Maurice Stierl | Universität Osnabrück (original) (raw)
Papers by Maurice Stierl
International Political Sociology , 2021
This article investigates how the security-humanitarian rationale that underpins migration govern... more This article investigates how the security-humanitarian rationale that underpins migration governmentality has been restructured by and inflected in light of hygienic-sanitary borders which enforce racialised confinement in the name of both migrants' and citizens' safety from infection by Covid-19. Focusing on the politics of migration containment along EUrope's frontiers, examining in particular border reinforcements carried out by Italy, Malta and Greece, we interrogate how the pandemic has been exploited to enact deterrence through hygienic-sanitary border enforcements. These enforcements are underpinned by an ambivalent securityhumanitarian narrative that crafts migrants as subjects who cannot be protected by EU member states from the pandemic if allowed inside, and, at once, as potential vehicles of contagion-'Corona spreaders'-and thus as dangers on a bacterial-hygienic level. Our article demonstrates that these EUropean border measures are more than temporary responses to an unprecedented health crisis. Rather, the pandemic has been seized as an opportunity to strengthen existing deterrence measures and hamper migrants' access to asylum through biopolitical and spatial tactics that aim to restructure the border regime. While emphasising the historical trajectories and continuities underwriting these current developments, we contend that the pandemic functions as an accelerator of dynamics of migrant incarceration and containment.
Environment and Planning C: Politics and Space, 2021
This set of collaboratively written keywords uses the critical standpoint of migration to engage ... more This set of collaboratively written keywords uses the critical standpoint of migration to engage with a range of categories and concepts that are "minor" in the sense that they are widely used in both public discourse and political theory, but which remain often under-theorized outside of critical border and migration studies. As the contributions to this collection show, engaging with these allegedly "minor keywords" allows to expose and trouble established convictions and notions of "major" political concepts and categories from the viewpoint of migration. The present collection of "minor keywords" is a collaborative writing project insofar as each entry has been written by two or more co-authors. A special thanks goes to Nicholas De Genova and Martina Tazzioli who initiated the project and edited the keywords. The 11 keywords included in this collection are: Membership; Struggle; Solidarity; Mobility/Mouvement; The Mob; Refuge; Protection; Alien/Foreigner; Detention/Confinement/Containment; Deportation; Eviction
Praktyka Teoretyczna, 2016
Nowy Słownik „kryzysu” „Europy” i w „Europie” jest efektem warsztatu zorganizowanego przez Nichol... more Nowy Słownik „kryzysu” „Europy” i w „Europie” jest efektem warsztatu zorganizowanego przez Nicholasa De Genovę oraz Martinę Tazzioli w King’s College London, 25-26 czerwca 2015 roku. Ambicją i założonym celem Słownika jest skuteczne „przechwycenie” dominującego dyskursu otaczającego i nadzorującego to, w jaki sposób mówimy i myślimy o wzajemnych spotkaniach „Europy” i „kryzysu”. W tym kontekście tak zwany „kryzys migracyjny” w rzeczywistości oferuje kluczowe perspektywy umożliwiające uchwytywanie szerszej dynamiki „kryzysu” „Europy” i „w Europie” oraz europejskiego podejścia do granic.
Translated from the English into the Polish by Krystian Szadkowski and Mateusz Karolak
Environment and Planning C: Politics and Space, 2020
The mass migrations of 2015 were not merely a watershed moment for ‘EUrope’ but also for the scho... more The mass migrations of 2015 were not merely a watershed moment for ‘EUrope’ but also for the scholarly study of migration to EUrope. With academic expertise and insights becoming much sought-after in the media and political discourse, migration scholarship has gained in unknown popularity over recent years. This current ‘migration knowledge hype’ has particularly benefited scholarship that claims to be of relevance for EUropean policymakers in finding responses to ‘migratory pressures’. This article critically interrogates the increasing intimacy between the worlds of migration scholarship and migration policy and seeks to unpack how the quest for policy-relevance has shaped the process of research itself. The impact of policy on migration research can be discerned when policy categories, assumptions, and needs constitute the bases and (conceptual) frames of research that seeks to be legible to policymakers. However, with EUropean migration policies causing devastation and undeniably harmful effects on migrant lives, what is the responsibility of researchers for the knowledge they produce and disseminate? Should the ‘do no harm’ principle prevalent in the migration discipline be expanded to also include the potentially harmful consequences resulting from research made relevant to migration policymakers? This article makes the case for an engaged scholarship that does not shy away from intervening in the contested field of migration with the intention not to fix but to amplify the epistemic and other crises of the EUropean border regime.
Open Democracy, 2020
Policy-relevant migration scholarship has boomed since the ‘migration crisis’ five years ago, sim... more Policy-relevant migration scholarship has boomed since the ‘migration crisis’ five years ago, similar to the scholarly field of terrorism research following 9/11. Even if the aphorism ‘a rising tide lifts all boats’ may contain some truth, the figuratively used notion of 2015’s ‘migration wave’ has disproportionally lifted a form of scholarship that purports to generate ‘actionable’ knowledge on migration for ‘evidenced-based’ policymaking. Once a rather modest academic sub-field, suddenly, migration scholarship has burgeoned in unknown popularity and whole new migration institutes, teaching and funding programmes, journals, and academic networks have surfaced.
Border Criminologies, 2020
In order to contest such dehistoricised production of the migrant slave and its political efficac... more In order to contest such dehistoricised production of the migrant slave and its political efficacy in efforts to shut down migration corridors, one can cautiously draw other, actual, comparisons between historic slavery and contemporary forms of migration. There does exist a historical resonance between the former and the latter – but only if one challenges traditional depictions of the slave.
