Political Belonging in a Neoliberal Era

The Struggle of the Sans-Papiers

Bibliographic Data

ID4524975
AuthorsAnne Mcnevin (0000-0001-7746-2105, Australian National University, corresponding author)
Year2006
Volume10
Issue2
Pages135-151
Publication date2006-05-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessNo
TypeARTICLE
VenueCitizenship Studies (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 1362-1025 • E-ISSN: 1469-3593
PublisherInforma UK Limited (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1080/13621020600633051
OpenAlexW2010027483
LanguageEN
Citations received146
References cited37

This article argues that political belonging should be understood in the context of diverse spatial imaginaries which encompass but are not confined to the state. Engin Isin's approach to citizenship provides a theoretical grounding for this claim. By way of demonstration, the article focuses on the spatially reconfigured practices of the neoliberal state in relation to irregular migration. It shows how the policing of irregular migration sustains a logic of political belonging based on connections between state, citizen and territory. This logic is simultaneously compromised by transnational state practices including the exploitation of irregular migrant labour. Irregular migrants are contesting their positioning within these multidimensional statist frameworks that posit them as outsiders even while they are integrated into local sites of a global political economy. The struggle of the Sans-Papiers, a collective of irregular migrants in France, provides an example in this context. Their claims to entitlement also mobilize multiple dimensions of political belonging and provide insight into transitions in political community, identity and practice

Aesthetics · Citizenship · Economics · Geography · Political economy · Political science · Politics · Sociology · China's Global Influence and Migration · Law · Migration and Labor Dynamics · Migration, Refugees, and Integration

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