Disciplining the Transnational Mobility of People

M. Geiger, A. Pécoud, M. Geiger, A. Pécoud

• Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan
• Year: 2013
• ISBN:
  9781137263070
• Topic: Economics
• Subtopic: Economic Policy
• Index: Economics

This volume scrutinizes new developments in contemporary mobility and migration politics and shows that they are based on a mix of traditional coercive interventions and less repressive and indirect practices.

1

Introduction

Disciplining the Transnational Mobility of People

Antoine Pécoud

Until recently, one of the most popular catchwords in migration debates was “Fortress Europe”. Borrowed from World War II military history, the term referred to European governments’ aspiration to fully control their borders. The European continent was, in this respect, at the forefront of the “global migration crisis” (Weiner, 1995): Since the 1990s, the developed world in general has been characterized by increasing fears over the consequences of human mobility; the reaction has been the erection of “walls around the west” (Andreas and Snyder, 2000) and, more generally, a dramatic intensification and diversification of control strategies. While much has been said about the desirability and feasibility of such a political project¹, this book² attempts to shed light on the ways in which the objective of controlling migration has unfolded in a broader endeavour to discipline the cross-border movements of people. What this volume proposes to call the “disciplining of transnational human mobility” has, at first sight, little in common with the militarization of borders or the surveillance of foreigners. This is not to say that the fixation with control has disappeared, or that immigration and border policies have fundamentally changed. Rather, it is to recognize that the objective of defending receiving states from unwanted migrants is both embedded in, and complemented by, the larger goal to organize human mobility and discipline people’s movements and behaviours.

“Managed migration” (or “migration management”) is perhaps the new catchword here. It reflects the growing recognition that the risks linked to uncontrollable and destabilizing migration flows can be addressed by a deep reorganization of the patterns that govern human mobility; it also embodies the aspiration to both strictly control human mobility and organize it in a way that makes it compatible with a number of objectives pursued by both state and non-state actors. These include the recruitment of foreign workers and, more generally, the realization of the potential benefits that labour mobility entails (e.g. on the economic development of sending regions). To a lesser extent, they also include the avoidance of some of the abuses and sufferings that affect vulnerable groups of mobile people (Geiger and Pécoud, 2010, 2012; Kalm, 2010). One of the core arguments of this volume is that such a political objective implies much more than the mere control of people on the move. It implies the disciplining of human mobility and the establishment of an ideal mobility regime in which control remains fundamental. The emerging new mobility regime unfolds and transforms itself in a range of practices which seem to disconnect from control and are commonly (and misleadingly) opposed to control.

The control (or management) of migration is therefore not only about inspecting people on the move; it is also about creating the conditions for human mobility to take place without what Nikos Papastergiadis calls “turbulence” (Papastergiadis, 1999) – that is, without disturbing the “national order of things” (Malkki, 1995), without challenging state sovereignty, without hurting the socio-economic interests of dominant groups, and so on. Disciplining is about introducing a specific rationality to what may otherwise turn out to be a disruptive process. This rationality implies the transformation of a complex, multifaceted, sometimes unlawful and always challenging process into “predictable”, “sound”, “manageable”, “orderly” and rule-obeying dynamics. Relying on the key points discussed in this volume, this introduction outlines the major implications of this notion of disciplining and its relationship to the control of human mobility.³

Coercion – protection – persuasion

Disciplining human mobility relies on a range of methods, which vary from coercion to protection and persuasion. Importantly, these methods do not necessarily oppose each other, nor do they always display a perfect convergence. Different strategies, techniques and tools coexist and interplay. Thus, disciplining goes beyond a number of misleading oppositions that tend to characterize contemporary policy and academic debates.

For instance, a popular distinction in political discussions is between, on the one hand, the control of migrants and the repression of those who do not obey the rules and, on the other hand, the humanitarian protection of those who justifiably need to be supported (such as asylum seekers, refugees or “victims” of human trafficking). It appears, however, that “repression” and “help”/“support” are part of the same dynamic; indeed, not all migrants can be “helped” and the existence of those who can benefit from protection presupposes the existence of those who must be repressed. In Chapter 7, Bethany Hastie shows the dual nature of anti-trafficking policies, which combines both help and repression according to a filtering process that aims at evaluating the specific situation and needs of each migrant; yet, this objective is ultimately challenged by the ambivalence inherent to real-life situations and the impossibility to genuinely protect those deemed to be vulnerable in a context pervaded by security objectives.