The Conversation , 2020
Deaths in the Mediterranean are the result of racist ways in which the rich countries of the nort... more Deaths in the Mediterranean are the result of racist ways in which the rich countries of the north govern and police human movement, particularly those emerging from countries with ongoing conflict or severe poverty. The philosopher Étienne Balibar once referred to these structural conditions of segregation as producing “global apartheid”.
It’s estimated that more than 19,000 lives have been lost in the Mediterranean since 2014. Relatives of the dead and disappeared, as well as activist supporters, are desperately trying to raise awareness about this mass dying. They struggle, however, to be heard.
It is particularly revealing that, even in a moment of global attention on issues of racial inequality, certain lives – those who fall between global frontiers – are erased from public consciousness. Such erasure is the result of a deep-seated Western-centric imagination of what lives count or are deemed worthy to grieve over when lost.
The Conversation, 2020
In the middle of the COVID-19 pandemic, some European countries have begun to implement a new str... more In the middle of the COVID-19 pandemic, some European countries have begun to implement a new strategy to reject migrants travelling on precarious boats: declaring themselves unsafe.
South Atlantic Quarterly , 2019
This article takes the encounters between migrant travelers at sea and Alarm Phone activists on l... more This article takes the encounters between migrant travelers at sea and Alarm Phone activists on land as a starting point to inquire into recent transformations in maritime migrant mobilities and EUropean and North African attempts to govern them, with a focus on the western Mediterranean Sea. As a transborder network that is involved in everyday struggles over movement in all three Mediterranean regions, tracing the Alarm Phone’s interventions can provide insights into the complex interplay between enactments of the freedom of movement and the ways in which EUrope seeks to preempt and deter them. We suggest that the Alarm Phone’s radical practice of “flight help” is situated right at the nexus of movement conceived in a kinetic and a political sense (Mitropoulos and Neilson 2006).
International Political Sociology, 2020
In its own narrative, EUrope conceives of itself as a postnational and transborder project, often... more In its own narrative, EUrope conceives of itself as a postnational and transborder project, often through tropes of movement and the transgression of borders. In light of this imaginary, recent mass migrations provoked a serious conundrum. How would the EUropean polity reconcile the dominant idea of itself with its desire to erect barriers to cross-border movements from the “Global South”? This article inquires into tensions between, first, Hungary and, second, Italy vis-à-vis the European Commission and other EU member states over the control and regulation of unauthorized migrations in 2015 and 2018. Both examples allude to divergent and conflictual ways of governing migration, often associated with different levels of governance, particularly the supranational and the national, and different values, particularly those of tolerance and intolerance vis-à-vis the “migrant other.” While the illusion of “EUropean” and “un-EUropean” ways of governing migration is meant to be kept intact, not least through a recoding of antimigrant violence, a closer look reveals the deep entanglement of forms of migration governance that has given rise to a thoroughly EUropean border regime. This article points to the need to develop a new conceptual vocabulary in order to capture the EUropeanness of the border.
Open Democracy, 2020
The freedom of movement, of course, also means having the freedom not to move. And, at times, eve... more The freedom of movement, of course, also means having the freedom not to move. And, at times, even having the freedom to self-confine. For many, often the most vulnerable and disenfranchised, this elementary freedom is not given. This means that even during a pandemic, we need to stand in solidarity with those who take this freedom to move, who can no longer remain in inhumane camps within Europe or at its external borders and who try to escape to find safety. Safety from war and persecution, safety from poverty and hunger, safety from the virus. In this period in which borders multiply, the struggle around the elementary freedom of movement will continue to be both a crucial stake and a tool in the fight against global injustice, even, or particularly, during a global health crisis.
American Behavioral Scientist , 2019
This article explores the figure of the "migrant slave" that appears to conjoin antithetical noti... more This article explores the figure of the "migrant slave" that appears to conjoin antithetical notions-migration, often associated with intentionality and movement, and slavery, commonly associated with coercion and confinement. The figure of the migrant as slave has been frequently mobilized by "antitrafficking crusaders" in debates over unauthorized forms of trans-Mediterranean crossings to EUrope. Besides scrutinizing the depoliticized and dehistoricized ways in which contemporary migrant journeys have come to be associated with imaginaries of the transAtlantic slave trade, this article draws other, actual, comparisons between historic slavery and contemporary forms of migration. It argues that there does exist a historical resonance between the former and the latter. By remembering slave rebellions on land and at sea, the article makes the case that if one had to draw comparisons between historic slaves and contemporary migrants, beyond often crude visual associations, one would need to do so by enquiring into moments in which both enacted escape to a place of perceived freedom. It is shown that the fugitive slave escaping on the "underground railroad" resembles most closely the acts of escape via the Mediterranean and its "underground seaways" today.
American Quarterly
Stories of women struggling across sea borders are rarely heard. When we do hear them, women are ... more Stories of women struggling across sea borders are rarely heard. When we do hear them, women are oten simply portrayed as subordinate, exploited, and passive victims who depend on male companions, and who lack individual migration projects and political agency. The erasure of their agency and voices is also the effect of hegemonic narratives on migration to Europe, in which “the migrant” is routinely imagined as young, able-bodied, and male: more an abstract figure than a human being, and commonly constructed as a dangerous subject against whom border enforcement and deterrence policies are legitimized. Knowing well that the personal is political, and the political is personal, we wanted to hear women’s voices and stories, and be inspired by their disobedient movements, their strength, their resilience, and their resistance.This Alarm Phone report was published shortly after International Women’s Day in 2018, a day when women led demonstrations all over the world.
