Bridget Anderson

Migration, immigration controls and the fashioning of precarious workers:

Immigration controls are often presented by government as a means of ensuring ‘British jobs for British workers’ and protecting migrants from exploitation. However, in practice they can undermine labour protections. As well as a tap regulating the flow of labour, immigration controls function as a mould, helping to form types of labour with particular relations to employers and the labour market. In particular, the construction of institutionalised uncertainty, together with less formalised migratory processes, help produce ‘precarious workers’ over whom employers and labour users have particular mechanisms of control.

Mobilizing migrants, making citizens: migrant domestic workers as political agents

Abstract It is now more important than ever to consider migrant mobilizations and how political communities are constructed. This paper describes how Waling Waling, a migrant domestic workers’ organization, and their support group, Kalayaan, forged citizenship ‘from below’ and waged a successful campaign to change the immigration status of domestic workers in part through turning constraints into opportunities. It also discusses how the logic of state sovereignty can recapture radical undertakings, and the opportunities and challenges that are faced in the new political climate of migrants as victims of trafficking.

Citizenship, deportation and the boundaries of belonging

Taking the growing use of deportation by many states, including the UK and the USA, as its point of departure, this article examines the implications of deportation for how citizenship is understood and conceptualised in liberal states. We follow scholars such as Walters (2002, Citizenship studies, 6 (2), 265–292) and Nicholas De Genova (2010, The deportation regime: sovereignty, space and freedom of movement. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 33–65) in seeing deportation as a practice that is ‘constitutive of citizenship’, one that reaffirms the formal and normative boundaries of membership in an international system of nominally independent states. However, we draw on the UK to show that, as a particularly definitive and symbolically resonant way of dividing citizens from (putative) strangers, deportation is liable to generate conflicts amongst citizens and between citizens and the state over the question of who is part of the normative community of members. Such conflict is, we show, a key and everyday feature of the many local anti-deportation campaigns that currently operate in support of individuals and families facing expulsion in liberal states. Although often used by governmental elites as a way to reaffirm the shared significance of citizenship, deportation, we suggest, may serve to highlight just how divided and confused modern societies are in how they conceptualise both who is a member and who has the right to judge who belongs.

Sex, slaves and citizens: the politics of anti-trafficking

This is the final publisher edited version of the paper published as Soundings, 2008, 40, pp. 135-145. This version was first published at http://www.lwbooks.co.uk/journals/soundings/contents.html.

Just another job? Paying for domestic work

Paid domestic work is a feature of households all over the world, from Ecuador to Swaziland, from Spain to the Ivory Coast. In many countries, it probably constitutes the single largest female employment sector (though its invisibility can make this difficult to document). It is work that is predominantly performed by women, and is usually managed by other women. Yet it has received very little attention, either from feminists or from trade unionists, or indeed from political activists in general - many of whom, particularly if they are women, depend on a domestic worker to facilitate their activism. This paper explores the experiences of migrant domestic workers in Europe, and in particular in the UK. However, the issues it raises present challenges - both personal and political - for women and men throughout the world, whether they are domestic workers or employers.

Where’s the Harm in That? Immigration Enforcement, Trafficking, and the Protection of Migrants’ Rights

This article considers the argument that immigration controls can be protective of migrants/victims of trafficking. It examines how the avoidance of “harm” has become central to immigration enforcement and considers the implications of this with particular reference to children. It argues that the language of protection and harm risks inscribing the state as an appropriate protector, not just for children, but for at-risk migrants more generally. This is deeply problematic when, through immigration controls and practices, the state is implicated in constructing this vulnerability.

anti-trafficking campaigns: decent? honest? truthful?

This is the author’s final draft of the paper published as Feminist Review, 2009, 92 (1), pp. 151–156. The final published version is available at http://www.palgrave-journals.com/fr/journal/v92/n1/full/fr20091a.html, doi: 10.1057/fr.2009.1.

Boundaries of belonging: deportation and the constitution and contestation of citizenship

This special issue has its roots in an International Conference on ‘Deportation and the Development of Citizenship’ held at the University of Oxford on 11–12 December 2009.1 It aimed to examine dep...

Migrant Labour in Kazakhstan: A Cause for Concern?

Kazakhstan, a country with relatively strong economic growth, significant natural resources and low population density, shares borders with countries of low economic growth, high poverty and unemployment. The lack of a coherent strategy for labour migration and a large informal sector have contributed towards a situation where large numbers of low-skilled migrants are working in breach of Kazakhstans minimum labour standards. There is also evidence of significant incidences of unfree—or forced—labour. This paper considers the living and working conditions of Central Asian migrants in Kazakhstan and the applicability of the trafficking framework to their situation.

Migrant Domestic Workers and Slavery

Paid domestic work is a feature of households all over the world, from Ecuador to Swaziland, from Spain to the Ivory Coast. In many countries it probably constitutes the single largest female employment sector (though its invisibility can make this difficult to document). It is work that is predominantly performed by women, usually managed by other women.