Martina Tazzioli - The Making of Migration

SOCIETY AND SPACE SERIES

The Society and Space series explores the fascinating relationship between the spatial and the social. Each title draws on a range of modern and historical theories to offer important insights into the key cultural and political topics of our times, including migration, globalisation, race, gender, sexuality and technology. These stimulating and provocative books combine high intellectual standards with contemporary appeal for students of politics, international relations, sociology, philosophy and human geography.

Series Editor: Professor Stuart Elden, University of Warwick

Migration, Ethics & Power: Spaces of Hospitality in International Politics by Dan Bulley

Geographies of Violence by Marcus A. Doel

Surveillance & Space by Francisco R. Klauser

The Data Gaze by David Beer

Circulation and Urbanization by Ross Exo Adams

The Biopolitics of Mobility at Europes Borders

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Ventimiglia, Calais, Bardonecchia, Lesvos, Lampedusa, Choucha, Rome, Athens, Chios, Berlin, Claviere, Paris, Briancon, Tunis: this book has been written in an attempt to follow the geographies of the so-called refugee crisis and the convoluted geographies of migrations. The idea of this book stems from endless and passionate discussions with Oana Parvan, Claudia Nardini and Simone Vegli, about the English mob, within and against. Together with them, this book comes out of the constant exchanges with Glenda Garelli, a true comrade, friend and very often co-author in our migration journey, since the time of Lampedusa and the Arab Uprisings.

I would like to especially thank Claudia Aradau, to whom I am particularly indebted, for her unconditional support, and the salient and truly engaging conversations, about biopolitics, the mob and critique. Many sections of this book have been rethought and revised again and again after those discussions. The Making of Migration has been very much informed by the debates and questioning with Judith Revel, since the time of Pisa. The focus on collective and individual subjects mainly comes from those endless lessons.

Nicholas De Genova and Sandro Mezzadra have been fundamental philosophical supports and sources of inspiration for orienting this work overall, and for constantly reminding me to keep politics at the core, as The Making of Migration tries to do. I would like to thank Barbara Pinelli, for pushing me towards new literatures and authors, and Elena Fontanari, for the discussions on counter-mapping and the beginning of our collective map. Thanks especially to William Walters, who has provided invaluable feedback on most of the content of this book. The collaboration and discussions with Manuela Bojadzijev, Angharad Closs-Stephens, Brenna Bhandar and Jef Huysmans have been crucial for developing and further problematising collective subjects and mobility. Conversations and exchanges with colleagues and friends have nourished and enriched the chapters of The Making of Migration: Lauren Martin, Filippo Furri, Gaia Giuliani, Dave Clarke, Amedeo Policante, Emma McCluskey, Maurice Stierl, Lorenzo Pezzani, Stephan Scheel, Leonie Ansems de Vries, Federica Mazzara, Charles Heller, Marcus Doel, Neva Cocchi Aila Spathopoulou, Alessandra Sciurba, Fiorenza Picozza, Paolo Novak, Eduardo Domenech. And Arnold Davidson, a constant source of inspiration over the years and beginning of my Foucaultian journey. The analyses on subjectivity and critique would have not been possible without the invaluable exchange and confrontation over the years with Daniele Lorenzini, Orazio Irrera and Laura Cremonesi. I am also very grateful to Stuart Elden, for supporting this project with no reservations. The Making of Migration tries to leave a trace of those who are here and who are not going back.

If we confront the geopolitical map of Europe with an imaginative cartography of the actual frontiers for migrants in Europe and the multiplication of punctuated border zones that are also spaces of struggle and refuge for the migrants such as Calais, Ventimiglia, Eidomeni, the train station in Berlin, the informal encampments in Paris we would immediately notice a huge discrepancy between the two maps. Indeed, most of these frontiers are not visualised on the geopolitical map, as not all of them correspond to the national borders. Moreover, on the geopolitical map borders are homogeneous; that is, they do not represent the differential and unequal ways in which these impact on and are experienced by subjects. Such an account of the European space contributes to unsettle taken-for-granted state narratives about the existence of a refugee crisis, as well as analyses that are predicated upon an emergency politics (Honig, 2009) of migration. In fact, nowadays the European space is punctuated by mushrooming border zones, spaces of migrant struggles, safe places of temporary refuge and others that have been transformed into hostile environments. Many cities across Europe have become frontier-spaces for the migrants, but at the same time also places where spaces of sanctuary and struggles to stay took place. Notably, many of these border zones such as Calais are not exceptional spaces that suddenly popped up, but rather places that have contributed to shape Europes space. Indeed, a political genealogy and memory of these border zones should be retraced, bringing to the fore Europes geographies of control and the counter-geographies enacted by migrants.