describing three moments in which these opposing logics of policing and politicization conjure

The Refugee Crisis & The Responsibility Of Intellectuals

According to the UN, 65.3 million forcibly displaced people languish in camps and slums or making desperate journeys toward safety. The global community has not only failed to help many of these people; in many cases it has actively obstructed them from finding security and a new home for themselves and their families. Moral responsibilities to refugees are not exhausted by policies and actions. They also extend to how to think about the refugee crisis. Pundits, politicians, and political philosophers have failed to live up to these responsibilities by perpetuating populist myths, the causes of refugees’ flight, and the policies that prevent them from resuming their lives

Jiwar: from a right of neighbourliness to a right of neighbourhood for refugees

In this paper I make the case that a closer examination of the tradition of jiwār or neighbourliness can help unsettle the binary of citizen and migrant that forecloses the possibility of accessing rights for the latter. Here, insights from human geography and social anthropology pertaining to understandings and practices of conviviality are mobilised to ask what contemporary readings of jiwār can tell us given that the nation-state dominates modalities and practices of locality production. Mobilising interview and ethnographic research material produced in partnership with Palestinian, Syrian, Sudanese, and Iraqi forced migrants over the past 8 years across multiple sites, this paper draws attention to the significance of creating and maintaining neighbourly relations and spaces as an ethical position contrasted against exclusionary nation-state and sectarian discourses and practices. Here, I draw on the Turkish state response to on-going Syrian displacement and the Syrian state’s response to the earlier displacement of Iraqis (2005-11) to illustrate how the sedentarist logic of the nation-state impedes practices of conviviality that emerge from the lived realities of encounter between those already resident and those who newly arrive

Detention-as-spectacle

Using a combination of migration studies, political sociology, and policy studies, this paper explores the contradictions and violence of immigration detention, its architectures, and its audiences. The concept of “detention-as-spectacle” is developed to make sense of detention’s hypervisible and obscured manifestations in the European Union. We focus particularly on two case studies, the United Kingdom and Malta, which occupy different geopolitical positions within the EU. Detention-as-spectacle demonstrates that detention is less related to deterrence and security than to displaying sovereign enforcement, control, and power. A central aspect of the sovereign spectacle is detention’s purported ability to order and even halt “crises” of irregular immigration, while simultaneously creating and reinforcing these crises. The paper concludes by examining recent disruptions to the spectacle, and their implications

Between Bare Life and Everyday Life: Spatializing Europe’s Migrant Camps

The migrant and refugee camps that proliferated in Europe over recent years reflect extreme, if not bipolar, architectural conditions. While fenced carceral camps with prefabricated units were created top-down by state and municipal authorities, informal makeshift camps of tents and selfmade shelters were formed bottom-up along Europe’s migration routes. These contrasting spatial typologies often appear side by side in the open landscapes of rural fields, in urban landscapes at the heart or in the fringes of cities, and in the architectural landscapes of abandoned institutions and facilities such as factories, prisons, airports, and military barracks. The different ways in which camps are created, function, and are managed by multiple and changing actors and sovereignties, substantially influence the form of these spaces. So far, however, the radically different spatial typologies of the camp and the intersections between them have not been comparatively analysed. Based on empirical studies of the recently created migrant camps in Europe, this paper sets out to investigate their various configurations, what they reflect, and how they correspond with the culture and politics that shape them. While this paper mainly focuses on three particular camps in northern France – the container camp in Calais, the makeshift camp in Calais known as the “Jungle,” and La Linière camp in Grande-Synthe – it offers observations and analytical strategies relevant to camp spaces in other spaces and contexts and to camp studies more broadly

MIGRATION PANORAMA. Schengen in the spotlight: a Europe with or without borders? APRIL 2016 (First edition)

The first edition of this new multi-authored publication entitled ‘Migration Panorama’ focuses on the consequences of the refugee and migration crisis on the Schengen area and the concept of a borderless union. Several external and EPC authors have contributed to building a comprehensive picture on the manifold challenges and possible consequences of maintaining and/or returning to internal border controls among Schengen countries. How does a signatory of the Schengen agreement see the current developments? What would be the impact of the reintroduction of physical borders on Europe’s digital economy? In what way do the V4 countries envisage to solve the ‘Schengen crisis’? How dangerous are the empty threats to expel Greece out of the Schengen area? What is the symbolic meaning of the Belgian border controls following the French decision to dismantle parts of the Calais ‘jungle’? Is saving Schengen only a question of national sovereignty or a matter of shared European responsibility? All these questions and many others are tackled in this first issue of the ‘Migration Panorama’ produced by EPC’ s Migration and Diversity Programme

Press coverage of the refugee and migrant crisis in the EU: a content analysis of five European countries

