Pierre Monforte

Mobilizing in Borderline Citizenship Regimes: A Comparative Analysis of Undocumented Migrants’ Collective Actions

This article seeks to explain how and why groups and networks of undocumented migrants mobilizing in Berlin, Montréal, and Paris since the beginning of the 2000s construct different types of claims. The authors explore the relationship between undocumented migrants and state authorities at the local level through the concept of the citizenship regime and its specific application to undocumented migrants (which they describe as the “borderline citizenship regime”). Despite their common formal exclusion from citizenship, nonstatus migrants experience different degrees and forms of exclusion in their daily lives, in terms of access to certain rights and services, recognition, and belonging within the state (whether through formally or nonformally recognized means). As a result, they have an opportunity to create different, specific forms of leeway in the society in which they live. The concurrence of these different degrees of exclusion and different forms of leeway defines specific conditions of mobilization. The authors demonstrate how the content of their claims is influenced by these conditions of mobilization.

Comparing the protests of undocumented migrants beyond contexts: collective actions as acts of emancipation

The authors received financial support from the CPDS and the CERIUM (post-doctoral grant, 2008–2010; beneficiary: Pierre Monforte) and from the SSHRC [Social sciences and humanities research council of Canada] (individual research grant, 2008–2012; beneficiary: Pascale Dufour).

Key concepts in migration

Introduction Migration Acculturation Alien/Foreigner Assimilation Borders Brain Drain/Gain/Circulation Chain Migration Circular Migration Citizenship Cumulative Causation Denizens Deportation Diaspora Displacement and Internally Displaced Persons Ethnic Enclaves and Ethnic Economies Ethnicity and Ethnic Minorities Family Migration and Reunification Forced Migration Gendered Migration Guestworkers Human Trafficking and Smuggling Integration Internal/Domestic Migration Labour Migration Migrant Networks Migration Stocks and Flows Multiculturalism Refugees and Asylum Seekers Regional Integration and Migration Remittances Restrictionism vs. Open Borders Return Migration Second Generation Selectivity Social Capital Social Cohesion Transnationalism Undocumented (Illegal) Migration

Social Movements and Europeanization Processes: The Case of the French Associations Mobilizing around the Asylum Issue

This paper seeks to analyse the process of Europeanization of social movements mobilizing around the asylum policy since the middle of the 1990s. Taking the example of the principal French associations which have mobilized on this topic, the paper explores the dynamics that lead these associations to increasingly address the European institutions since the launching of the process of harmonisation of asylum policies. In particular, it shows that particular attention shall be given to the relationship between the associations that have constituted at the national level and the set of actors that are mobilized on this issue exclusively at the European level (which is defined as a European advocacy coalition). Through the analysis of this relationship, it can be seen that the French associations follow different processes of Europeanization. Some follow a process of inclusion into the existing European advocacy coalition while others create alternative mobilizations at the European level. This study allows us to observe and to analyse the similarities and differences in the interactions between social movements and institutions in the national political space and in the European political space on this particular issue. In doing so, it seeks to present an original perspective on a process of ‘Europeanization from below’. This research is based on the in-depth analysis of 11 associations which are representative of the diversity of the movement related to the asylum issue in France. It uses different methods that were developed in social movements studies: frame analysis, protest-event analysis and network analysis. It is based on several sources: associative discourses and publications, in-depth interviews, and associative internal literature.

The border as a space of contention: the spatial strategies of protest against border controls in Europe

Abstract This article analyses the spatial dimension of social movements mobilising against border controls. Focusing on the case of the protests against European border controls, this paper shows that new spatial strategies of protest have emerged since the beginning of the 2000s. Movements construct collective actions that aim to identify border controls and occupy specific border sites. These new strategies are related to a transformation of the material and symbolic dimensions of border controls in the last decades. As they have become more diffuse and organised through a selective power, social movements strategically locate their protest in order to document the existence and nature of border controls. In doing so, they disrupt the exclusionary logic of citizenship.

Making political citizens? Migrants’ narratives of naturalization in the United Kingdom*

Abstract Citizenship tests are arguably intended as moments of hailing, or interpellation, through which norms are internalized and citizen-subjects produced. We analyse the multiple political subjects revealed through migrants’ narratives of the citizenship test process, drawing on 158 interviews with migrants in Leicester and London who are at different stages in the UK citizenship test process. In dialogue with three counter-figures in the critical naturalization literature – the ‘neoliberal citizen’; the ‘anxious citizen’; and the ‘heroic citizen’ – we propose the figure of the ‘citizen-negotiator’, a socially situated actor who attempts to assert control over their life as they navigate the test process and state power. Through the focus on negotiation, we see migrants navigating a process of differentiation founded on pre-existing inequalities rather than a journey toward transformation.

Asylum Rights Protest Campaigns

Immigration and asylum are, by definition, global issues which concern transnational actors. However, the definition and implementation of immigration and asylum policies relate to state borders and are therefore traditionally entrenched in national contexts. For this reason, even if social movements mobilizing to defend the rights of migrants and refugees have regularly used international norms to increase their rights at the national level (Soysal 1994; Guiraudon 2000), they have rarely organized collective actions across borders: they have limited their action to the national level and have mainly addressed their demands to state authorities. However, since the mid-1990s, these movements have increasingly mobilized in order to address international—and in particular European–institutions. Groups and networks have constructed networks, discourses and collective actions which go beyond borders, and they have organized significant and regular transnational campaigns. Keywords: borders; globalization; human rights