The Conversation , 2019
The story of the 19th-century underground railroad, a network of secret routes and safe houses he... more The story of the 19th-century underground railroad, a network of secret routes and safe houses helping enslaved African-Americans to escape, has received renewed interest over recent months. The railroad was run by activists who referred to themselves as agents, conductors and station masters, and to fugitives as passengers. In May 2019, the Trump administration stirred controversy by delaying the release of the $20 bill featuring Harriet Tubman, a slave turned underground railroad activist and abolitionist. In November, the film Harriet was released, depicting the heroic struggle of the railroad’s most famous “conductor”. But the underground railroad has also gained renewed attention in the context of precarious migration towards Europe and North America. Growing mass displacement caused by conflict, persecution, poverty or environmental destruction has coincided with tightening visa regimes and enhanced border controls. In response, forms of support and sanctuary for those on the move have spread.
American Behavioral Scientist , 2019
This article explores the figure of the 'migrant slave' that appears to conjoin antithetical noti... more This article explores the figure of the 'migrant slave' that appears to conjoin antithetical notions-migration, often associated with intentionality and movement, and slavery, commonly associated with coercion and confinement. The figure of the migrant as slave has been frequently mobilised by 'anti-trafficking crusaders' in debates over unauthorised forms of trans-Mediterranean crossings to EUrope. Besides scrutinising the depoliticised and dehistoricised ways in which contemporary migrant journeys have come to be associated with imaginaries of the transAtlantic slave trade, this article draws other, actual, comparisons between historic slavery and contemporary forms of migration. It argues that there does exist a historical resonance between the former and the latter. By remembering slave rebellions on land and at sea, the article makes the case that if one had to draw comparisons between historic slaves and contemporary migrants, beyond often crude visual associations, one would need to do so by enquiring into moments in which both enacted escape to a place of perceived freedom. It is shown that the fugitive slave escaping on the 'underground railroad' resembles most closely the acts of escape via the Mediterranean and its 'underground seaways' today.
Discover Society, 2019
At sea, many migrant voices are never heard. When a person drowns, liquid enters their airways an... more At sea, many migrant voices are never heard. When a person drowns, liquid enters their airways and prevents them from breathing. Submerged in water, one’s breath can be held voluntarily for some time, but without the ability to take in oxygen and to eliminate carbon dioxide, uncontrolled muscular contractions of the vocal folds ensue. One then experiences circulatory arrest, multiple organ dysfunction, and in the absence of rapid intervention and resuscitation, death. Europe has drowned out thousands of migrant voices in this way.
South Atlantic Quarterly , 2019
This article takes the encounters between migrant travelers at sea and Alarm Phone activists on l... more This article takes the encounters between migrant travelers at sea and Alarm Phone activists on land as a starting point to inquire into recent transformations in maritime migrant mobilities and EUropean and North African attempts to govern them, with a focus on the western Mediterranean Sea. As a transborder network that is involved in everyday struggles over movement in all three Mediterranean regions, tracing the Alarm Phone’s interventions can provide insights into the complex interplay between enactments of the freedom of movement and the ways in which EUrope seeks to preempt and deter them. We suggest that the Alarm Phone’s radical practice of “flight help” is situated right at the nexus of movement conceived in a kinetic and a political sense (Mitropoulos and Neilson 2006).
The Guardian, 2019
More than 30 migrants from Bangladesh who were trapped on a merchant ship off Tunisia for three w... more More than 30 migrants from Bangladesh who were trapped on a merchant ship off Tunisia for three weeks have been sent back to their home country against their will, according to relatives. They were among 75 migrants rescued on 31 May by the Maridive 601, an Egyptian tugboat that services offshore oil platforms, only to spend the next 20 days at sea near the Tunisian coast.
The Conversation, 2019
In the same week that more migrant lives were lost at sea, the EU's migration policy in the Medit... more In the same week that more migrant lives were lost at sea, the EU's migration policy in the Mediterranean has been brought to the attention of the International Criminal Court (ICC). It emerged on June 3 that the ICC had received a legal submission calling for the EU and some of its member states to face prosecution for enacting migration policies "intended to sacrifice the lives of migrants in distress at sea". The sharply worded submission was brought by international lawyers who have asked the ICC to open an investigation into EU migration policies and whether a prosecution could be mounted under international law. The lawyers assessed European migration policies in the Mediterranean over recent years, paying particular attention to the end of Italy's military-humanitarian rescue operation Mare Nostrum in 2014 and the subsequent shift to policies focused on deterrence.
Communications , 2019
Si l’unique alternative au régime de fermeture des frontières actuel semble être un régime fondé ... more Si l’unique alternative au régime de fermeture des frontières actuel semble être un régime fondé sur la liberté de se mouvoir des migrants, cet horizon politique rencontre de nombreuses difficultés. Pour tenter de répondre à celles-ci, nous partons des multiples frontières étatiques et sociales dont les migrants font l’expérience à travers leurs trajectoires et indiquons autant de dimensions de luttes nécessaires à une politique de la liberté de mouvement.
