Unauthorised migration beyond structure/agency? Acts, interventions, effects

Abstract

What are the most appropriate conceptual tools by which to develop an analysis of ‘unauthorised migration’? Is ‘migrant agency’ an effective critical concept in the context of a so-called European migration ‘crisis’? This article reflects on these questions through a detailed exploration of the ‘structure/agency debate’. It suggests the need for caution in engaging such a conceptual frame in analysing the politics of unauthorised migration. Despite the sophistication of many relational accounts of structure-agency, the grounding of this framework in questions of intentionality risks reproducing assumptions about subjects whose decision to migrate is more or less free from constraint. The article argues that such assumptions are analytically problematic because they involve a simplification of processes of subjectivity formation. Moreover, it also argues that they are normatively and politically problematic in the context of debates around unauthorised migration because discussions of structure/agency can easily slip into the legitimisation of wider assumptions about the culpability and/or victimhood of people on the move. Drawing on Michel Foucault’s theorisation of subjectification, the article proposes an alternative analytics of acts, interventions, and effects by which to address the politics of unauthorised migration in the midst of a so-called ‘migration crisis’.

The Migration Archipelago: Social Navigation and Migrant Agency

“…Indeed this kind of deliberate not seeing the illegal nature of their actions suggests that migrants engage in a form of resilience too, at least rhetorically. By arguing that their project is legitimate even if not legal they propose new scripts and new onto‐political ways of being (Squire, : 267).…”

“…Our analysis of how the migrant intention turns into action highlights the capacity of the migrant not only to act but also to create new scripts that seek to overturn the dominant meaning of unauthorized migration. Circumventing or reworking the relevant policies, these migrants challenge the dominant migrant agency script between victims or villains (Anderson, ; Squire, : 268), and open up new possibilities. Migrants develop different types of agency to navigate the restrictive migration field: recuperation (through seeking information and gathering money to buy the services of an intermediary–travel agent or smuggler), or resilience (actively seeking to change their situation by contacting friends and family abroad, or applying for a tourist visa to search for new employment opportunities at destination, seeking thus to open up new possibilities for themselves and their families), and more rarely through resistance (seeking to change the conditions under which one finds oneself).…”

“…The latter have been discussed using various terms like aspirations, desires, abilities and capabilities (see Carling and Schewel, for a review). Efforts to conceptualize and operationalize the notion of migrant agency in irregular migration processes include the recent insightful work of Mainwaring () and Squire (), also Strange et al. ().…”

“…This study joins a growing body of scholarly research that discusses the power of resistance of migrants and their capacity to enact change (Mezzadra, 2013). We build on Vicki Squire's suggestion (2017) that we need to opt for alternative approaches beyond the structure‐agency dilemma that privilege the importance of acts examining more closely whether acts of unauthorized migration change the very constraining context within which they take place, and generate “new scripts” (Squire, : 267).…”

Neki izazovi terenskog proučavanja neautorizovanih migracija u etnologiji i antropologiji

“…Dakle, u pitanju su tzv. neautorizovane migracije (Squire 2017), blisko povezane sa azilnim sistemom. Izraz neautorizovane migracije, koji je većinom SLOVENIKA III 2017 prisutan kod severnoameričkih autora, naglašava da su u pitanju migracije koje se odvijaju bez odgovarajućih (administrativnih) dozvola, odnosno, one migracije u kojima učestvuju ljudi koji ne poseduju validne dozvole za ulazak na neku teritoriju ili za boravak na njoj.…”