Moreover, while “help” and “control” may oppose or complement each other, in other situations they may also go hand in hand and pursue the same objectives. Giada de Coulon’s ethnographic study of the treatment of rejected asylum seekers in Switzerland (Chapter 11) is illustrative in this respect. The Swiss government organizes both the expulsion of these people (as their claim for refugee status is deemed to be ungrounded) and their access to basic services (like housing, food or health care). This is both a legal commitment that state authorities must respect and a strategy that enables them to keep controlling these people even after they have been refused a legal status. The rejection of these asylum-seekers does not, therefore, prevent supporting them since such support is also a mechanism by which to maintain control. While this “regular irregularity” may at first sight look contradictory, it actually shows how the objective of disciplining the lives of people on the move can accommodate, and rely on, very different techniques and rationales.

Stephan Dünnwald further contributes to this discussion by analysing the conditions in which governments send unwanted migrants back to their country (Chapter 12). The capacity and legitimacy to do so are conditions for states to maintain their sovereignty over the entry and admission of foreigners. Such returns are, nonetheless, also a source of human rights abuses that can upset public sensitivities or be contested in front of courts, while also potentially creating diplomatic tensions with sending states. Governments therefore attempt to follow the narrow path between these diverging imperatives – a dilemma that is likely to be insurmountable, but to which “voluntary return programs” seem to provide a solution of sorts. Here too, “supporting” migrants and disciplining them to “voluntarily” return appears to be inseparable from “controlling” their mobility.

Another popular stance that pervades contemporary migration debates regards the distinction between “desirable” and “undesirable” foreigners; in this respect, states should then be “open” to the migrants they need or want, and “closed” to the undesirable ones. Nonetheless, in both cases, the issue is not so much whether to let people in or out. It is, rather, to organize their movements and have them adopt the “right” mobility (or migratory) behaviour. Thus, some migrants are permitted to settle down on a long-term basis while others should “circulate”, that is, remain within the territory of the receiving state only insofar as their presence is necessary. Others, on the other hand, should simply never gain entry and therefore be incited to view “staying at home” as their best option. This implies the disciplining of both mobility and immobility; it is not only the (potentially unlawful) border crossers who should be scrutinized but also those who have the potential to move but should not, those who have moved but shouldn’t have, those who moved and returned, and so on. Public information campaigns to prevent human trafficking and irregular migration represent an example of how not only migrants but also all those who could possibly think of crossing international borders and migrating are tentatively instructed to think and behave in a specific fashion (Nieuwenhuys and Pécoud, 2007).

Disciplining and self-disciplining

This points to another feature of disciplining efforts, namely their two-way nature: disciplining mobility is a matter of both disciplining people and “self-disciplining” – that is, achieving disciplining by people themselves. This is a general characteristic of disciplining endeavours: disciplining a child, for instance, is about more than punishing, enforcing obedience or imposing certain patterns of behaviours; it is also about teaching him/her self-control, with the purpose of no longer having to intervene at a later stage (usually when the child becomes an adult). Disciplining transnational mobility thus implies the self-adherence, by people on the move, to norms and standards that are not necessarily coercively imposed.

For example, Robyn M. Rodriguez and Helen Schwenken document how, in India and the Philippines, to-be migrants’ subjectivities are shaped even before they leave their country. Governments (at both ends of the migration process) and potential employers define the class- and gender-specific characteristics of the “ideal” subject (hard-working, remittance-sender, flexible, etc.), to which potential migrants are to bear resemblance (Rodriguez and Schwenken, 2013). The aim of disciplining efforts is thus not only to target the actual behaviour of people but also the way in which they perceive themselves – and therefore what could be referred to as their personal aspirations, values or intimacy. An illustration is provided in this book by Anne-Marie D’Aoust who investigates the far-reaching implications of the treatment of migrants who move for for the purpose of marriage (Chapter 6). Living with one’s family is understood as a human right, and also as a situation that fosters migrants’ integration; family reunification should, therefore, be allowed. Nevertheless, there is a dark side to this seemingly indisputable principle: family reunification may lead to abuses like fake marriage, which in turn support irregular migration channels while also threatening the well-being of the migrants involved. This calls for defining what “true love” should look like, to check the genuineness of intimate feelings and to prevent family reunification programs from abuse by “sham” spouses. In turn, this generates norms and assumptions that shape the way in which applicants present their situations to authorities and, ultimately, how they perceive themselves.

