Fragmented citizenship: contemporary infrastructures of mobility containment along two migratory routes

Abstract

Several authors have contended recently that the rationality of contemporary migration control can be most adequately grasped by the notion of 'containment', conceived as the redirection of people's autonomous movement into restricted and defined pathways. Following this idea, this article proceeds in three steps. First, it proposes an analysis of the 'infrastructures' through which containment is enforced, showing the plural dimensions (regulatory, humanitarian, commercial, social) of which they are composed. Second, analysing two cases of transnational mobility towards (and across) the EU, it shows the effect of containment on people's spatial and existential trajectories. And third, through the analysis of such cases, it contends that the ultimate effect of containment is the fragmentation of citizenship into a variety of intermediate 'latitudinal' positions characterised by partial and conditional access to rights, which are functional to several forms of exploitation, including labour but also profit extraction through the operations of containment infrastructures themselves.

Gender, Vulnerability and Everyday Resistance in Immigration Detention: Women’s Experiences of Confinement in a Portuguese Detention Facility

“…Indeed, even when women actually fall under this last 'category' (i.e., victims of trafficking), 17 similar mechanisms of abjection and dispossession are deployed. State authorities often display a stereotyped vision of these women, trapped between a moralising and victimising view of their past and a pervasive control and disciplining of their present (Esposito, Murtaza, Peano et al 2020;Peano 2012;Rigo 2019;Taliani 2012). To be entitled to protection, these women must demonstrate they are at risk of danger and persecution, while complying with a narrow understanding of what counts as a victim with a 'credible' story.…”

Who shapes migration in open labour markets? Analysing migration infrastructures and brokers of circularly migrating home care workers in Switzerland

“…In sum, care workers might not be subject to the carceral migrant control by state bodies as refugees for example (cf. Esposito et al 2020). However, agencies escort them throughout their migration journey and keep them encapsulated (Xiang and Lindquist 2014) in households and contained by the very migration infrastructure that facilitates their move across countries (Esposito et al 2020).…”

Turbulences in the encampment archipelago: conflicting mobilities between migration, labour and logistics in Italian agri-food enclaves

“…2 Here, spatiotemporal suspension alternates with moments of acceleration, dispersal and forced mobility, and thus delineates dispositifs of containment (cf. Esposito et al 2020;Tazzioli 2018;.…”