Governing Precarious Immigrant Workers in Rural Localities: Emerging Local Migration Regimes in Portugal

Over the last decades, the globalization of the food and agriculture sector has fueled international labor migration to rural areas in Southern Europe. Portugal is no exception to this trend, as the intensification of foreign investment in agriculture combined with a declining and ageing workforce created a demand for flexible immigrant labor. The Eastern European and Asian immigrant workers who answered the industry’s call were confronted with poor working conditions and lacking access to public services. In this article, we zoom in on the governance challenge that the presence of precarious immigrant workers (PIWs) poses to rural municipalities in the south of Portugal. The burgeoning literature on local integration policies mainly focuses on how cities deal with the challenge posed by international labor migration. This article draws on a detailed case study of the municipality of Odemira to argue that more attention needs to be paid to emerging local migration regimes in non-urban localities. By adopting a regime-theoretical approach, we study how power relations between the local government, civil society, and the private sector play out around the question of immigrant reception. Our study suggests that immigration policies in rural localities are increasingly being developed through cooperation and coproduction between public and private actors. First, we demonstrate how the presence of PIWs is perceived as a policy “problem” by each actor. Second, we outline how a governing coalition formed around the shared concern to improve arrival infrastructures, stimulate integration, mediate socio-cultural impact, and accommodate business interests. We conclude by critically questioning the impact that emerging local migration regimes have on the rights and social position of PIWs in rural contexts

‘From Sanctuary to Welcoming Cities’: Negotiating the Social Inclusion of Undocumented Migrants in Liège, Belgium

Cities have become important sites of sanctuary for migrants with a precarious legal status. While many national governments in Europe have adopted restrictive immigration policies, urban governments have undertaken measures to safeguard undocumented residents’ rights. Existing scholarship on sanctuary cities has mostly focused on how cities’ stance against federal immigration policies can be interpreted as urban citizenship. What is largely missing in these debates, however, is a better insight into the role that local civil society actors play in pushing for sanctuary and negotiating the terms of social in- and exclusion. In this article, we rely on a qualitative study of the 2017 Sanctuary City campaign in Liège, Belgium, to argue that power relations between (and among) civil society actors and city officials help to explain why the meaning and inclusiveness of ‘sanctuary’ shifted over time. Initially, radical activists were able to politicize the issue by demanding the social inclusion of the ‘sans-papiers’ through grassroots mobilization. However, the cooptation of the campaign by immigrant rights organizations led to the adoption of a motion wherein the local government depicted the city as a ‘welcoming’ instead of a ‘sanctuary’ city. By showing how immigrant rights professionals sidelined radical activists during the campaign, we highlight the risk of depoliticization when civil society actors decide to cooperate with local governments to extend immigrant rights. We also underline the potential representational gap that emerges when those who are directly implicated, namely undocumented migrants, are not actively involved in campaigns that aim to improve their inclusion

In search of recognition

Existing scholarship on the active citizenship of undocumented migrants is inconclusive on its perils and promises. While some scholars see it as symptomatic of the moral economy that makes legal recognition dependent on demonstrating civic deservingness, others argue that it represents a potential site of contestation against illegalisation. In this paper, we argue that we need to focus on the complex processes that drive undocumented migrants’ quest for recognition in order to understand the political ambiguities implicated in how they civically engage themselves. We use the case of CollectActif (CA), an undocumented-led anti-food waste collective in Brussels, to argue that methods of participatory action research (PAR) are better placed than ex-post analyses to show how recognition processes unfold and evolve over time. We show that recognition depends on establishing ‘equivalence’ to prevailing norms and forms of civic organisation. Hence, CA members generated solidarity and created new publics by behaving as active citizens. Yet, despite increased visibility, CA struggled to be recognised by established actors in the field as actors with equal rights t

Hart boven Hard op een kruispunt

Hart boven Hard nam in september 2014 een vliegende start en ontpopte zich al gauw tot de motor voor een hernieuwde politisering van het middenveld. De beweging bestaat ondertussen meer dan twee en half jaar. Op 7 mei staat alweer een volgende Grote Parade gepland. Vandaag staat Hart boven Hard echter op een kruispunt en krijgt de beweging met interne spanningsvelden te maken, die het zal moeten overwinnen om een gamechanger te zijn

Gaining a voice : storytelling and undocumented youth activism in Chicago

In recent years, undocumented youth have come out of the shadows to claim their rights in the United States. By sharing their stories, these youth gained a voice in the public debate. In this paper, I integrate insights from the literature on narrative and emotions as to study how storytelling is employed within the undocumented youth movement in Chicago. I argue that undocumented youth strategically use storytelling for diverging purposes depending on the context, type of interaction and audience involved. Based on ethnographic research, I show that storytelling allows them to incorporate new members, mobilize constituencies and legitimize grievances. In each of these contexts, emotions play a key role in structuring the social transaction between storyteller and audience. Storytelling is thus a community-building, mobilizing and claims-making social movement practice. At a broader level, this case study demonstrates the power of storytelling as a political tool for marginalized populations.status: publishe