Impossible protest: noborders in Calais

Since the closure of the Red Cross refugee reception centre in Sangatte, undocumented migrants in Calais hoping to cross the border to Britain have been forced to take refuge in a number of squatted migrant camps, locally known by all as ‘the jungles.’ Unauthorised shanty-like residences built by the migrants themselves, living conditions in the camps are very poor. In June 2009, European ‘noborder’ activists set up a week-long protest camp in the area with the intention of confronting the authorities over their treatment of undocumented migrants. In this article, we analyse the June 2009 noborder camp as an instance of ‘immigrant protest.’ Drawing on ethnographic materials and Jacques Rancière's work on politics and aesthetics, we construct a typology of forms of border control through which to analyse the different ways in which the politics of the noborder camp were staged, performed and policed. Developing a critique of policing practices which threatened to make immigrant protest ‘impossible’, we highlight moments of protest which, through the affirmation of an ‘axiomatic’ equality, disrupted and disarticulated the borders between citizens and non-citizens, the political and non-political

Towards a genealogy of migrant struggles and rescue. The memory of solidarity at the Alpine border

This article advances a genealogy of migrant struggles and citizens solidarity practices, with a focus on the French-Italian migrant passage. It contends that scholarship has mainly mobilised a spatial approach to migrant struggles, while the temporality of solidarity and the collective memory of struggles have remained under-theorised. Then, the article moves on by focusing on the French-Italian Alpine border and it analyses the longstanding history of migrants’ passages there and, jointly, the mobilisations that took place in that area over the last decades exploring how these sedimented a citizen collective memory of solidarity practices. The final section deals with the history of mountain rescue at the French-Italian Alpine border and shows how migrants were saved by volunteers. The piece concludes by arguing that an insight into the memory of migrant struggles and solidarity practices enables foregrounding the transversal alliances which have been built between migrants and citizens and unsettling binary opposition between the former and the latter

Subacute dislocation of the elbow following Galeazzi fracture-dislocation of the radius: A case report

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Introduction</p> <p>The Galeazzi fracture-dislocation was originally described by Sir Astley Cooper in 1822 but was named after Italian surgeon Ricardo Galeazzi in 1934. It is an injury classified as a radial shaft fracture with associated dislocation of the distal radioulnar joint and disruption of the forearm axis joint. The associated distal radioulnar joint injury may be purely ligamentous in nature, tearing the triangular fibrocartilaginous complex, or involve bony tissue (that is, ulnar styloid avulsions) or both. We report this case because of the rare association of posterior dislocation of the elbow along with Galeazzi fracture-dislocation. To the best of our knowledge, this has not been previously reported in the English literature.</p> <p>Case presentation</p> <p>A 26-year-old Caucasian man presented to our department after a fall from a motorbike. He sustained a closed, isolated Galeazzi fracture-dislocation of the right forearm and no associated elbow injuries, and this necessitated open reduction and internal fixation of the radius. Post-operative radiographs films were satisfactory. However, clinical and radiological evidence of ipsilateral elbow dislocation was noted at a five-week follow-up, subsequently requiring open reduction of the joint and collateral ligament repair. Our patient was noted to have full elbow and forearm function at three months.</p> <p>Conclusions</p> <p>Although the Galeazzi fracture-dislocation has been classically described as involving only the distal radioulnar joint, traumatic forces can be transmitted to the elbow via the interosseous membrane of the forearm. This can lead to instability of the elbow joint. Therefore, we recommend that, in every case of forearm fracture, both elbow and wrist joints be assessed clinically as well as radiologically for subluxation or dislocation.</p

Integration against the state: irregular migrants’ agency between deportation and regularisation in the United Kingdom

Reducing the number of foreigners residing unlawfully within the borders of a state requires either their removal or the legalisation of their presence within the territory. Increasingly, governments also employ measures of internal control and limit irregular migrants’ access to rights and services in order to encourage them to leave autonomously. This article aims to contribute to current debates on how to conceptualise and account for the agency that irregular migrants themselves exercise in such contexts. Within critical migration and citizenship studies, many of their everyday actions have been described as ‘acts of citizenship’ but also as instances of ‘becoming imperceptible’, neither of which captures the whole range of strategies irregular migrants employ to strengthen their fragile position vis-à-vis the state. I argue that conceptualising their agency in terms of (self-)integration allows us to account for both: practices through which they actively become political subjects as well as those that precisely constitute a deliberate refusal to do so. Empirically, this is underpinned by an analysis of recent policy developments in the United Kingdom and a series of semi-structured interviews I conducted during 8 months of fieldwork in London with migrants experiencing different kinds and degrees of irregularity

