Table Of ContentCitizenship, Migrant Activism and
the Politics of Movement
Migration is an inescapable issue in the public debates and political agendas of
Western countries, with refugees and migrants increasingly viewed through the
lens of security. This book analyses recent shifts in the governing of global
mobility from the perspective of the politics of citizenship, utilising an interdis-
ciplinary approach that employs politics, sociology, anthropology and history.
Featuring an international group of leading and emerging researchers working
on the intersection of migrant politics and citizenship studies, this book investi-
gates how restrictions on mobility are generating not only new forms of inequal-
ity and social exclusion, but also new forms of political activism and citizenship
identities. The authors present and discuss the perspectives, experiences, knowl-
edge and voices of migrants and migrant rights activists, in order to better under-
stand the specific strategies, tactics and knowledge that politicised non-c itizen
migrant groups produce in their encounters with border controls and security
technologies. The book focuses the debate of migration, security and mobility
rights onto grass- roots politics and social movements, making an important
intervention into the fields of migration studies and critical citizenship studies.
Citizenship, Migrant Activism and the Politics of Movement will be of interest
to students and scholars of migration and security politics, globalisation, and cit-
izenship studies.
Peter Nyers is Associate Professor of the Politics of Citizenship and Intercul-
tural Relations at McMaster University, Hamilton, Ontario, Canada.
Kim Rygiel is Assistant Professor of Political Science at Wilfrid Laurier University,
Waterloo, Ontario, Canada.
Routledge research on the global politics of migration
1 Globalisation, Migration, and the Future of Europe
Insiders and outsiders
Edited by Leila Simona Talani
2 Citizenship, Migrant Activism and the Politics of Movement
Edited by Peter Nyers and Kim Rygiel
Citizenship, Migrant Activism
and the Politics of Movement
Edited by Peter Nyers and Kim Rygiel
First published 2012
by Routledge
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Simultaneously published in the USA and Canada
by Routledge
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Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business
© 2012 Peter Nyers and Kim Rygiel for selection and editorial matter;
individual contributors their contribution.
The right of Peter Nyers and Kim Rygiel to be identified as the authors of
the editorial material, and of the authors for their individual chapters, has
been asserted in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright,
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British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data
Citizenship, migrant activism and the politics of movement/edited by Peter
Nyers and Kim Rygiel.
p. cm. – (Routledge research on the global politics of migration; 2)
Includes bibliographical references and index.
1. Immigrants–Political activity. 2. Immigrants–Civil rights.
3. Emigration and immigration–Political aspects. I. Nyers, Peter. II.
Rygiel, Kim.
JV6255.C57 2012
325–dc23
2011036852
ISBN: 978-0-415-60577-9 (hbk)
ISBN: 978-0-203-12511-3 (ebk)
Typeset in Times
by Wearset Ltd, Boldon, Tyne and Wear
Contents
List of contributors vii
Acknowledgements xi
Introduction: Citizenship, migrant activism and the politics
of movement 1
PETER NYERS AND KIM RYGIEL
1 Securitised migrants and postcolonial (in)difference:
the politics of activisms among North African migrants
in France 20
ALINA SAJED
2 Claiming rights, asserting belonging: contesting citizenship
in the UK 41
RUTH GROVE- WHITE
3 Ungrateful subjects? Refugee protests and the logic of
gratitude 54
CAROLINA MOULIN
4 ‘We are all foreigners’: No Borders as a practical political
project 73
BRIDGET ANDERSON, NANDITA SHARMA AND
CYNTHIA WRIGHT
5 Ethnography and human rights: the experience of APDHA
with Nigerian sex workers in Andalusia 92
ESTEFANÍA ACIÉN GONZÁLEZ
vi Contents
6 Moments of solidarity, migrant activism and (non)citizens at
global borders: political agency at Tanzanian refugee
camps, Australian detention centres and European borders 109
HEATHER JOHNSON
7 Building a sanctuary city: municipal migrant rights in the
city of Toronto 129
JEAN McDONALD
8 Taking not waiting: space, temporality and politics in the
City of Sanctuary movement 146
VICKI SQUIRE AND JENNIFER BAGELMAN
9 Undocumented citizens? Shifting grounds of citizenship in
Los Angeles 165
ANNE McNEVIN
Index 184
Contributors
Editors
Peter Nyers is Associate Professor of the Politics of Citizenship and Intercultural
Relations in the Department of Political Science at McMaster University, Ham-
ilton, Ontario. His research focuses on the social movements of non-s tatus refu-
gees and migrants, in particular their campaigns against deportation and
detention and for regularisation and global mobility rights. He is the author of
Rethinking Refugees: Beyond States of Emergency (Routledge 2006), co- editor
(with E.F. Isin and B.S. Turner) of Citizenship between Past and Future
(Routledge 2008) and editor of Securitizations of Citizenship (Routledge 2009).
He has published research articles in the journals Citizenship Studies, Economy
& Society, European Journal of Cultural Studies, International Political Socio
logy, Millennium: Journal of International Studies and Third World Quarterly.
Kim Rygiel is Assistant Professor in the Department of Political Science at Wilfrid
Laurier University, Waterloo, Ontario. Her research focuses on citizenship as a
globalising regime of government in relation to regulating mobility through
border controls within North America and Europe. Her current research exam-
ines activism of non-c itizen migrant groups and migrant rights organisations in
relation to migrant and refugee camps. She is the author of Globalizing Citizen
ship (University of British Columbia Press 2010) and co- editor (with Krista
Hunt) of (En)Gendering the War on Terror: War Stories and Camouflaged Pol
itics (Ashgate 2006). She has published research articles in Citizenship Studies
and has contributed chapters to several books, including ‘Abject Spaces: Fron-
tiers, Zones and Camps’ (with E.F. Isin) in The Logics of Biopower and the War
on Terror: Living, Dying, Surviving (Palgrave Macmillan 2007).
