Even for the kind of conservative politics that argues for keeping asylum seekers out of the European Union or the United States, a variety of social roles and behavior are deemed acceptable for men and women. Why then, when issues revolve around war and bare survival, do debates fall back on such rigid assumptions about men as soldiers and political actors and women as victims or objects of protection? Why is it taken as a given that men traveling alone cannot be legitimate refugees? That empathy and victimhood should be naturally and only associated with women and children? Continue reading →
The “economic migrant” must leave. From Berlin’s widening of the definition of “safe country” zones and the fast execution of deportation orders, to hunters of economic migrants along the Bulgarian–Turkish border, our memory is persistently being pressed on the idea that the European space is reserved for “genuine refugees” only. Refugees are welcome. Their counterpoint—the economic migrant—is not. In the second post of this series, Manuela Bojadzijev and Sandro Mezzadra write, “One can see … a ‘difference machine’ at work, which discriminates between ‘first-class’ refugees of brutal war (the Syrians) and potential seekers of political asylum (the Iraqis) while branding people from the Balkans as ‘economic migrants.’” We see, however, that this “difference machine” works in a complete oscillation; it moves back and forth from one extreme to the other and it feeds on the contradictions it breeds. It produces unstable categories and where “first class” qualities could be sensed ostensible for a moment, they quickly retreat to previously engendered anxieties. The temporal protection that is currently being distributed to Syrians is precisely this: a temporal protection from being labeled an “economic migrant.” What does it mean, however, to accept one’s refugee-ness but not one’s economic migrant-ness? How does the so-called “refugee crisis” articulate the economy, the labour market, and humanitarianism? Continue reading →
Organizations such as the World Bank have repeated what has been called the “migration development mantra.” In this, remittances appear as a panacea—or “wonder drug” (Green 2015)—for economic development, while in real world interactions “social remittances” import liberal ideals such as “work ethic,” “financial literacy,” and democracy. Thus, this “mantra” reflects a neoliberal revival of 1960s modernization narratives (Glick Schiller and Faist 2010; Wise and Covarrubias 2009) with which it promotes temporary worker programs in particular, as they facilitate the return of the migrant and remittances and thus (it is assumed) greater economic development in the area of origin. Continue reading →
“The refugee crisis in Europe is fabricated,” Prem Kumar Rajaram writes in the opening post of this series. It is certainly true that the framing of current events in terms of crisis and emergence contributes to a dramatization of the situation and opens up the space for “certain forms of intervention and the production of specific types of subjects.” This frame reproduces a division of labor, according to which migrants and refugees play a passive role while states, governments, and European institutions are the active agents, called upon to intervene and solve the “crisis.” This is part and parcel of a process through which the “crisis” becomes a governmental category and device. Continue reading →
Crisis The refugee crisis in Europe is fabricated. Like most “crises,” the recent onset of people from Syria, Iraq, Afghanistan, Bangladesh, and Pakistan trying to cross into the European Union is a representation. Anxiety and specific readings of law and humanitarianism frame this issue. This framing works inward as well as outward. Inward, it establishes a dominant regulating norm—an idea of “the refugee”—that allows for internal comparison and inequalities (people are said to have varying rights to protection). Outward, the framing helps create an understanding of a complex situation—an abstracted understanding—and allows for policy makers and commentators to treat “the refugee crisis” as an exceptional condition. As exception, that crisis appears to be regarded and treated as an “event” distinct from the political “norm,” and it enables a vertical form of politics. The crisis is the state acting as it tends to, as a protection racket in Charles Tilly’s memorable take, defining a danger or threat that strengthens its force and its hold over territory. Continue reading →