Reinhard Schweitzer. 2022. Micro‐management of Irregular Migration Internal Borders and Public Services in London and Barcelona. Springer: Cham. pp. 203.
| Published date | 01 December 2022 |
| Author | Simon Güntner |
| Date | 01 December 2022 |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1111/imig.13084 |
286 wileyonlinelibrary.com/journal/imig Int Migr. 2022;60:286–288.
DOI: 10.1111/imig.13084
Received: 17 October 2022 Accepted: 21 October 2022
Despite all provisions of migration policies and border control, there will always be persons in a country without a legal
residential status. Eventually, they will be in contact with public services, if they become ill, look for advice or else. For
the respective institutions, this could cause concern as needs and requests might be difficult to account or process. In
such situations, service staff will ask themselves if they should even know about the person's residential status, and if
they should tell anyone about it in case it is perceived as irregular. Reinhard Schweitzer's book Micro-Management of
Irregular Migration – Internal Borders and Public Services in London and Barcelona seeks to understand and explain what
happens in such encounters. The book opens with a conceptual elaboration of migration management, an analytical
framework and the case-study based research design. It introduces the political contexts of migrant irregularity in
the United Kingdom and in Spain, and in London and Barcelona, respectively. The following sections then provide
detailed accounts of micro-management in the provision of health care, public education and social assistance in both
cities. A concluding chapter reflects on how local contexts, public institutions and street-level bureaucrats shape the
local responses.
Drawing on systems theory, neo-institutional sociology, border studies and a Foucauldian theory of power,
Schweitzer develops a heuristic model that distinguishes four degrees of discretionary power with regard to the
control of migrant irregularity and the need to know or tell, ranging from hardly any (‘deputisation’) via little (‘respon-
sibilisations’) and some (‘autonomisation’) to settings where service providers do not have to consider the person's
status (‘shielding’). In the comparative study, this grid is applied at individual and organizational level to analyse
three service areas (public health care, public education and social assistance) in two very different cities: London
and Barcelona. Across these thematic and geographic areas, Schweitzer finds a broad range of differing and even
contrasting contexts and arrangements but also some similarities.
To start with, the political contexts differ widely, given the hostile ‘deportation turn’ and anti-immigrant campaigns
in the United Kingdom and the tradition of acceptance of ‘sizeable portions of unauthorized entry and stay’ in Spain
(p. 58). Such political contexts and discourses clearly filter through to the situations in which a person asks for advice
or health treatment. But they do not fully determine individual decisions – this is where other factors such as the
rationales of a professional field or an organizational culture as well as individual dispositions of come in. This is an
important finding of this study. For instance, in health care and education, robust human rights frameworks corre-
spond with professional ethics, whilst granting social assistance seems to be much more susceptible to rationales of
BOOK REVIEW
Reinhard Schweitzer. 2022. Micro-management
of Irregular Migration Internal Borders and Public
Services in London and Barcelona. Springer:
Cham. pp. 203.
Simon Güntner
Technische Universität Wien, Wien, Austria
Email: simon.guentner@tuwien.ac.at
© 2022 International Organization for Migration.
Get this document and AI-powered insights with a free trial of vLex and Vincent AI
Get Started for FreeStart Your Free Trial of vLex and Vincent AI, Your Precision-Engineered Legal Assistant
-
Access comprehensive legal content with no limitations across vLex's unparalleled global legal database
-
Build stronger arguments with verified citations and CERT citator that tracks case history and precedential strength
-
Transform your legal research from hours to minutes with Vincent AI's intelligent search and analysis capabilities
-
Elevate your practice by focusing your expertise where it matters most while Vincent handles the heavy lifting
Start Your Free Trial of vLex and Vincent AI, Your Precision-Engineered Legal Assistant
-
Access comprehensive legal content with no limitations across vLex's unparalleled global legal database
-
Build stronger arguments with verified citations and CERT citator that tracks case history and precedential strength
-
Transform your legal research from hours to minutes with Vincent AI's intelligent search and analysis capabilities
-
Elevate your practice by focusing your expertise where it matters most while Vincent handles the heavy lifting
Start Your Free Trial of vLex and Vincent AI, Your Precision-Engineered Legal Assistant
-
Access comprehensive legal content with no limitations across vLex's unparalleled global legal database
-
Build stronger arguments with verified citations and CERT citator that tracks case history and precedential strength
-
Transform your legal research from hours to minutes with Vincent AI's intelligent search and analysis capabilities
-
Elevate your practice by focusing your expertise where it matters most while Vincent handles the heavy lifting
Start Your Free Trial of vLex and Vincent AI, Your Precision-Engineered Legal Assistant
-
Access comprehensive legal content with no limitations across vLex's unparalleled global legal database
-
Build stronger arguments with verified citations and CERT citator that tracks case history and precedential strength
-
Transform your legal research from hours to minutes with Vincent AI's intelligent search and analysis capabilities
-
Elevate your practice by focusing your expertise where it matters most while Vincent handles the heavy lifting
Start Your Free Trial of vLex and Vincent AI, Your Precision-Engineered Legal Assistant
-
Access comprehensive legal content with no limitations across vLex's unparalleled global legal database
-
Build stronger arguments with verified citations and CERT citator that tracks case history and precedential strength
-
Transform your legal research from hours to minutes with Vincent AI's intelligent search and analysis capabilities
-
Elevate your practice by focusing your expertise where it matters most while Vincent handles the heavy lifting