In 2014, more than 200,000 refugees and migrants fled for safety across the Mediterranean Sea. Crammed into overcrowded, unsafe boats, thousands drowned, prompting the Pope to warn that the sea was becoming a mass graveyard. The early months of 2015 saw no respite. In April alone more than 1,300 people drowned. This led to a large public outcry to increase rescue operations. Throughout this period, UNHCR and other humanitarian organisations, engaged in a series of largescale media advocacy exercises, aiming at convincing European countries to do more to help. It was crucial work, setting the tone for the dramatic rise in attention to the refugee crisis that followed in the second half of 2015. But the media was far from united in its response. While some outlets joined the call for more assistance, others were unsympathetic, arguing against increasing rescue operations. To learn why, UNHCR commissioned a report by the Cardiff School of Journalism to explore what was driving media coverage in five different European countries: Spain, Italy, Germany, the UK and Sweden. Researchers combed through thousands of articles written in 2014 and early 2015, revealing a number of important findings for future media advocacy campaigns. Most importantly, they found major differences between countries, in terms of the sources journalists used (domestic politicians, foreign politicians, citizens, or NGOs), the language they employed, the reasons they gave for the rise in refugee flows, and the solutions they suggested. Germany and Sweden, for example, overwhelmingly used the terms ‘refugee’ or ‘asylum seeker’, while Italy and the UK press preferred the word ‘migrant’. In Spain, the dominant term was ‘immigrant’. These terms had an important impact on the tenor of each country’s debate. Media also differed widely in terms of the predominant themes to their coverage. For instance, humanitarian themes were more common in Italian coverage than in British, German or Spanish press. Threat themes (such as to the welfare system, or cultural threats) were the most prevalent in Italy, Spain and Britain. Overall, the Swedish press was the most positive towards refugees and migrants, while coverage in the United Kingdom was the most negative, and the most polarised. Amongst those countries surveyed, Britain’s right-wing media was uniquely aggressively in its campaigns against refugees and migrants. This report provides important insights into each country’s press culture during a crucial period of agenda-setting for today’s refugee and migrant crisis. It also offers invaluable insights into historical trends. What emerges is a clear message that for media work on refugees, one size does not fit all. Effective media advocacy in different European nations requires targeted, tailored campaigns, which takes into account their unique cultures and political context

Why "should we"? A well-grounded argument for refugee acceptance and integration

L'attuale e inedito arrivo nell'UE di migranti e richiedenti asilo in fuga da paesi devastati dalla guerra ha creato un intenso dibattito sull'obbligo e l'opportunità di accettarli e integrarli nelle nostre società. Tra preoccupazioni umanitarie e convenienza politica, e al di là della retorica dei media, è possibile argomentare a favore dell'accettazione e dell'integrazione sulla base di un solido processo di analisi e valutazione dei dati. Questo articolo si propone di presentare e discutere le evidenze provenienti da ricerche che suggeriscono che dovremmo sostenere l'accettazione e l'integrazione dei rifugiati nell'Unione europea, nel suo complesso, e in Italia in particolare. Dopo aver descritto i principali eventi recenti riguardanti la crisi migratoria dell'UE, vengono esaminate una serie di questioni chiave: le dimensioni reali dei flussi, la minaccia alla sicurezza, gli obblighi derivanti dal diritto internazionale, il rapporto costi-benefici e, infine, l'importanza educativa della diversità culturaleThe current unprecedented influx of migrants and asylum seekers fleeing from war-torn countries into the EU has created an intense debate on the obligation and opportunity to accept and integrate them in our societies. Between humanitarian concerns and political convenience, and beyond the rhetoric of the media, it is possible to argue in favour of acceptance and integration based on a sound process of data analysis and assessment. This article aims to present and discuss evidence from research that suggests we should support acceptance and integration of refugees in the EU, as a whole, and in Italy specifically. After describing the main recent events concerning the EU migration crisis, a number of key issues are investigated: the real dimensions of the influx, the security threat, the obligations deriving from international law, the cost-benefit ratio and, finally, the educational importance of cultural diversity

Europe must act! The refugee crisis in the eyes of young people. EPC FutureLab, 12 October 2015

This compendium collects a number of articles from FutureLab participants on the current refugee crisis in Europe, providing a series of unique perspectives from all over Europe

The Politics of Exhaustion: Immigration Control in the British-French Border Zone

Within a climate of growing anti-immigration and populist forces gaining traction across Europe, and in response to the increased number of prospective asylum seekers arriving in Europe, recent years have seen the continued hardening of borders and a disconcerting evolution of new forms of immigration control measures utilised by states. Based on extensive field research carried out amongst displaced people in Europe in 2016-2019, this article highlights the way in which individuals in northern France are finding themselves trapped in a violent border zone, unable to move forward whilst having no obvious alternative way out of their predicament. The article seeks to illustrate the violent dynamics inherent in the immigration control measures in this border zone, characterised by both direct physical violence as well as banalised and structural forms of violence, including state neglect through the denial of services and care. The author suggests that the raft of violent measures and micro practices authorities resort to in the French-British border zone could be understood as constituting one of the latest tools for European border control and obstruction of the access to asylum procedures; a Politics of Exhaustion