The Exceptional Becomes Everyday: Border Control, Attrition and Exclusion from Within

Abstract

This article examines processes of migration and border control, illustrating the ways by which everyday housing and welfare services function as mechanisms of exclusion in both direct and indirect ways. Using the thesis of crimmigration, the article demonstrates how border controls have become deeply implicated in systems claiming to offer welfare support—and how a global public health emergency has intensified exclusionary processes and normalised restrictive practices. The article compares border controls in two localities—under the UK government’s coercive ‘hostile environment’ policies (based on technologies of surveillance) and a more indirect ‘programme of discouragement’ in The Netherlands (based on technologies of attrition). The study demonstrates the role of contemporary welfare states in entrenching inequality and social exclusion (from within), arguing that the exceptional circumstances of the COVID-19 pandemic have facilitated the differential everyday treatment of migrants, revealing a hierarchy of human worth through strategies of surveillance and attrition.

Interpreting the state–citizen nexus in contemporary Nordic legal and social citizenship: the case of divergence in restriction on freedom of movement as a mitigation policy in the COVID-19 pandemic

“…In crises, borders typically become a central theme by virtue of forming a defensive barrier against external threats, e.g., pandemics and terrorism (Serpa, 2021). Borders were a central theme in Norway throughout the pandemic.…”

“…Our approach uses a dilemma situation in which COVID-19 is an event that forces policy makers to prioritise either civil or social rights in decision-making. A comparative interpretivist approach is in this case fruitful when questioning assumptions that lie behind theoretical concepts (Serpa, 2021). The article draws upon Berggren and Trädgårdh's (2012) study that labels the Nordic countries as promoting statist individualism/individual autonomy and therefore shares a similar understanding of the state-citizen nexus.…”