Migration politics: Mobilizing against economic insecurity in the United States and South Africa

Abstract

From the mid-2000s, the United States and South Africa, respectively, experienced significant pro-migrant and anti-migrant mobilizations. Economically insecure groups played leading roles. Why did these groups emphasize politics of migration, and to what extent did the very different mobilizations reflect parallel underlying mechanisms? Drawing on 41 months of ethnographic fieldwork and 119 interviews with activists and residents, I argue that the mobilizations deployed two common strategies: symbolic group formation rooted in demands for recognition, and targeting the state as a key source of livelihood. These twin strategies encouraged economically insecure groups to emphasize national identities and, in turn, migration. Yet, they manifested in different types of mobilization due to the varying characteristics of the groups involved, and the different national imaginaries and organizing legacies they had to draw upon. The analysis demonstrates the capacity of economically insecure groups to make collective claims. It also shows that within the context of anti-migrant nationalism, economic insecurity amplifies the significance of national belonging, citizenship, and migration as important terrains of collective struggle.

Building Labor Solidarity in Precarious Times: The Danger of Union Paternalism

“…Police incident reports suggest that the actual numbers were as much as four times this amount (Alexander et al 2018, 35). Local protests targeted the state, rather than employers (Paret 2018). They typically revolved around issues of “service delivery,” a term that residents used to denote demands for the government provision of resources such as housing, electricity, and water.…”

“…These examples suggest that economic precarity may become a point of departure for new forms of collective resistance. In contrast with conventional labor struggles, precariously situated groups frequently organize within residential areas rather than workplaces, and target the state rather than employers (Paret 2018). This includes, for example, struggles for a “right to the city,” which may potentially accommodate a wide range of groups within the working class, from the unemployed and precariously employed to those in more stable jobs (Greenberg and Lewis 2017; Harvey 2012).…”

Citizenship and work in global capitalism: From domination to aspiration

“…As a result, workers and the unemployed increasingly sought to forge solidarities outside of the workplace. This included developing alliances with community‐based organizations, making appeals for broad public support, and targeting nation‐states rather than employers (Agarwala, ; Chun, ; Paret, ). These moves heightened the centrality of demands for citizenship, understood as a broad form of inclusion for all members of a political community.…”

“…While the immigrant rights movement in the United States, as elsewhere, centers on the demand for legal inclusion, notions of work are central. Not only do migrants justify demands for formal legalization by pointing to their economic contributions as low‐wage workers, but they also view struggles for legal status as connected to broader struggles for economic advancement (Gleeson, ; Paret, ). Complementing unions and other organizations of low‐wage migrant workers, the immigrant rights movement has helped to revitalize the United States labor movement (Milkman, ).…”

The community strike: From precarity to militant organizing

“…Some groups managed to overcome these challenges by mobilizing outside the workplace (Agarwala, 2013; Paret, 2018; Rossi, 2017). Local protests in South Africa, which began to emerge in the middle of the 2000s and accelerated after 2008, represented a prominent example (Alexander, 2010; Paret and Runciman, 2016).…”