Migration as Crisis

Abstract

Over the past decades, and across different contexts worldwide, migration has become inseparable from a narrative of crisis. This article analyses the connection between migration and crisis. It proposes a migration as crisis framework, designed to understand and analyze the emergence of this specific perception of migration, on the basis of an interplay between social “subjective” constructions of reality and “objective” migration dynamics. Migration as crisis rests upon a fragmented, changing, and contested assemblage of events, representations, and practices, which in turn call for specific ways of governing migration. The link between migration and crisis can be activated or not, and may or may not be correlated with empirical realities. By engaging with migration as crisis (rather than migration crisis), the article denaturalizes and historicizes the relationship between migration and crisis, and unpacks the processes through which key actors (including media, policymakers, civil society, and academics) frame migration as such.

De la “crisis de los migrantes” de 2015 a la gobernanza europea de las fronteras: el caso de las políticas de control y gestión de la migración irregular en Grecia

“…Este fortalecimiento, en respuesta a la "crisis", de las políticas contra el tráfico ilícito de migrantes reactiva el referencial (Jobert y Muller, 1987) de "securización de las migraciones" que cristalizó a principios de los años 2000 en el seno de la UE (Huysmans, 2000) y que establece vínculos e interacciones entre las políticas migratorias y de seguridad (Pastore y Roman, 2020;Zaiotti, 2016); lo anterior puso a los países del sur de Europa, en particular a Grecia debido a su proximidad a Turquía y al Medio Oriente, 1 En nuestra investigación, hemos optado por utilizar el término "crisis de los migrantes" porque, en la literatura reciente, la migración se considera cada vez más una crisis en sí misma, en lugar de simplemente una "crisis migratoria". Esta concepción se basa en un conjunto fragmentado, cambiante y cuestionado de acontecimientos, representaciones y prácticas que requieren modos específicos de gobernanza, lo que permite a los actores clave definirla de esta manera (Cantat et al, 2023).…”

Katharina Natter. 2023. The politics of immigration beyond liberal states: Morocco and Tunisia in comparative perspective. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. pp. 310.

“…Indeed, a large, diverse body of literature suggests, usually implicitly, that immigration politics across national and regional contexts are more alike than they are different (e.g. Cantat et al, 2023;Chauvin & Garcés-Mascareñas, 2014;Nawyn, 2016). This literature points to a basic dynamic common to all migration states-namely, the production and enforcement of distinctions between foreigners and citizens, whether through physical borders, (il)legalization measures, naturalization laws or day-to-day bureaucratic practices.…”

Editorial: Scrutinising educational responses to migration: critical perspectives on changes in educational practice, policy and research

“…Even though migration is a core feature of global human history, it continues to be as a "problem, " "challenge, " and/or "crisis" for Western nations (Cantat et al, 2023;Rosen et al, 2023). Similarly, in education, migrant students are often approached by accentuating deficits in learning and participation, and along a patronising tendency that positions migrant students as "in need" for academic, language, and psychosocial support and intervention (Kowalczyk, 2010;Szelei et al, 2021;Bunar and Juvonen, 2022).…”