The Responsible Migrant, Reading the Global Compact on Migration

Abstract

In 2016, the international community, in reaction to the growing number of 'tragedies' occurring as people attempted to move across borders, met to discuss large movements of refugees and migrants. The outcome of this meeting was an agreement to negotiate two Global Compacts, one on refugees and one on migrants, with the aim of facilitating 'orderly, safe, regular and responsible migration and mobility of people'. This article explores how responsibility in the Global Compact on Migrant is expressive of a changed way of 'doing' migration. The language of 'responsibility' raises questions about how the international community views international migration and, by extension, prepares the ground for policy and practice on international migration. Taking a genealogical, jurisprudential approach, we follow the logic which brings migration, development and human rights language together to construct a new subjectivity: that of the 'responsible' migrant. The migrant human will be a rights-bearer because they will contribute to development in particular gendered ways. We argue that assuming a narrow understanding of responsibility misses expressive dynamics in the normalizing of international migration within a new framing to inform international law making.

Narrating an ideal migration world? An analysis of the Global Compact for Safe, Orderly and Regular Migration

“…The GCM calls this a 'whole-of-society approach' and recommends 'multi-stakeholder partnerships' that bring together 'migrants, diasporas, local communities, civil society, academia, the private sector, parliamentarians, trade unions, National Human Rights Institutions, the media and other relevant stakeholders in migration governance' (para 15). This makes for what the GCM calls 'shared responsibilities' , thereby challenging influential views according to which migration is a matter of national sovereignty that should remain outside the realm of cooperation and of non-state actors' influence (Oelgemöller and Allinson 2020). This approach echoes broadly defined patterns of global governance: this notion is indeed regularly used to refer to decision-making processes characterised by their multi-stakeholder and multi-level nature, in which states cooperate with each other and with civil society, the private sector and IOs (Panizzon and van Riemsdijk 2019).…”

Un contramovimiento del precariado: migración, trabajo y el enigma de los derechos humanos

“…Son estratagemas políticas propagadas en términos de una triple ganancia tanto para los países emisores como receptores, y los propios migrantes. Aunque combinan la gestión de la migración y la mano de obra con asociaciones que promueven el desarrollo entre los países receptores y emisores (Triandafyllidou, 2013), se incorporan en una narrativa que a fin de cuentas responsabiliza a cada migrante por sus logros (Oelgemöller y Allinson, 2020). En contraposición, por ejemplo, del sistema de «trabajadores invitados» de Europa central post Segunda Guerra Mundial, que dejó notables aperturas jurídico-institucionales para que los inmigrantes accedieran a la ciudadanía (Guiraudon, 2000).…”

DE LO MICRO A LO MESO. El papel del trabajo social en el desarrollo de respuestas al VIH conscientes de la migración para hombres jóvenes migrantes en Johannesburgo

“…Este enigma se ha enmarcado en términos de la confrontación de los movimientos sociales con la condicionalidad de los espacios invitados, término teorizado, entre otros, por Cornwall (2002), Gaventa (2006) y Miraftab (2009. Se relaciona con la solicitud de participación o consulta de la sociedad civil y, por lo tanto, la "corresponsabilidad" (por ejemplo, Oelgemöller & Allinson, 2020), en diferentes niveles de gobernanza. La creación de nuevos arreglos institucionales no conducirá, por sí sola, a un cambio político profundo, sostiene Gaventa (2006: 23).…”