E-grāmata: Migration and the Refugee Dissensus in Europe: Borders, Security and Austerity

This book examines the key topic of political disagreement over migration and asylum.

Since the collapse of consensus after the end of the cold war, migration and asylum increasingly emerge as a central socio-political issue to become a crucial element of the dissensus born out of the fragmentation and polarisation of politics across the globe. Beyond the complexity and difficulties of managing the migratory flows, which appear unprecedented in terms of volume, velocity, fluidity and complexity, the most difficult problems arise from the forces unleashed in response to the refugee and migration issue, particularly after the ‘refugee crisis’ in Europe of recent years. The migration/asylum debate is now intimately connected to borders, security, belonging and labour precarity/inequality. The book addresses three dimensions related to the migration and asylum dissensus.

First, the EU and national state responses, which leads to a mixture, often contested, of Europeanised and national state policies on migration and asylum. We are witnessing processes of transformation of the migrant integration debates, as well as processes opening old and new national and minority questions. Second, new polarisations have emerged as transformations of the old polarisations. Immigration, Islam and terrorism are depicted as interchangeable and immediate threats to ‘our way of life’.  Third, we are simultaneously witnessing crucial transformations from the realities on the ground, which are related to the congoing flows as well as the long-term presence of migrants from third countries and from other EU member. Moreover, even more importantly, we are witnessing on the ground the emergence of new solidarities by non-migrants at the opposite side to anti-immigrant, xeno-racist and anti-Muslimism politics.

It must be noted however, that migrants are no uniform and homogeneous group, given the crucial class, gender, ethnic and power-related differentials at play. Characteristic of our epoch are processes of multiplicity, fragmentation and differentiation at all levels. Socio-economic class and status, gender, ethnicity, faith, sexuality and other modes of differentiation are affecting and are affected by policies, social, economic and cultural practices and attitudes in a system of differentiated inclusion. At the top end, ‘elite’ migrants are welcome.  However, the vast majority of immigrants do not receive the same warm welcome. At the lower end of the socioeconomic spectrum, less esteemed migrants, subaltern migrants, do not have the same access to opportunities in Europe, as they are offered a differential treatment with numerous obstacles in their integration path. The very terms of ‘integration’ and ‘multiculturalism’ have become divisive controversial political issues. Nonetheless, the presence of migrants is transforming of spaces and belonging via the shared knowledge, affective cooperation, mutual support and care between migrants and non-migrants, when they are on the move. The reconstruction of the ontology of the moving people is the mobile commons of migration which opens potentialities for different worlds.

This book will be of much interest to students of migration and border studies, global governance, European politics and International Relations.