Citizenship, migration and formations of class in urban France

Lem, Winnie

doi:10.1007/s10624-013-9324-z

Cited by 6 publications

(18 citation statements)

References 28 publications

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“…The PAH allowed them to see themselves beyond old narratives of proprietorship as the best way of Bbecoming someone^-as Rodrigo once put it-and instead allowed them to become part of a broader collective where they were not migrants or debtors or low-skill laborers, but compañeras, members of the same social movement for the right to housing. This reminds us that citizenship too is a contested space in global cities, particularly among migrant groups (Lem 2013) and that activism can be one way of redefining it.…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 96%

Debt revolts: Ecuadorian foreclosed families at the PAH in Barcelona

Suárez

2017

Dialect Anthropol

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Can present day grassroots direct actions be considered revolutionary? In this paper, I argue that seemingly Breformist^demands can be considered revolutionary in today's neoliberal capitalism. At the turn of the twenty-first century, working class Ecuadorian migrants in Barcelona were trying to join the global middle classes via subprime mortgage loans and despite their precarious jobs. Following the collapse of Spain's housing bubble, unemployed, defaulting on their mortgages, and risking home eviction, they turned to housing activism. They joined the Platform for People Affected by Mortgages (PAH) and became daily protestors for the right to housing and against indebtedness. Looking at PAH approaches that encouraged debt default among low-income families, strategies to reconvert repossessed homes by rescued banks into social housing units, or the effective occupation of buildings that belonged to these banks by the PAH to house evicted families, I claim that these moments represent revolutionary instances of a broader fight against indebtedness taking place globally which can be considered-as many did at the PAH-a fight against capitalism at large. In this paper I illustrate how people who had seldom participated in social mobilization became part of a small Barcelonan movement for the right to housing that grew exponentially throughout Spain succeeding in canceling thousands of mortgage debts and stopping equally as many evictions. PAH's spaces of encounter and action made possible a cross-class alliance upheld by weekly assemblies and near daily direct actions against financial institutions and a proausterity central government. These moments demonstrate the ability of everyday people to reclaim housing, redefine the narrative of indebtedness, and-in the case of Barcelona-it even made possible taking control of City Hall.

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Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 96%

Debt revolts: Ecuadorian foreclosed families at the PAH in Barcelona

Suárez

2017

Dialect Anthropol

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“…In this article, it is precisely the connection between the emergence of anti-immigrant politics and the current processes of neoliberalization that guides my investigation into contemporary struggles of class and citizenship. To be precise, my aim is to investigate anti-immigrant activism from the perspective of classificatory struggles concerning the biopolitics of disposability (Giroux, 2007; Tyler, 2015) within the current regime of neoliberal citizenship (Lem, 2013).…”

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confidence: 99%

“…‘Citizenship’ is not employed here in its narrow sense, to refer strictly to a legal relationship; rather, it is used in a broader sense to refer to a series of rights, responsibilities, forms of participation in society, and ideologies of belonging (Lem, 2013: 444). The negotiations and struggles of/for citizenship concern not only legal rights but the boundaries of what it means to be a respected citizen, what it means to be included or excluded within the framework of a ‘nation-state’.…”

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confidence: 99%

“…The concept of a citizenship regime, then, stands for the institutional arrangements, rules and understandings that guide and shape policy decisions and state expenditure, how states and citizens define problems and how citizens make claims (Jenson, 2007: 55). It is thus a concept that directs attention to the field of political, economic and ideological forces that condition the orientations of policies, the state, and citizenry (Lem, 2013: 445) and the ‘field of intelligibility’ of citizenship (Tyler, 2013: 73).…”

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confidence: 99%

“…The unfolding of neoliberalization in Europe since the 1970s has also entailed the process of recrafting a ‘neoliberal citizenship regime’ (Lem, 2013). The dimensions of this regime are not fixed (Jenson, 2007), but they are nevertheless stable enough to be recognizable.…”

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confidence: 99%

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Struggles of citizenship and class: anti-immigration activism in Finland

Mäkinen

2017

The Sociological Review

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This article investigates contemporary struggles of class and citizenship in the context of the emergence of right-wing anti-immigrant politics and activism in Finland. The specific aim of the article is to dissect anti-immigrant activism from the perspective of classificatory struggles concerning the ‘biopolitics of disposability’ within the current regime of neoliberal citizenship. Relying on qualitative research of online activism, the article suggests that current forms of anti-immigrant politics can be understood as a part of a process where the assumed ‘underclass’ or surplus people become significant as a ‘constitutive outside’ that defines the contours of respectable citizenship. Anti-immigration activism thus takes part in a twisted or displaced class struggle, in which the class relations imposed by the neoliberal regime, rather than being questioned, are taken for granted and racialized.

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Chinese Migration to and within Europe: Continuity and Renewal in the Light of Demographic Factors and the Impact of Covid-19

王

2023

J. Chin. Overseas

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Under the changing demographic effects of Chinese migratory waves in Europe and in the global context of the Covid-19 pandemic, Chinese migratory patterns to Europe as well as the lives of migrants and their descendants in European countries have been renewed since the 2010s, both in material and symbolic or emotional ways. This special issue includes five articles shedding new light on the patterns of Chinese migration to Europe, and on the dynamics of their everyday lives in and beyond the European countries. As the special issue editor, I first argue that Chinese overseas, as an important part of global China, offer a privileged site of study for understanding Chinese society from inside and outside. Then, based on the literature review on Chinese migration to and within Europe from the 1980s to post-2020, I introduce specificities of contemporary Chinese migration to Europe and the Chinese presence in European countries, and highlight four main demographic features: the growth in the population of descendants, the aging of the first-generation migrants, the massive arrival of students and skilled migrants, and the feminization of migration. Thirdly, I provide an overview of the five articles included in this special issue. Finally, I conclude the introduction by underlying the contributions of this volume, the theoretical frameworks that they borrow and consolidate, and new avenues for research opened up by this special issue.

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Citizenship, migration and formations of class in urban France

Cited by 6 publications

References 28 publications

Debt revolts: Ecuadorian foreclosed families at the PAH in Barcelona

Debt revolts: Ecuadorian foreclosed families at the PAH in Barcelona

Struggles of citizenship and class: anti-immigration activism in Finland

Chinese Migration to and within Europe: Continuity and Renewal in the Light of Demographic Factors and the Impact of Covid-19

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