Struggles at the Boundaries of Neoliberal Citizenship: Theorizing Immigrant-Led Movements in Contemporary Europe

After the reflexive turn in migration studies: Towards the doing migration approach

“…Similar types of gendered notions of belonging and membership directed at non‐EU citizens are reproduced in other EU countries (see Badenhoop, 2017, for the United Kingdom and Germany; Dahlvik, 2017, for Austria; Oliveri, 2016, for Italy). We can see that specific organisations implement integration policies that build on a performative categorical distinction between a ‘We’ and an ‘Other’ (or ‘Others’).…”

“…At the same time, the microfocus also directs our attention to potential for contesting dominant ‘migration’ orders (Papadopoulos & Tsianos, 2013). In the context of some self‐organised ‘migrant’ emancipatory movements, the everyday contestation of these orders may even contribute to processes of ‘undoing migration’ (Oliveri, 2016).…”

“…At the same time, analysis of routines of doing migration vis-à-vis images of belonging can also be performed with respect to noninstitutional contexts. For example, we can examine whether and how (im)mobile individuals define their own practices of geographic movement/immobility as 'migration' or 'nonmigration' , and how these definitions become linked to various images of belonging, such as in the context of notions of 'homeland', 'diaspora' or 'return' (Oliveri, 2016).…”

Minor keywords of political theory: Migration as a critical standpoint

“…This is why it is always politically and symbolically important when deportable migrants gather under a collective name to struggle against their condition -whether we refer to the protests of "guestworkers" in Germany who had "legal" permits to work but none for residence during the early 1970s (Bojadzijev 2008), the sans-papiers movement in France and other European countries beginning in the 1990s (Cissé 1997;Diop 1997;cf. Balibar 1998;Derrida 1997;Nyers 2003), the more recent mobilizations of migrants and refugees across Europe (Amaya-Castro 2015; Barron et al 2011;Freedom of Movements Research Collective 2018;Meret and Rasmussen 2014;Oliveri 2016), the political movements of deportees who have asserted themselves in several African countries since 1996 2017a;2017b), or the mass mobilizations of migrants in the United States in 2006 and the ensuing struggles of socalled DREAMers (De Genova 2009;McNevin 2007;Negrón-Gonzales 2015;Nyers 2008;Walters 2008). Whether migrants mobilize to struggle against the threats of detention and deportation, or against their more general social rejection in the countries where they arrive, or in their countries of origin following their deportations, these movements reveal an array of struggles that involve subjects who have commonly been marginalized or made destitute by state policies and politics, but who nonetheless variously demand the right to stay or the right to move, or to work, or to access health benefits or education for their children, and sometimes even the right to take part in elections -and thereby boldly present themselves in public space as political subjects.…”

“…Migrants can gather and linger at a frontier or can momentarily mobilize collectively to claim rights, for example. A case in point is represented by the migrant organizations "Lampedusa in Hamburg" and "Lampedusa in Berlin" as well as by the "Collective of Tunisians from Lampedusa in Paris," who named themselves on the basis of their shared geographies of movement (Fontanari, 2019;Garelli, Sossi, Tazzioli, 2013;Meret and Rasmussen 2014;Oliveri 2016). Notably, what these temporary collective formations have in common is their irreducibility to the political categories of "the multitude" or "the people," their highly heterogeneous composition, and the tendency to be discredited as "non-political."…”