Contributing authors
Estefanía Acién González is the Coordinator of the Working Group on Prosti-
tution for the Asociación Pro Derechos Humanos de Andalucía (APDHA –
Human Rights Association of Andalusia), Spain, and a researcher for that
organisation. She is also a doctoral candidate at the University of Almería and
viii Contributors
has researched and published on the topics of migration and border controls,
especially relating to woman migrants and sex workers. She is a member and
researcher at the Laboratorio de Antropología Social y Cultural (Laboratory
of Social and Cultural Anthropology) at the University of Almería (since
1998), member of the Centro de Estudio de las Migraciones y las Relaciones
Interculturales (Center for the Study of Migrations and Intercultural Rela-
tions, CEMyRI) at the same university and a member since 1993 of the NGO
Acción en Red (Action Network).
Bridget Anderson is a Senior Research Fellow at the Centre on Migration, Poli-
tics and Society at the University of Oxford, UK. Her research interests
include migration, low- waged labour markets, ‘victimhood’, and immigration
enforcement. Her work examines the relation of the state to the construction
of certain categories of person as being worthy of protection or of work and
others as threatening or dishonourable, and also considers migrant subjectiv-
ity and theories and practices of citizenship. She has worked as an adviser
and activist with a range of migrants’ organisations and trade unions. She has
edited special issues of the journals Refuge, Subjectivity and Population,
Space and Place and is the co- editor (with Martin Ruhs) of Need for Migrant
Labour? An Introduction to the Analysis of Staff Shortages, Immigration and
Public Policy (Oxford University Press 2010).
Jennifer Bagelman is a doctoral candidate in the Department of Politics and
International Studies at The Open University, UK. Her research focuses on
questions of sovereignty and critical citizenship practices. Her particular
interest is in exploring the borderland of sanctuary cities as a complex site of
power relations and resistance, with an emphasis on understanding the role of
sanctuary ‘recipients’ as political.
Ruth Grove- White is a Policy Officer at the Migrants’ Rights Network (MRN),
a UK charity launched in 2006, which works to support the rights of all
migrants, and campaigns for progressive immigration policies in the UK. She
is responsible for managing the MRN’s policy and parliamentary work,
including advocacy, policy analysis and the work of the All Party Parliamen-
tary Group on Migration. Ruth regularly presents the MRN’s perspectives at
conferences and training sessions and in the media, as well as contributing to
publications by think-t anks and NGOs relating to migration policy in the UK.
Ruth graduated with an MSc in Political Sociology from the London School
of Economics. Before joining MRN in 2008 she worked as a project coordi-
nator at the International Organization for Migration in Bosnia- Herzegovina
and as the Programme Manager of European Dialogue in the UK.
Heather Johnson is Assistant Professor in the Department of Political Studies
at Trent University, Peterborough, Ontario. Her research examines the ways
in which the cross- border migration of refugees impacts global hierarchies of
power and the sovereignties of nation- states, and how the related practices of
border control affect understandings of political agency for non- citizens. She
Contributors ix
also has interests in the fields of irregular migration and the visual representa-
tion of political subjects, globalisation studies and interdisciplinarity. She has
published her research in Third World Quarterly and as book contributions.
Jean McDonald holds a SSHRC post- doctoral fellowship at the Institute on
Globalization and the Human Condition at McMaster University, Hamilton,
Ontario. Her research focuses on processes of illegalisation and barriers
facing non- status immigrants attempting to access services in Toronto. In
addition, she has extensive activist and community organising experience
with the social movement group No One Is Illegal and has been a key figure
in organising Don’t Ask Don’t Tell campaigns in Toronto, furthering rights
for non- status undocumented migrants. She is the author of ‘Citizenship, Ille-
gality and Sanctuary’ in Interrogating Race and Racism (University of
Toronto Press 2007).
Anne McNevin is Lecturer in International Studies and Research Fellow at the
Global Cities Research Institute at RMIT University, Melbourne, Victoria.
She is the author of Contesting Citizenship: Irregular Migrants and New
Frontiers of the Political (Columbia University Press 2011) and is the co-
editor (with Manfred Steger) of Global Ideologies and Urban Landscapes
(Routledge 2011). Her research spans migration, citizenship theory, globali-
sation, neoliberalism and critical political geography and has been published
in The Australian Journal of Political Science, Citizenship Studies, Globali
zations, New Political Science and Review of International Studies. She is
Assistant Editor of the journal Citizenship Studies.
Carolina Moulin is Assistant Professor of International Relations at the Institute
of International Relations, PUC- Rio, Brazil. She has published journal arti-
cles in International Political Sociology, Alternatives: Global, Local, Politi
cal and Refuge. Her research interests include critical international relations
theory, political agency, human mobility, and refugee studies.
Alina Sajed is Assistant Professor of International Relations at the University of
Hong Kong. Her core research interests are postcolonial approaches to inter-
national relations, globalisation and transnationalism, the politics of the
Global South, and critical security issues. She has published articles in Citi
zenship Studies, Review of International Studies and Cambridge Review of
International Affairs. Her book, Postcolonial Encounters in International
Relations: The Politics of Transgression in the Maghreb, will be published by
Routledge in 2012.
Nandita Sharma is Associate Professor in the Department of Sociology at the
University of Hawai’i at Manoa, Honolulu, Hawai’i. Her research interests
address themes of human migration, migrant labour, national state power,
ideologies of racism and nationalism, processes of identification and self-
understanding, and social movements for justice. Sharma is an activist scholar
whose research is shaped by the social movements she is active in, including
