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Chapter 12: Why is people's movement restricted?

This chapter examines why, in an increasingly interconnected world, people’s movement is still restricted, and it considers how these restrictions limit who is able to move and where these populations can move. Focusing on the aftermath of the European migration crisis in 2015, the chapter traces the rise in xenophobic political discourse alongside the more restrictive immigration and asylum policies aimed at curtailing the number of asylum seekers arriving at the borders of European states. It argues that these policies are often targeted at certain racialised groups, which are presented as an existential threat to the national community within anti-immigrant and anti-asylum seeker discourses. When it comes to understanding why people’s movement is restricted and how their movement is restricted, this chapter suggests that we must also pay close attention to whose movement is restricted and whose is not.

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Chapter Abstract

Why is people’s movement restricted? This chapter examines why, in an increasingly interconnected world, barriers are placed on people’s movement that limit who is able to move and where these populations can move. Focusing on the aftermath of the European migration crisis in 2015, the chapter traces the rise in xenophobic political discourse alongside the more restrictive immigration and asylum policies aimed at curtailing the number of asylum seekers arriving at the borders of European states. It argues that these policies are often targeted at certain racialized groups, which are presented as an existential threat to the national community within anti-immigrant, and anti-asylum seeker discourses. When it comes to understanding why people’s movement is restricted and how their movement is restricted, this chapter suggests that we must also pay close attention to whose movement is restricted and whose is not.

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Additional web content and audio-visual materials

1. The fundamental right to seek asylum: This TEDx talk by refugee and immigration attorney Melanie Nezer provides a historical perspective on the flow of migrants through the southern US border. Nezer also discusses how citizens can hold their governments responsible for protecting vulnerable asylum seekers through policymaking that is compassionate and pragmatic.
https://www.ted.com/talks/melanie_nezer_the_fundamental_right_to_seek_asylum?subtitle=en

2. Refuge: How the State Shapes Human Potential: In this lecture, sociologist Heba Gowayed discusses the human experience of displacement and how states deny the potential of refugees and perpetuate inequality: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NGtEllN2rc4

3. No Safe Haven: The Weaponization of Migration: Produced by VICE News, this short film documents the way weaponization of the crisis narrative and the politicization of migration impacts the lives on asylum seekers. The video focuses on the lives of refugees in Turkey and features interviews with migrants, people smugglers, Turkish authorities as well as European Union officials: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gAPdzH0_QhE

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Global Politics Film Club

Each of these films/documentaries reflect upon the politics of bordering practices and the impact it has on the lives of migrants.

Born in Syria (2016), dir. Hernán Zin

The Swimmers (2022), dir. Sally El-Hosaini

Borderland: The Line Within (2024), dir. Pamela Yates

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Seminar room activities

Activity: Students should search a major news outlet for coverage of ‘illegal’ immigration. They should integrate the ways in which the (migration) ‘crisis’ discourse is constructed. In this discourse, how is the identity and values of the host society is articulated? How are migrants – and more generally, migration – viewed as crisis-inducing to the host society? Students should be urged to identify whether all migrants are viewed as equally ‘problematic’ and if particular racial hierarchies are evident in terms whose movement is restricted and whose is not.

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Assessment Questions

  1. Is the restriction of people’s movement defensible?
  2. What is the purpose of borders and bordering practices in contemporary global politics?
  3. Critically interrogate the role of race in contemporary bordering practices.