Book Review: Gregory Feldman, We Are All Migrants: Political Action and the Ubiquitous Condition of Migrant-hood
| Author | Hamish Reid |
| DOI | 10.1177/1478929916674588 |
| Published date | 01 February 2017 |
| Date | 01 February 2017 |
| Subject Matter | Book ReviewsGeneral Politics |
Political Studies Review 15 (1)
We Are All Migrants: Political Action and
urgency that he analyses scenes from Homer,
the Ubiquitous Condition of Migrant-hood
Beckett and Coetzee. Readers wanting long
by Gregory Feldman. Stanford, CA: Stanford
and detailed exposition of the text’s theoreti-
University Press, 2015. 117pp., £9.99 (p/b), ISBN
cal underpinnings, however, might be disap-
9780804789332
pointed. For example, Feldman claims that he
is rebalancing interpretations of Arendt’s
The distinction between citizen and migrant is
ideas by considering not just The Human
writ large in the so-called collective con-
Condition but her ‘full oeuvre’ (p. 14).
sciousness of our time. However fractured this
Although foundational to Feldman’s argu-
consciousness may be, the displacing effects
ment, this reinterpretation often remains
of war have rendered, once more, ‘home’,
implicit. Perhaps, appropriately, the text feels
‘refuge’ and ‘camps’ central motifs in contem-
fluid and full of movement; concepts are
porary political discourse. Gregory Feldman’s
introduced concisely and the argument devel-
We Are All Migrants offers an insightful and
ops quickly. What is lost in brevity is made up
pressing polemic examining the uncertainty
in breadth – an impressive achievement for
and atomisation which, he argues, characterise
such a short book.
the precarious position of both citizens and
migrants in neoliberal capitalism.
Although collapsing analytical categories
Hamish Reid
sometimes serves to obfuscate, We Are All
(University of Nottingham)
Migrants is clear in its purpose. It is not, as
© The Author(s) 2016
Feldman asserts, an act of ‘liberal patronage’
Reprints and permissions: sagepub.co.uk/journalsPermissions.nav
(p. 1); a naïve expression of shared identity
DOI: 10.1177/1478929916674588
journals.sagepub.com/home/psrev
with groups less fortunate than himself. Rather,
We Are All Migrants engages critically with the
disempowerment...
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