International Political Sociology , 2021
This article investigates how the security-humanitarian rationale that underpins migration govern... more This article investigates how the security-humanitarian rationale that underpins migration governmentality has been restructured by and inflected in light of hygienic-sanitary borders which enforce racialised confinement in the name of both migrants' and citizens' safety from infection by Covid-19. Focusing on the politics of migration containment along EUrope's frontiers, examining in particular border reinforcements carried out by Italy, Malta and Greece, we interrogate how the pandemic has been exploited to enact deterrence through hygienic-sanitary border enforcements. These enforcements are underpinned by an ambivalent securityhumanitarian narrative that crafts migrants as subjects who cannot be protected by EU member states from the pandemic if allowed inside, and, at once, as potential vehicles of contagion-'Corona spreaders'-and thus as dangers on a bacterial-hygienic level. Our article demonstrates that these EUropean border measures are more than temporary responses to an unprecedented health crisis. Rather, the pandemic has been seized as an opportunity to strengthen existing deterrence measures and hamper migrants' access to asylum through biopolitical and spatial tactics that aim to restructure the border regime. While emphasising the historical trajectories and continuities underwriting these current developments, we contend that the pandemic functions as an accelerator of dynamics of migrant incarceration and containment.
Environment and Planning C: Politics and Space, 2021
This set of collaboratively written keywords uses the critical standpoint of migration to engage ... more This set of collaboratively written keywords uses the critical standpoint of migration to engage with a range of categories and concepts that are "minor" in the sense that they are widely used in both public discourse and political theory, but which remain often under-theorized outside of critical border and migration studies. As the contributions to this collection show, engaging with these allegedly "minor keywords" allows to expose and trouble established convictions and notions of "major" political concepts and categories from the viewpoint of migration. The present collection of "minor keywords" is a collaborative writing project insofar as each entry has been written by two or more co-authors. A special thanks goes to Nicholas De Genova and Martina Tazzioli who initiated the project and edited the keywords. The 11 keywords included in this collection are: Membership; Struggle; Solidarity; Mobility/Mouvement; The Mob; Refuge; Protection; Alien/Foreigner; Detention/Confinement/Containment; Deportation; Eviction
Praktyka Teoretyczna, 2016
Nowy Słownik „kryzysu” „Europy” i w „Europie” jest efektem warsztatu zorganizowanego przez Nichol... more Nowy Słownik „kryzysu” „Europy” i w „Europie” jest efektem warsztatu zorganizowanego przez Nicholasa De Genovę oraz Martinę Tazzioli w King’s College London, 25-26 czerwca 2015 roku. Ambicją i założonym celem Słownika jest skuteczne „przechwycenie” dominującego dyskursu otaczającego i nadzorującego to, w jaki sposób mówimy i myślimy o wzajemnych spotkaniach „Europy” i „kryzysu”. W tym kontekście tak zwany „kryzys migracyjny” w rzeczywistości oferuje kluczowe perspektywy umożliwiające uchwytywanie szerszej dynamiki „kryzysu” „Europy” i „w Europie” oraz europejskiego podejścia do granic.
Translated from the English into the Polish by Krystian Szadkowski and Mateusz Karolak
Environment and Planning C: Politics and Space, 2020
The mass migrations of 2015 were not merely a watershed moment for ‘EUrope’ but also for the scho... more The mass migrations of 2015 were not merely a watershed moment for ‘EUrope’ but also for the scholarly study of migration to EUrope. With academic expertise and insights becoming much sought-after in the media and political discourse, migration scholarship has gained in unknown popularity over recent years. This current ‘migration knowledge hype’ has particularly benefited scholarship that claims to be of relevance for EUropean policymakers in finding responses to ‘migratory pressures’. This article critically interrogates the increasing intimacy between the worlds of migration scholarship and migration policy and seeks to unpack how the quest for policy-relevance has shaped the process of research itself. The impact of policy on migration research can be discerned when policy categories, assumptions, and needs constitute the bases and (conceptual) frames of research that seeks to be legible to policymakers. However, with EUropean migration policies causing devastation and undeniably harmful effects on migrant lives, what is the responsibility of researchers for the knowledge they produce and disseminate? Should the ‘do no harm’ principle prevalent in the migration discipline be expanded to also include the potentially harmful consequences resulting from research made relevant to migration policymakers? This article makes the case for an engaged scholarship that does not shy away from intervening in the contested field of migration with the intention not to fix but to amplify the epistemic and other crises of the EUropean border regime.
Open Democracy, 2020
Policy-relevant migration scholarship has boomed since the ‘migration crisis’ five years ago, sim... more Policy-relevant migration scholarship has boomed since the ‘migration crisis’ five years ago, similar to the scholarly field of terrorism research following 9/11. Even if the aphorism ‘a rising tide lifts all boats’ may contain some truth, the figuratively used notion of 2015’s ‘migration wave’ has disproportionally lifted a form of scholarship that purports to generate ‘actionable’ knowledge on migration for ‘evidenced-based’ policymaking. Once a rather modest academic sub-field, suddenly, migration scholarship has burgeoned in unknown popularity and whole new migration institutes, teaching and funding programmes, journals, and academic networks have surfaced.
Border Criminologies, 2020
In order to contest such dehistoricised production of the migrant slave and its political efficac... more In order to contest such dehistoricised production of the migrant slave and its political efficacy in efforts to shut down migration corridors, one can cautiously draw other, actual, comparisons between historic slavery and contemporary forms of migration. There does exist a historical resonance between the former and the latter – but only if one challenges traditional depictions of the slave.
The Conversation , 2020
Deaths in the Mediterranean are the result of racist ways in which the rich countries of the nort... more Deaths in the Mediterranean are the result of racist ways in which the rich countries of the north govern and police human movement, particularly those emerging from countries with ongoing conflict or severe poverty. The philosopher Étienne Balibar once referred to these structural conditions of segregation as producing “global apartheid”.
