The Governance of Things: Documenting Limbo in the Greek Asylum Procedure

Abstract

Some anthropological examinations of documents have emphasized their role as regulatory technologies that enact control and legibility over both citizens and “aliens.” This article shows, however, that documentary practices and forms both reinforce and undermine attempts to make persons governable. My analysis centers on the “pink card,” the identity document issued to asylum seekers in Greece, which in 2010 was the European country with the highest number of asylum cases pending in limbo. Examining how both state functionaries and asylum seekers engage with it, I show how the pink card takes on unpredictable meanings with indeterminate effects, which can disrupt the regulatory functions of the asylum procedure. Through ethnographic data drawn from encounters between asylum seekers and police, interviews with asylum seekers, and case material, I argue for a consideration of how things themselves govern—that is, dispose, position, and shape—the activities and tools of state regulation.

Strategies of Navigation: Migrants' Everyday Encounters with Italian Immigration Bureaucracy

“…They produce and are produced by emotion, self-interest, social networks and much more (Gupta 1995;Heyman 1995;Olivier De Sardan 1999;Nuijten 2003). Moreover, rather than engendering transparency and consistency, bureaucracies, and the paperwork which accompanies this form of governance, create uncertainty and indeterminacy for lowlevel bureaucrats and users alike (Cabot 2012;Kelly 2006;Navaro-Yashin 2007;Triandafyllidou 2003). Given the ambiguous nature of bureaucratic processes, knowing one's way around bureaucracies and playing by the 'pragmatic' rules (Bailey 1969) is essential in any context in order to successfully manage bureaucratic encounters (Gupta 1995).…”

Hyenas of the Limpopo: The Social Politics of Undocumented Movement Across South Africa’s Border with Zimbabwe

“…Scholars (Brenneis, 2006;Cabot, 2012) have previously demonstrated how, by following the lives of documents and paying attention to the bureaucratic practices and processes they travel through, it is possible to catch a glimpse of some of the complex and changing meanings that documents take on. By contrast, my aim here is to follow the Zimbabwean passport as it moves across the Beitbridge border, not just through the bureaucratic processes of the immigration departments, but also how it disparately moves, sometimes in the absence of its owners, in the custody of private transporters -omalayitsha -in the socio-cultural spaces of negotiation that define cross-border movement across the Limpopo Valley.…”

“…Quite the opposite: the passport, in so far as it validates the game-play around both documented and undocumented travel, and as a document that many actors in cross-border movement have something invested in (Cabot 2012), adopts a parallel life of its own. Its dogged importance, even if this can be manipulated, makes it central for both documented and undocumented travel.…”

“…This represents one of the most comprehensive attempts in recent times to create an avenue for Zimbabweans travelling to, as well as living and working in South Africa, to be legible to state bureaucracies (Scott, 1998) and be amenable to their control (Cabot, 2012;Cohn, 1987;Comaroff & Comaroff, 1991;Dirks, 2001;Mamdani, 1996;Thomas, 1991). Nevertheless, some of those who participated in this project, as well as the others who did not, have failed to fulfil all or some of the conditions set for documented travel; thus continuing to find creative strategies to evade or by-pass the demands for and challenges of ensuring enforcement.…”

“…That is, regulations apply, but only as far as they are allowed, subject to further and ongoing negotiation and reinterpretation. This morphogenesis (Archer, 1995) has the capacity to produce a context-specific, 'organic' set of border practices that in turn signal a fluid interplay between governance and subject formation (Cabot, 2012;Das, 2004). The ethics of illegibility as a conceptual tool comes about by marrying Das (2004) and Hoag's (2010) notions of illegibility with Roitman's (2004) ideas on legitimated illegality to refer to practices that include state actors, third parties and travellers in the facilitation of undocumented border crossings.…”