I.C. van Liempt

Scrutinising the double disadvantage: knowledge production in the messy field of migrant smuggling

ABSTRACT Human smuggling is a global phenomenon which has been difficult to research. Even though there is a large and growing literature on human smuggling, it lacks a systematic review of the major theoretical and conceptual approaches. Besides the lack of conceptual cohesion, there is fundamental lack of hard evidence to substantiate most aspects of the smuggling process because of methodological challenges. This ‘double disadvantage’ is an important explanation for theoretical as well as conceptual discrepancies in existing smuggling studies. In order to clarify and understand the diversity of theoretical approaches within the field of smuggling this article provides an overview of various readings of the literature. We identify a need to better understand how our knowledge about smuggling is constructed in this messy field. Furthermore, we question why we are producing particular types of knowledge and argue for more critical work in the field of human smuggling.

Super-diversity and the art of living in ethnically concentrated urban areas

This article discusses how local diversity is being experienced by Somali immigrants who have previously lived in the Netherlands and are now residing in London. It explores the various challenges and potential advantages of living in homogenous urban areas within a super-diverse city and focuses on three situations: (1) when homogeneity is functional and leads to living in parallel worlds; (2) when homogeneity creates social reproduction, even when located in a super-diverse city; and (3) when people manage to oscillate between both worlds – i.e. between homogenous urban areas and the potential offered by a super-diverse city. The article argues that migrants trace different pathways in the context of super-diversity. They have the ability to operate at different scales – the locale and the cosmopolitan super-diverse metropolis. However, the most vulnerable people have more difficulty in accessing and benefiting directly from the potential offered by super-diversity.

Book review - Borderline justice: the fight for refugee and migrant rights by Frances Webber, London, Pluto Press, 2012

Our leaders encourage and treat as heroes those people who are fighting for democracy and human rights, in Burma, in Libya, in Egypt and Syria…But as soon as these heroes seek sanctuary here in the ‘free world’, they are transformed into a hostile alien threat to our culture and our values, to be kept out by military patrols and bilateral accords and e-borders and carrier sanctions and all the paraphernalia of modern immigration controls

Video-Surveillance and the Production of Space in Urban Nightlife Districts

This chapter is based on a research project that examines if and how technologically mediated forms of surveillance and policing improve the safety and wellbeing of nightlife consumers whilst at the same time also contributing to processes of socio-spatial exclusion of particular groups. By interrogating the triad of surveillance and policing, wellbeing and exclusion in nightlife districts in Dutch city centers we found that the effects of video-surveillance on the production of space are complex and ambiguous. Storylines used by local policy-makers with regard to CCTV differ considerably between cities and tend to overestimate the benefits of CCTV surveillance. Moreover, consumers’ awareness and knowledge of CCTV tends to be limited and only a few experiences a real sense of enhanced safety and wellbeing because of the presence of technology alone. At the same time, the effects of surveillance and policing on the exclusion of certain groups from nightlife districts are not equivocally supported by our initial findings either.

Gentrification of Progressive Red Light Districts and New Moral Geographies: The case of Amsterdam and Zurich

Abstract Even though there is a long tradition of red-light districts (RLD) being concentrated within the city centre, gentrification policies in many European cities now aim at spatially dispersing the sex market (and its workers) to the fringes of the city. Moving RLDs out of the city centre (or transforming them into more-upscale entertainment provision) calls into question the physical place allotted to sex work in our cities, as well as the moral geography behind these decisions. This article examines urban regeneration processes in two particular European cities – Amsterdam and Zurich – both cities with a long history of progressive drug and sex-work policies where sex work has been part of the visible urban fabric. In the article we look at urban policies and the legal framework, as well as at moral reasoning and discourses around the legitimacy of moving sex-workers away from city centres. We argue that in both cities moral arguments play an important role in the legitimization of the transformation of the RLD which contributes to a new race and gender order that stigmatises sex-workers as a group as if they were all victims of trafficking.

Migrant Smuggling: Irregular Migration From Asia and Africa to Europe (review)

work of scholars like Carl Schmitt and Giorgio Agamben, Chapter 3 examines the strongest case for exclusion, namely the ‘exclusion thesis’, according to which exclusion is at the heart of any legal and political system. Foreigners are outside the legal order of a given state; their exclusion therefore constitutes a condition for a legal order to exist. Exclusion, and all the political violence that it vehicles, is a prerequisite for law and power and needs no justification (as justification would suggest a continuity between ‘us’ and ‘them’, or between states and those situated outside their borders). Chapter 4 refutes this thesis, emphasising that law also serves as a set of connections crossing the inside–outside divide. Legal orders do indeed need borders, but these borders are not necessarily absolute; rather, the issue is how legal systems permanently negotiate with what lies outside their reach. In this view, there is nothing special about migrants: although at the periphery of legal/ national orders, they are still within the realm of existing legal systems. The author develops another interesting argument against the exclusion thesis, based on the idea that laws can be obeyed only if they treat individuals as legal subjects; this implies, for instance, that people are considered not as a group but as individuals, or that they have the capacity to contest their treatment before an independent court. None of these conditions applies when it comes to immigration law: noncitizens situated outside a state are rather the objects of laws and, as such, cannot be expected to comply with them (Chapter 5). Chapters 6 and 7 explore the ways in which governments might justify exclusion. Schotel argues that authorities carry the burden of proof: they should explain why and how admission of migrants is problematic and, if unable to do so, they should not deny admission. Because freedom of movement is a core value under democratic and liberal traditions, exceptions to this principle should be carefully justified to avoid closure becoming the norm. The argument is nevertheless problematic: one can agree on unacceptable reasons for excluding people (like race, religion, sexual orientation, etc.), but it is much more difficult to identify good reasons. This is all the more the case because the notions that are likely to be put forward (like ‘public order’) are ambiguous and open to diverging interpretations. Another issue lies in the proportionality principle: exclusion is a tough measure that should be taken only if the objective it serves cannot be met through other (less harmful) ways. The author emphasises that his approach is legal, not political or ethical. His point is that, regardless of its ethical, economic or political implications, immigration law is legally flawed. At times, the discussion is indeed legal (and perhaps slightly difficult to follow for those without a legal background). But as the book often ventures into philosophy, ethics and politics, the author’s claim to remain ‘purely legal’ is not entirely convincing. Schotel aims to dissociate his work from the many non-legal criticisms of immigration law. He rejects what he calls ‘emotional’ arguments (such as those examining the consequences of admission policies on migrants’ lives). While he honestly acknowledges the role of moral and political concerns in his interest in immigration law (in a way not common among legal scholars), he claims that these are secondary considerations. The author states that the book should therefore not be read as a plea for open borders or better treatment of foreigners. But readers cannot help feeling that, while formally absent, these concerns pervade the whole book. This is a minor issue, however. The book definitely sheds new light on its topic and all those interested in the relationship between states and migrants will find it enjoyable.