It’s estimated that more than 19,000 lives have been lost in the Mediterranean since 2014. Relatives of the dead and disappeared, as well as activist supporters, are desperately trying to raise awareness about this mass dying. They struggle, however, to be heard.
It is particularly revealing that, even in a moment of global attention on issues of racial inequality, certain lives – those who fall between global frontiers – are erased from public consciousness. Such erasure is the result of a deep-seated Western-centric imagination of what lives count or are deemed worthy to grieve over when lost.
The Conversation, 2020
In the middle of the COVID-19 pandemic, some European countries have begun to implement a new str... more In the middle of the COVID-19 pandemic, some European countries have begun to implement a new strategy to reject migrants travelling on precarious boats: declaring themselves unsafe.
South Atlantic Quarterly , 2019
This article takes the encounters between migrant travelers at sea and Alarm Phone activists on l... more This article takes the encounters between migrant travelers at sea and Alarm Phone activists on land as a starting point to inquire into recent transformations in maritime migrant mobilities and EUropean and North African attempts to govern them, with a focus on the western Mediterranean Sea. As a transborder network that is involved in everyday struggles over movement in all three Mediterranean regions, tracing the Alarm Phone’s interventions can provide insights into the complex interplay between enactments of the freedom of movement and the ways in which EUrope seeks to preempt and deter them. We suggest that the Alarm Phone’s radical practice of “flight help” is situated right at the nexus of movement conceived in a kinetic and a political sense (Mitropoulos and Neilson 2006).
International Political Sociology, 2020
In its own narrative, EUrope conceives of itself as a postnational and transborder project, often... more In its own narrative, EUrope conceives of itself as a postnational and transborder project, often through tropes of movement and the transgression of borders. In light of this imaginary, recent mass migrations provoked a serious conundrum. How would the EUropean polity reconcile the dominant idea of itself with its desire to erect barriers to cross-border movements from the “Global South”? This article inquires into tensions between, first, Hungary and, second, Italy vis-à-vis the European Commission and other EU member states over the control and regulation of unauthorized migrations in 2015 and 2018. Both examples allude to divergent and conflictual ways of governing migration, often associated with different levels of governance, particularly the supranational and the national, and different values, particularly those of tolerance and intolerance vis-à-vis the “migrant other.” While the illusion of “EUropean” and “un-EUropean” ways of governing migration is meant to be kept intact, not least through a recoding of antimigrant violence, a closer look reveals the deep entanglement of forms of migration governance that has given rise to a thoroughly EUropean border regime. This article points to the need to develop a new conceptual vocabulary in order to capture the EUropeanness of the border.
Open Democracy, 2020
The freedom of movement, of course, also means having the freedom not to move. And, at times, eve... more The freedom of movement, of course, also means having the freedom not to move. And, at times, even having the freedom to self-confine. For many, often the most vulnerable and disenfranchised, this elementary freedom is not given. This means that even during a pandemic, we need to stand in solidarity with those who take this freedom to move, who can no longer remain in inhumane camps within Europe or at its external borders and who try to escape to find safety. Safety from war and persecution, safety from poverty and hunger, safety from the virus. In this period in which borders multiply, the struggle around the elementary freedom of movement will continue to be both a crucial stake and a tool in the fight against global injustice, even, or particularly, during a global health crisis.
American Behavioral Scientist , 2019
This article explores the figure of the "migrant slave" that appears to conjoin antithetical noti... more This article explores the figure of the "migrant slave" that appears to conjoin antithetical notions-migration, often associated with intentionality and movement, and slavery, commonly associated with coercion and confinement. The figure of the migrant as slave has been frequently mobilized by "antitrafficking crusaders" in debates over unauthorized forms of trans-Mediterranean crossings to EUrope. Besides scrutinizing the depoliticized and dehistoricized ways in which contemporary migrant journeys have come to be associated with imaginaries of the transAtlantic slave trade, this article draws other, actual, comparisons between historic slavery and contemporary forms of migration. It argues that there does exist a historical resonance between the former and the latter. By remembering slave rebellions on land and at sea, the article makes the case that if one had to draw comparisons between historic slaves and contemporary migrants, beyond often crude visual associations, one would need to do so by enquiring into moments in which both enacted escape to a place of perceived freedom. It is shown that the fugitive slave escaping on the "underground railroad" resembles most closely the acts of escape via the Mediterranean and its "underground seaways" today.
American Quarterly
Stories of women struggling across sea borders are rarely heard. When we do hear them, women are ... more Stories of women struggling across sea borders are rarely heard. When we do hear them, women are oten simply portrayed as subordinate, exploited, and passive victims who depend on male companions, and who lack individual migration projects and political agency. The erasure of their agency and voices is also the effect of hegemonic narratives on migration to Europe, in which “the migrant” is routinely imagined as young, able-bodied, and male: more an abstract figure than a human being, and commonly constructed as a dangerous subject against whom border enforcement and deterrence policies are legitimized. Knowing well that the personal is political, and the political is personal, we wanted to hear women’s voices and stories, and be inspired by their disobedient movements, their strength, their resilience, and their resistance.This Alarm Phone report was published shortly after International Women’s Day in 2018, a day when women led demonstrations all over the world.
The Conversation , 2019
The story of the 19th-century underground railroad, a network of secret routes and safe houses he... more The story of the 19th-century underground railroad, a network of secret routes and safe houses helping enslaved African-Americans to escape, has received renewed interest over recent months. The railroad was run by activists who referred to themselves as agents, conductors and station masters, and to fugitives as passengers. In May 2019, the Trump administration stirred controversy by delaying the release of the $20 bill featuring Harriet Tubman, a slave turned underground railroad activist and abolitionist. In November, the film Harriet was released, depicting the heroic struggle of the railroad’s most famous “conductor”. But the underground railroad has also gained renewed attention in the context of precarious migration towards Europe and North America. Growing mass displacement caused by conflict, persecution, poverty or environmental destruction has coincided with tightening visa regimes and enhanced border controls. In response, forms of support and sanctuary for those on the move have spread.
