Suchergebnisse

The study of the political agency and subjectivity of refugees and migrants has become an increasingly important topic within migration studies. Migration involves struggles around fundamental social and political issues, namely mobility, residence, and citizenship rights. Expressions of this struggle can be found in local actions against detention, deportation, and other border controls; campaigns for regularization and status; the revival of sanctuary cities; and global struggles for freedom of movement. However, the traditional concepts and frameworks of migration do not adequately take into account the full dynamic range of migrant practices of political subject-making. This article analyses the "autonomy of migration" literature within migration studies and critically assesses whether the concepts from this perspective can be mobilized to understand the political agency and subjectivity of migrants. While the autonomist approach to migration makes vital and dynamic contributions to our understanding of migrant political agency, its dismissal of citizenship as an exclusionary concept would benefit from a more nuanced approach.

Deportation has again taken a prominent place within the immigration policies of nation-states. Irregular Citizenship, Immigration, and Deportation addresses the social responses to deportation, in particular the growing movements against deportation and detention, and for freedom of movement and the regularization of status. The book brings deportation and anti-deportation together with the aim of understanding the political subjects that emerge in this contested field of governance and control, freedom and struggle. However, rather than focusing on the typical subjects of removal – refugees, the undocumented, and irregular migrants – Irregular Citizenship, Immigration, and Deportation looks at the ways that citizens get caught up in the deportation apparatus and must struggle to remain in or return to their country of citizenship. The transformation of 'regular' citizens into deportable 'irregular' citizens involves the removal of the rights, duties, and obligations of citizenship. This includes unmaking citizenship through official revocation or denationalization, as well as through informal, extra-legal, and unofficial means. The book features stories about struggles over removal and return, deportation and repatriation, rescue and abandonment. The book features eleven 'acts of citizenship' that occur in the context of deportation and anti-deportation, arguing that these struggles for rights, recognition, and return are fundamentally struggles over political subjectivity – of citizenship. This book will be of interest to students and scholars of citizenship, migration and security studies.