The self-disciplining of potential people on the move is also a strategy to address the impossibility of checking the behaviour of every single potential migrant. Given the disparity in world development and the facilitated means of travel and transport, the number of people who might consider migrating, whether now or at some point in the future, is almost unlimited (although surely the intention to emigrate and the resources to do so vary greatly). “Controlling” or “managing” migration then implies the disciplining of all these people – whether mobile and immobile – and of their future choices. It is a way of “colonizing the future” (Giddens, 1991), and of calculating or “premediating” (de Goede, 2008) the complex set of risks and uncertainties that characterize present and future consequences of human mobility.

This combination of disciplining through (remote) control and self-disciplining through certain norms and behaviours produce highly ambivalent situations that are difficult to assess in political or ethical terms. By attempting to steer and shape the agency of those who are (or may become) mobile, initiatives to discipline human mobility operate “through” people/migrants themselves, “with their help” or even “in their interest”. As Martin Geiger shows in Chapter 2, this echoes Michel Foucault’s notion of “governmentality” and points to the possible emergence of a new “governmentality of transnational mobility”. This also blurs both the boundaries between coercion and protection, and between states’ and peoples’/migrants’ interests.

The state and beyond

A distinct feature of the disciplining of mobility is its international scope. Within a nation-state, governments can rely on different institutions (schools, welfare mechanisms) to promote specific patterns of behaviour and discipline their population. This is not the case at the global level, as one state alone (or even a number of powerful developed states) cannot establish an ideal, disciplined, well-managed mobility world without the “cooperation” of a large number of other states across the world. It is in this spirit that one can understand the recent proliferation of agreements between states on migration-related topics. This points to the fact that, while states are the main actors that attempt to discipline migrants, they can also themselves be disciplined (or internationally “socialized”, see Merlingen, 2003; Schimmelpfennnig, 2000). This is particularly visible in the case of “weak” sending/transit states which, through such agreements, are greatly influenced by more powerful states and may be led to enter into patterns of cooperation with receiving regions that are biased in favour of the latter’s concerns (see, for example, Pina-Delgado, 2013).

Disciplining thus takes place not only within states but also in-between them, in a grey zone that is populated not only by governments but also by other non-state actors involved in what has been called the (global) “governance” of international migration. International organizations (IOs) play a key role here: Rutvica Andrijasevic and William Walters document how, for example, the International Organization for Migration (IOM) shapes migration policy in many sending regions in a way that fits into Western states’ interests while seemingly also serving the needs of less-developed countries (Andrijasevic and Walters, 2010; see also Ashutosh and Mountz, 2011). To a lesser extent, nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) also play a role. As Stefan Rother documents in the case of the discussions at the Global Forum on Migration and Development (GFMD), so-called civil society actors and “stakeholders” have struggled to influence the discourses, norms, world views and standards that are produced in this framework (Chapter 3). While it would be naïve to conclude that the involvement of IOs or NGOs challenge states’ sovereignty, it remains that such interstate cooperation enables a wide range of non-state actors to step into the policy-making process and contribute to the disciplining of transnational mobility.

Moreover, even powerful and developed countries may be the objects of disciplining. This is particularly the case when they cooperate with private firms in the field of security technology, which have their own strategies and interests. In Chapter 5, Harrison Smith demonstrates how the private sector contributes to consolidating the notion that new information and surveillance technologies offer greater certainty in managing borders, and in turn in managing people and things acr...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title
• 1 Introduction: Disciplining the Transnational Mobility of People
• 2 The Transformation of Migration Politics: From Migration Control to Disciplining Mobility
• 3 A Tale of Two Tactics: Civil Society and Competing Visions of Global Migration Governance from Below
• 4 From Individual to Migration Flow: The European Union’s Management Approach and the Rule of Law
• 5 Overflowing Borders: Smart Surveillance and the Border as a Market Device
• 6 ‘Take a Chance on Me’: Premediation, Technologies of Love and Marriage Migration Management
• 7 To Protect and Control: Anti-Trafficking and the Duality of Disciplining Mobility
• 8 ‘Why Do They Take the Money and Not Give Visas?’: The Governmentality of Consulate Offices in Cameroon
• 9 Disciplining Female Migration in Argentina: Human Rights in the Time of Migration Management
• 10 Of Berries and Seasonal Work: The Swedish Berry Industry and the Disciplining of Labour Migration from Thailand
• 11 ‘They Don’t Beat You; They Work on Your Brain’: ‘Regular Illegality’ and the Disciplining of Rejected Asylum Seekers
• 12 Voluntary Return: The Practical Failure of a Benevolent Concept
• Index