American Behavioral Scientist , 2019
This article explores the figure of the 'migrant slave' that appears to conjoin antithetical noti... more This article explores the figure of the 'migrant slave' that appears to conjoin antithetical notions-migration, often associated with intentionality and movement, and slavery, commonly associated with coercion and confinement. The figure of the migrant as slave has been frequently mobilised by 'anti-trafficking crusaders' in debates over unauthorised forms of trans-Mediterranean crossings to EUrope. Besides scrutinising the depoliticised and dehistoricised ways in which contemporary migrant journeys have come to be associated with imaginaries of the transAtlantic slave trade, this article draws other, actual, comparisons between historic slavery and contemporary forms of migration. It argues that there does exist a historical resonance between the former and the latter. By remembering slave rebellions on land and at sea, the article makes the case that if one had to draw comparisons between historic slaves and contemporary migrants, beyond often crude visual associations, one would need to do so by enquiring into moments in which both enacted escape to a place of perceived freedom. It is shown that the fugitive slave escaping on the 'underground railroad' resembles most closely the acts of escape via the Mediterranean and its 'underground seaways' today.
Discover Society, 2019
At sea, many migrant voices are never heard. When a person drowns, liquid enters their airways an... more At sea, many migrant voices are never heard. When a person drowns, liquid enters their airways and prevents them from breathing. Submerged in water, one’s breath can be held voluntarily for some time, but without the ability to take in oxygen and to eliminate carbon dioxide, uncontrolled muscular contractions of the vocal folds ensue. One then experiences circulatory arrest, multiple organ dysfunction, and in the absence of rapid intervention and resuscitation, death. Europe has drowned out thousands of migrant voices in this way.
South Atlantic Quarterly , 2019
This article takes the encounters between migrant travelers at sea and Alarm Phone activists on l... more This article takes the encounters between migrant travelers at sea and Alarm Phone activists on land as a starting point to inquire into recent transformations in maritime migrant mobilities and EUropean and North African attempts to govern them, with a focus on the western Mediterranean Sea. As a transborder network that is involved in everyday struggles over movement in all three Mediterranean regions, tracing the Alarm Phone’s interventions can provide insights into the complex interplay between enactments of the freedom of movement and the ways in which EUrope seeks to preempt and deter them. We suggest that the Alarm Phone’s radical practice of “flight help” is situated right at the nexus of movement conceived in a kinetic and a political sense (Mitropoulos and Neilson 2006).
The Guardian, 2019
More than 30 migrants from Bangladesh who were trapped on a merchant ship off Tunisia for three w... more More than 30 migrants from Bangladesh who were trapped on a merchant ship off Tunisia for three weeks have been sent back to their home country against their will, according to relatives. They were among 75 migrants rescued on 31 May by the Maridive 601, an Egyptian tugboat that services offshore oil platforms, only to spend the next 20 days at sea near the Tunisian coast.
The Conversation, 2019
In the same week that more migrant lives were lost at sea, the EU's migration policy in the Medit... more In the same week that more migrant lives were lost at sea, the EU's migration policy in the Mediterranean has been brought to the attention of the International Criminal Court (ICC). It emerged on June 3 that the ICC had received a legal submission calling for the EU and some of its member states to face prosecution for enacting migration policies "intended to sacrifice the lives of migrants in distress at sea". The sharply worded submission was brought by international lawyers who have asked the ICC to open an investigation into EU migration policies and whether a prosecution could be mounted under international law. The lawyers assessed European migration policies in the Mediterranean over recent years, paying particular attention to the end of Italy's military-humanitarian rescue operation Mare Nostrum in 2014 and the subsequent shift to policies focused on deterrence.
Communications , 2019
Si l’unique alternative au régime de fermeture des frontières actuel semble être un régime fondé ... more Si l’unique alternative au régime de fermeture des frontières actuel semble être un régime fondé sur la liberté de se mouvoir des migrants, cet horizon politique rencontre de nombreuses difficultés. Pour tenter de répondre à celles-ci, nous partons des multiples frontières étatiques et sociales dont les migrants font l’expérience à travers leurs trajectoires et indiquons autant de dimensions de luttes nécessaires à une politique de la liberté de mouvement.
Toward a Politics of Freedom of Movement, 2019
In Reece Jones (ed.), Open Borders: In Defense of Free Movement (Athens, GA: University of Georgi... more In Reece Jones (ed.), Open Borders: In Defense of Free Movement (Athens, GA: University of Georgia Press, 2019).
We first ground our exploration of the politics of freedom of movement in the conflictual reality of the Mediterranean border regime. We then discuss different approaches to freedom of movement--those of open versus no borders--as a way to specify our own approach, which emphasizes the perspective of migrants and articulates practices in the present with a future-oriented political horizon. Finally, we outline a series of antinomies--apparently unresolvable contradictions between terms--we believe a politics of freedom of movement must address to sharpen both its long-term horizon and daily practices.
Migrant Resistance in Contemporary Europe, 2019
Over the past few years, increased ‘unauthorised’ migrations into the territories of Europe have ... more Over the past few years, increased ‘unauthorised’ migrations into the territories of Europe have resulted in one of the most severe crises in the history of the European Union. Stierl explores migration and border struggles in contemporary Europe and the ways in which they animate, problematise, and transform the region and its political formation.