‘Bordering’ Life: denying the right to live before being born

This study pushes the boundaries of the border thinking discourse to examine grassroots perceptions of foeticide together with how women are valued in a society that is underpinned by preference for a male child. Using a bordering conceptual framework, the paper re-visits the female positionality within epistemic locations of culture and societal values in both colonial and the modern Indian context. Grounded in primary research in the state of Haryana that exhibits lowest female to male ratio at birth in the country, the analyses indicate rigid or at best sluggish movements in social norms as the key driver for India’s declining sex ratio. The border thinking discourse further enables to situate the different aspects of female positionality and gender perceptions in the society into the specific domains of the bordering conceptual framework. This offers a novel approach to engage with social norms that border life and opportunities for females in the society

New Keywords: Migration and Borders

“New Keywords: Migration and Borders” is a collaborative writing project aimed at developing a nexus of terms and concepts that fill-out the contemporary problematic of migration. It moves beyond traditional and critical migration studies by building on cultural studies and post-colonial analyses, and by drawing on a diverse set of longstanding author engagements with migrant movements. The paper is organized in four parts (i) Introduction, (ii) Migration, Knowledge, Politics, (iii) Bordering, and (iv) Migrant Space/Times. The keywords on which we focus are: Migration/Migration Studies; Militant Investigation; Counter-mapping; Border Spectacle; Border Regime; Politics of Protection; Externalization; Migrant Labour; Differential inclusion/exclusion; Migrant struggles; and Subjectivity

Containment beyond detention: The hotspot system and disrupted migration movements across Europe

This article deals with the ways in which migrants are controlled, contained and selected after landing in Italy and in Greece, drawing attention to strategies of containment aimed at disciplining mobility and showing how they are not narrowed to detention infrastructures. The article starts by tracing a genealogy of the use of the term ‘hotspot’ in policy documents and suggests that the multiplication of hotspots-like spaces is related to a reconceptualisation of the border as a critical site that requires prompt enforcement intervention. The article moves on by investigating the mechanisms of partitioning, identification and preventive illegalisation that are at stake in the hotspots of Lampedusa and Lesbos. Hotspots are not analysed here as sites of detention per se: rather, the essay turns the attention to the channels of forced mobility that are connected to the Hotspot System, focusing in particular on the forced transfers of migrants from the Italian cities of Ventimiglia and Como to the hotspot of Taranto. The article concludes by analysing channels of forced mobility in the light of the fight against ‘secondary movements’ that is at the core of the current European Union’s political agenda, suggesting that further academic research could engage in a genealogy of practices of migration containment

State work and the testing concours of citizenship

Anyone trying to be a citizen has to pass through a set of practices trying to be a state. This paper investigates some of the ways testing practices calibrate citizens, and in doing so, perform “the state.” The paper focuses on three forms of citizenship testing, which it considers exemplary forms of “state work,” and which all, in various ways, concern “migration.” First, the constitution of a “border crossing,” which requires an identity test configured by deceptibility. Second, the Dutch asylum process, in which “being gay” can, in certain cases, be reason for being granted asylum, but where “being gay” is also the outcome of an examination organized by suspicion. And third, the Dutch measurement of immigrants’ “integration,” which is comprised of a testing process in which such factishes as “being a member of society” and “being modern” surface. Citizenship is analyzed in this paper as accrued and (re)configured along a migration trajectory that takes shape as a testing concours, meaning that subjects become citizens along a trajectory of testing practices. In contributing both to work on states and citizenship, and to work on testing, this paper thus puts forward the concept of citizenship testing as state work, where “state work is the term for that kind of labor that most knows itself as comparison, equivalency, and exchange in the social realm” (Harney, 2002, pp. 10–11). Throughout the testing practices discussed here, comparison, equivalency, and exchange figure prominently as the practical achievements of crafting states and citizens

Oligopolistic suppliers, symbiotic value chains and workers’ bargaining power: labor contestation in South China at an ascendant global footwear firm

This paper examines a 2014 strike in South China of Taiwanese footwear giant Yue Yuen to analyze changes in the power relationship between lead firms, manufacturers and workers. The paper demonstrates a connection between increased labor costs and capital consolidation and greater value capture at the bottom of the global supply chain. It is argued that footwear value chains are undergoing a falling degree of monopsony power and an emergence of enormous oligopolistic suppliers, transforming the power imbalances of global supply chains towards a more mutually dependent ‘buyer-producer symbiosis’. The Yue Yuen strike uncovers a maturing industrial working class and pressures on social reproduction in China, adapting its bargaining strategies vis-à-vis the developmental state. Influxes of profit raise the ceiling for what can be demanded of employers, stimulating those same employers to pursue more aggressive means of holding onto their profits. The example of the Yue Yuen strike is an indicator of what are fundamental changes in the production process, dynamics within the value chain, and power and agency of workers in labor-intensive production. The strike demonstrates that consolidation is playing a decisive role in shaping the power relationship between domestic manufacturers and transnational brands, this, in turn, directly affects the bargaining power of workers