Border as method

Posted on | December 2, 2008 | No Comments

Notes from the “Precarious Employment, Differential Inclusion and the Proliferation of Borders” seminar featuring Brett Neilson, Sandro Mezzadra and Rutvica Andrijasevic at University of Western Sydney, November 13, 2008.

People seem to like notes, and blogging them helps me remember some of the ideas I’ve been hearing lately. Below is a bunch of thoughts I captured during Sandro’s talk, which was a good overview of the afternoon’s project. The amount of travel I’ve been doing lately made me particularly sensitive to the themes raised, and each paper opened up sophisticated questions about what we mean by the terms citizenship, labour, legality and belonging in the current infatuation with mobility. The usual provisos about my memory’s accuracy apply…

Working title for book with Brett: Border as Method or The Multiplication of Labour

‘differential inclusion’

Wants to develop concepts that improve upon the anodyne sociological language of neoliberal flexibilisation which avoids discussing social citizenship

Nation + labour market is a nexus that can no longer be captured by citizen + worker

Wants to describe the changing nature of inclusion rather than border studies’ preoccupation with exclusion

A growing number of people aren’t fully insiders or outsiders.

Ethnographic research into US/Mexican border was important background for the notion of ‘Fortress Europe’ which itself doesn’t really recognise the vast amount of immigration in the EU.

Can no longer focus on just the ‘global North’ or North/South movements but must account for variations such as movement within the ‘global South’ and particular zones of intensity (eg. the ‘Pacific Solution’). Particular cases can show how the timing and tempo of migration can be regulated and processes of selection mobilised and routinised leading to the possibility of “just in time, to the point migration practices”

Points based migration systems: these multiplying and stratifying policing systems for subject positions generate a range of new actors or “middle men” with varying claims to legality/illegality

Also prompt us to ask what counts as skilled labour? Practical skills may now be less important than ‘soft skills’ eg. ‘teamwork’ and the desirability of migrants employed in cognitive sectors of the economy

The competition for skilled work leads to ‘talent for citizenship’ exchanges: preferred migration practices promoting ease of access to permanent residency (a major factor behind Australia’s booming trade in international students)

Example of IT workers who engage in other work while upgrading skills: ‘benching’

Example of 2006 May Day Latino movement

Who is the citizen?

Differential inclusion: mobility and migration split between skilled/flexible workers (encouraged in particular ways) and undocumented/clandestine workers. They are the flipside of each other

Borders have moved from the edge of the nation to the centre of the city and the polis

Category: Politics, Randoms, Research, Travel

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