This volume follows public protests of migrant activists, less visible attempts of those on the move to ‘irregularly’ subvert borders, as well as new solidarities and communities that emerge in interwoven struggles for the freedom of movement. Stierl offers a conceptualisation of migrant resistances as forces of animation through which European forms of border governance can be productively explored. As catalysts that set socio-political processes into frictional motion, they are developed as modes of critical investigation, indeed, as method. By ethnographically following and being implicated in different migration struggles that contest the ways in which Europe decides over and enacts who does, and does not, belong, the author probes what they reveal about the condition of Europe in the contemporary moment.
In: Reece Jones (ed), Open Borders: In Defense of Free Movement (Athens, GA: University of Georgia Press), 2019
Chapter Outline: We first ground our exploration of the politics of freedom of movement in the co... more Chapter Outline: We first ground our exploration of the politics of freedom of movement in the conflictual reality of the Mediterranean border regime. We then discuss different approaches to freedom of movement--those of open versus no borders--as a way to specify our own approach, which emphasizes the perspective of migrants and articulates practices in the present with a future-oriented political horizon. Finally, we outline a series of antinomies--apparently unresolvable contradictions between terms--we believe a politics of freedom of movement must address to sharpen both its long-term horizon and daily practices.
Rosa Luxemburg Stiftung, 2019
Migration – ein umkämpftes Menschenrecht Migration ist kein gesellschaftlicher Sonderfall. Jede ... more Migration – ein umkämpftes Menschenrecht
Migration ist kein gesellschaftlicher Sonderfall. Jede moderne Gesellschaft und jeder Staat der Welt ist auch ein Ergebnis menschlicher Mobilität. Dennoch erhitzt das Thema Migration rund um den Globus politische Debatten und die Meinungsbildung von Bürger*innen, Politiker*innen, Parteien und Bewegungen verläuft nicht selten entlang der Frage der Migration und der Politiken des Umgangs mit ihr. Entsprechend wirkmächtig sind die Mythen und Bilder, die rund um das soziale Phänomen der Migration entstanden sind. Zu den bekanntesten sprachlichen und visuellen Bildern der Migration gehören etwa die der Ströme, Wellen und Fluten. Sie lassen Migration als etwas Bedrohliches erscheinen und machen die tatsächlich Migrierenden unsichtbar.
Der Atlas der Migration möchte den Blick auf Migration sowie ihre Akteure verändern, einen politischen Wandel anstoßen und zu einer Versachlichung der Debatte auch innerhalb der europäischen linken Parteien und Bewegungen beitragen. Hier reichen die Meinungen vom Paradigma der offenen Grenzen bis zu ablehnenden Haltungen gegenüber Migrantinnen und Migranten, die oft auf der Annahme einer Konkurrenz der besonders schwachen in europäischen Gesellschaften beruht. Die zusammengetragenen Zahlen und Fakten zeigen, dass Migration, gleichwohl sie in allen Teilen der Welt stattfindet, weder ein Bedrohungspotenzial für die Gesellschaften der Zielländer noch für jene der Herkunftsländer birgt.
Dennoch ist Migration bedrohlich und zwar für die Migrierenden selbst, vor allem für Geflüchtete und Menschen ohne gültige Papiere. Dies machen die Beiträge über Tote an den Grenzen und tödliche Grenzkontrollen deutlich. Alltagsrassismus und rassistischer Terror, aber auch Xenophobie in den Institutionen und der Politik erschweren Migrant*innen und Flüchtlingen zudem die Reise, bedrohen ihre Teilhabe oder sogar ihr Leben in den Zielländern – und damit ihr Menschenrecht auf Migration.
Doch Migrierende nehmen ihr Schicksal selbst in die Hand. Dies zeigen die Beiträge zu Kämpfen der Migration – gegen Rassismus und für die Rechte von Einwander*innen und Geflüchteten. Gemeinsam mit Nicht-Migrierten sind so in Europa und der Welt ungezählte Bewegungen der Solidarität gegen Abschiebungen, Xenophobie und Rechtspopulismus sowie für das Recht auf gesellschaftliche Teilhabe, würdige Arbeit, angemessenes Wohnen, Bildung und Gesundheit entstanden. Sie tragen dazu bei, die Gesellschaft der Vielen Wirklichkeit werden zu lassen.
Migration hat viele Realitäten und Facetten. Dieser Atlas wirbt für einen differenzierten Umgang mit ihr. Im derzeitigen gesellschaftlichen Klima bedarf es Mut, sich diesem Thema unaufgeregt zuzuwenden und anzuerkennen, dass Einwanderung unsere Gesellschaften im demokratischen Sinne pluralisiert.
Rosa-Luxemburg Stiftung , 2019
Migration – ein umkämpftes Menschenrecht Migration ist kein gesellschaftlicher Sonderfall. Jede ... more Migration – ein umkämpftes Menschenrecht
Migration ist kein gesellschaftlicher Sonderfall. Jede moderne Gesellschaft und jeder Staat der Welt ist auch ein Ergebnis menschlicher Mobilität. Dennoch erhitzt das Thema Migration rund um den Globus politische Debatten und die Meinungsbildung von Bürger*innen, Politiker*innen, Parteien und Bewegungen verläuft nicht selten entlang der Frage der Migration und der Politiken des Umgangs mit ihr. Entsprechend wirkmächtig sind die Mythen und Bilder, die rund um das soziale Phänomen der Migration entstanden sind. Zu den bekanntesten sprachlichen und visuellen Bildern der Migration gehören etwa die der Ströme, Wellen und Fluten. Sie lassen Migration als etwas Bedrohliches erscheinen und machen die tatsächlich Migrierenden unsichtbar.
