The Silent Backdrop: Colonial Anxiety at the Border

Abstract

Through the categorization of movers, states determine and fix the belonging of migrants and thereby reproduce the nation‐state system as a global reality. Some movers, however, are deemed illegible and must be identified, labelled and thus brought within the system. This paper unpicks the legal consequences of a “coloniality of power” (Quijano, 2000) embedded within the border system as a whole. The paper demonstrates this process through a post‐colonial examination of Somali migration and the application of the 1951 Refugee Convention at the UK border. The Somali migrant, like his colonized predecessor, is constructed as an unreliable informant of him/herself; a “lying native” (Bhabha, 1994) whose identity can be ‘discovered’ by the tools of the enlightened West.

Decolonising civic integration: a critical analysis of texts used in Dutch civic integration programmes

“…Her work demonstrates that colonial histories are reactivated today, wrapped in nationalistic discussions on 'our values' and are combined with new forms of governance of groups whom are assumed to not embody these same values. Similar findings were also found in Carver's (2019) analysis of the UK asylum system where she demonstrated the colonial categories are reproduced, subjecting asylum seekers to practices during their application process which strive to make them more 'modern', as defined by Western standards. Practices such as renaming using a Western name structure, recording birthdates and recording biological and social fatherhood are all routine forms of colonial power (Carver 2019).…”

“…A growing number of authors have explored the connection between coloniality and modernity in present-day asylum and integration programmes (Schinkel 2017;Carver 2019;Rodríguez 2018;Mayblin 2017;Mayblin, Wake, and Kazemi 2020;Anderson 2019;Edmunds 2012). Rodríguez (2018) draws on the coloniality of power (Quijano 2000) and argues for a framework of 'Coloniality of Migration' (Rodríguez 2018, 16).…”

“…Authors in migration studies have utilised post-colonial and decolonial theories to shine a theoretical light on asylum and integration programmes, helping to better understand the underlying logics informing their discourses (Carver 2019;Rodríguez 2018;Mayblin 2017;Bhambra 2017;Mayblin, Wake, and Kazemi 2020;Lippert 1999). Mayblin (2017) draws on work by Quijano (2000) and Mignolo (2017) in her book 'Asylum After Empire' in which she explores the current hostility towards asylum seekers through a coloniality/modernity framework.…”

New directions in migration studies: towards methodological de-nationalism

“…This connects migration with the politics of race, class and 'indigeneity' (with its very different implications in Europe and in settler colonies) (Back, Sinha, & Bryan, 2012;De Genova, 2018;Goldberg, 2006;Lentin, 2014;Mezzadra & Neilson, 2013). People have started to bring the work of post-colonial scholars into conversation with migration literature, and explore the relationship between colonialism, citizenship and mobility controls and the ways in which the coloniality of power saturates contemporary immigration policy and practice (Carver, 2019;De Sousa Santos, 2007;El-Enany, in press;Sharma, in press;Gutiérrez Rodríguez, 2018;Mamdani, 2018;Mayblin, 2017;Mongia, 2018). These efforts challenge the assumed distinction between 'migrant' and 'citizen' that undergirds some of the toxic politics in many European countries and beyond.…”

Counter-mapping citizenship: bordering through domicide in Calais, France

“…The 'coloniality of citizenship' thus refers to the fact that unequal, gendered, and racialised citizenship rights have been foundational to modernity (Boatcȃ and Roth, 2016, p. 192) and were formed in a process of colonial domination/exploitation of non-Western people (Grosfoguel, 2008, p. 8). These foundational exclusions continue to imbue contemporary theories of citizenship, and are replicated by the modern regime of migration governance in Europe (Carver, 2019;El-Enany, 2020;Mayblin, 2017;Mayblin, Wake, and Kazemi, 2020). Reading citizenship through its coloniality contextualises it within its specific modern intellectual tradition, connects the contemporary control of human mobility to its colonial history, and raises questions for the concept's utility for thinking through irregular migrants' struggles at and against Europe's borders today.…”