The Real Appearance of the Economic/Political Binary: Claiming Asylum in Bulgaria

Abstract

The paper examines the distinction between 'economic' migrants and 'genuine refugees'. I argue that the economic/political migrant binary belongs to a particular ideological presupposition which is present in classic economic liberalism. In migratory systems, this ideology construes the 'economic' and the 'political' vis-à-vis violence and lays the ground for subject differentiation. This logic, furthermore, imposes itself on the migratory system and its empirical reality (e.g. detention and reception centres). The struggles that we witness at borders and detention centres attempt to disintegrate definitions of what constitutes violence. The struggles against the imposed categories take place at two interconnected levels: at the border and in the repositioning of migrants from detention to reception centres. I empirically trace these levels within the practice of the asylum-system in Bulgaria.

‘Everyday Bordering’ in England, Sweden and Bulgaria: Social Work Decision-Making Processes When Working with Migrant Family Members

“…Indeed, the link between migration control and welfare services has long been a feature of immigration legislation (Humphries 2004;Kremer 2007). At the time of the study, for example, EU citizens living in another EU member state only shared some welfare rights with those born in that country (Europa 2019) and in all three countries examined, legislation limits, or denies, support to failed asylum seekers (Swedish Migration Agency, n.d.; International Organisation for Migration 2016; Apostolova 2016). These examples go some way to illustrating how, in all contexts examined, street-level, everyday bordering practices regulate migrants' everyday lives, and a person's immigration status directly impacts on the services and welfare provisions to which a family is entitled, including those provided by social care practitioners.…”

British immigration policy, depoliticisation and Brexit

“…However, they also point out that these practices are continuously challenged by 'practices of border crossing' and necessarily involve 'multifarious struggles and tensions' between the two (ibid. ; see also Apostolova, 2016;Cantat, 2016;Silverman, 2012). The difficulty of the management of labour-power from the viewpoint of state managers and the potentials it opens up from the viewpoint of class/border struggles due to the unique character of this commodity as we have outlined in the previous section should be highlighted here.…”

“…A key component, Cantat (2016: 13-5) argues, is the production of political subjectivities that are deemed acceptable and illegitimate and imposition of binary categories of citizen/non-citizen, national/foreigner and inside/outside. It produces on the one hand the 'political refugee' and on the other hand the 'economic migrant' as undesirables (Apostolova, 2016). Apostolova (2016: 34) exposes the use of this discursive violence for capital accumulation and domination in material terms.…”

“…Therefore we seek to position British immigration policy within the historical development of three features of contemporary society: firstly, the development of employment and unemployment; secondly, the consolidation of the modern territorial state form; thirdly, the sundering of social life into separate political and economic spheres. This first section therefore provides the basis for understanding the modern phenomena of cross-border economic migration (Apostolova, 2016), the national political fallout from this process, and the capacity of the state to depoliticize these consequences 3 . The paper takes the view that depoliticisation derives from an attempt by governing authorities to insulate themselves from the political consequences of economic policies and conditions, which is itself made possible by an ideological conceit that justifies a crisis-prone and contradictory society.…”

Grassroots responses to mass migration in Europe : Introduction

“…While there was general uncertainty over what kind of 'crisis' that was and who it belonged to, as Rajaram (2016) notes in his 'Introduction' to a special issue of Intersections. East European Journal of Society and Politics, there was also a rise of solidarity and charity initiatives in broad segments of civil society, organized networks and institutionalized NGOs (Cantat, 2016;Hamann & Karakayali, 2016;Apostolova 2016;Greenberg & Spasić, 2017). Solidarity and charity initiatives were launched across Europe and with a high degree of transnational mobility and networking-including volunteering along the Balkan route, on the Greek islands, along the motorways, at border crossing points, train stations, camps, etc., from Sweden to Gaziantep as the Turkish-Syrian border 'entered into the European spotlight' (Kasparek, 2016, p. 2).…”