Der Atlas der Migration möchte den Blick auf Migration sowie ihre Akteure verändern, einen politischen Wandel anstoßen und zu einer Versachlichung der Debatte auch innerhalb der europäischen linken Parteien und Bewegungen beitragen. Hier reichen die Meinungen vom Paradigma der offenen Grenzen bis zu ablehnenden Haltungen gegenüber Migrantinnen und Migranten, die oft auf der Annahme einer Konkurrenz der besonders schwachen in europäischen Gesellschaften beruht. Die zusammengetragenen Zahlen und Fakten zeigen, dass Migration, gleichwohl sie in allen Teilen der Welt stattfindet, weder ein Bedrohungspotenzial für die Gesellschaften der Zielländer noch für jene der Herkunftsländer birgt.
Dennoch ist Migration bedrohlich und zwar für die Migrierenden selbst, vor allem für Geflüchtete und Menschen ohne gültige Papiere. Dies machen die Beiträge über Tote an den Grenzen und tödliche Grenzkontrollen deutlich. Alltagsrassismus und rassistischer Terror, aber auch Xenophobie in den Institutionen und der Politik erschweren Migrant*innen und Flüchtlingen zudem die Reise, bedrohen ihre Teilhabe oder sogar ihr Leben in den Zielländern – und damit ihr Menschenrecht auf Migration.
Doch Migrierende nehmen ihr Schicksal selbst in die Hand. Dies zeigen die Beiträge zu Kämpfen der Migration – gegen Rassismus und für die Rechte von Einwander*innen und Geflüchteten. Gemeinsam mit Nicht-Migrierten sind so in Europa und der Welt ungezählte Bewegungen der Solidarität gegen Abschiebungen, Xenophobie und Rechtspopulismus sowie für das Recht auf gesellschaftliche Teilhabe, würdige Arbeit, angemessenes Wohnen, Bildung und Gesundheit entstanden. Sie tragen dazu bei, die Gesellschaft der Vielen Wirklichkeit werden zu lassen.
Migration hat viele Realitäten und Facetten. Dieser Atlas wirbt für einen differenzierten Umgang mit ihr. Im derzeitigen gesellschaftlichen Klima bedarf es Mut, sich diesem Thema unaufgeregt zuzuwenden und anzuerkennen, dass Einwanderung unsere Gesellschaften im demokratischen Sinne pluralisiert.
Rosa-Luxemburg Foundation, 2019
Migration: a contested human right Migration is not a social outlier. Every modern society and e... more Migration: a contested human right
Migration is not a social outlier. Every modern society and every state in the world is also a result of human mobility. The migration issue nevertheless sparks heated political debates around the globe, while opinion formation among citizens, politicians, political parties, and movements often occurs along the axes of the migration question and policies of dealing with it. The myths and images that have emerged around the social phenomenon of migration are correspondingly powerful. Among the best-known linguistic and visual representations of migration are those of streams, waves, and floods. They make migration appear threatening and render the actual migrants invisible.
The Atlas of Migration seeks to change perspectives on migration and its actors, initiate a political shift, and contribute to a more objective debate within left-wing European parties and movements. Here opinions range from the open-borders paradigm to negative attitudes towards migrants, often based on the assumption that they compete with the particularly vulnerable in European societies. The figures and facts collected show that, although migration takes place in all parts of the world, it poses no threat to the social fabric of the countries of neither destination nor origin.
Migration is a threat, however, for the migrants themselves—especially for fugitives and undocumented migrants. This is made clear by the chapters on border deaths and deadly border controls. Everyday racism and racist terror, but also institutional and political xenophobia, make travel more difficult for migrants and refugees, threatening their participation or even their lives in the countries of destination—and thus their human right to migration.
Migrants nevertheless take their fate into their own hands. This is demonstrated by the chapters on migration struggles—against racism and for the rights of immigrants and refugees. Together with non-migrants, countless solidarity movements against deportations, xenophobia, and right-wing populism as well as for the right to social participation, decent work, adequate housing, education, and health care have emerged in Europe and the world. They contribute to making the society of the many a reality.
Migration has many realities and facets. This atlas promotes a differentiated approach to migration. In the current social climate, it takes courage to address this issue calmly and to recognize that immigration pluralizes our societies in the democratic sense.
Over the past few years, increased ‘unauthorised’ migrations into the territories of Europe have ... more Over the past few years, increased ‘unauthorised’ migrations into the territories of Europe have resulted in one of the most severe crises in the history of the European Union. Stierl explores migration and border struggles in contemporary Europe and the ways in which they animate, problematise, and transform the region and its political formation. This volume follows public protests of migrant activists, less visible attempts of those on the move to ‘irregularly’ subvert borders, as well as new solidarities and communities that emerge in interwoven struggles for the freedom of movement. Stierl offers a conceptualisation of migrant resistances as forces of animation through which European forms of border governance can be productively explored. As catalysts that set socio-political processes into frictional motion, they are developed as modes of critical investigation, indeed, as method. By ethnographically following and being implicated in different migration struggles that contest the ways in which Europe decides over and enacts who does, and does not, belong, the author probes what they reveal about the condition of Europe in the contemporary moment.
This work will be of great interest to students and scholars of Migration, Border, Security and Citizenship Studies, as well as the Political Sciences more generally.