Unauthorised migration beyond structure/agency? Acts, interventions, effects
| Date | 01 August 2017 |
| DOI | 10.1177/0263395716679674 |
| Author | Vicki Squire |
| Published date | 01 August 2017 |
| Subject Matter | Special Issue Articles |
https://doi.org/10.1177/0263395716679674
Politics
2017, Vol. 37(3) 254 –272
© The Author(s) 2016
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DOI: 10.1177/0263395716679674
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Unauthorised migration
beyond structure/agency?
Acts, interventions, effects
Vicki Squire
University of Warwick, UK
Abstract
What are the most appropriate conceptual tools by which to develop an analysis of ‘unauthorised
migration’? Is ‘migrant agency’ an effective critical concept in the context of a so-called European
migration ‘crisis’? This article reflects on these questions through a detailed exploration of the
‘structure/agency debate’. It suggests the need for caution in engaging such a conceptual frame
in analysing the politics of unauthorised migration. Despite the sophistication of many relational
accounts of structure-agency, the grounding of this framework in questions of intentionality
risks reproducing assumptions about subjects whose decision to migrate is more or less free
from constraint. The article argues that such assumptions are analytically problematic because
they involve a simplification of processes of subjectivity formation. Moreover, it also argues that
they are normatively and politically problematic in the context of debates around unauthorised
migration because discussions of structure/agency can easily slip into the legitimisation of wider
assumptions about the culpability and/or victimhood of people on the move. Drawing on Michel
Foucault’s theorisation of subjectification, the article proposes an alternative analytics of acts,
interventions, and effects by which to address the politics of unauthorised migration in the midst
of a so-called ‘migration crisis’.
Keywords
acts, agency, borders, migration, structure
Received: 24th November 2015; Revised version received: 15th August 2016; Accepted: 3rd October 2016
The so-called European ‘migration crisis’ became headline news in 2015. On 19 April,
there was an incident in which more than 800 migrants died in the central Mediterranean
between Libya and Malta. In November 2015, the United Nations High Commissioner
for Refugees (UNHCR) reported nearly 3500 dead or missing across the entire region
(UNHCR, 2015). The final death toll for 2015 was estimated at over 3700 (International
Organization for Migration (IOM), 2016). Indeed, a relatively sudden increase in
unauthorised migration from the Middle East via Turkey to Greece and through the
Corresponding author:
Vicki Squire, Department of Politics and International Studies, University of Warwick, Coventry CV4 7AL,
UK.
Email: V.J.Squire@warwick.ac.uk
679674POL0010.1177/0263395716679674PoliticsSquire
research-article2016
Special Issue Article
Squire 255
Balkans provoked disarray in established mechanisms for managing migration across
the European Union (EU). These developments were met by polarised political and
public responses. On one hand, borders closed and an emergent anti-migration posi-
tion became increasingly prevalent. This was evident in the closure of the Balkan route
and in statements made by leaders such as the Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán
about the need to prevent migration to the EU. On the other hand, concerns over the
humanitarian plight of refugees and migrants became increasingly significant. This
was evident in the increasing levels of volunteer activism across Europe as well as in
the public outcry that emerged when pictures of the body of drowned toddler Aylan
Kurdi went viral in September 2015.
In this context, terminology reflects polarised positions. Phrases such as ‘illegal migra-
tion’ and ‘migration crisis’ often imply an anti-migration response, while terms such as
‘forced migration’ and ‘refugee crisis’ are often associated with a humanitarian alterna-
tive. This article rejects the normative and political terms of this debate and refers instead
to ‘unauthorised migration’ as a phenomenon that emerges through the relation between
migratory forces and forces that render these ‘illegal’ or irregular (Squire, 2011). However,
it does so in terms that seek neither to overlook nor to assume what is often referred to as
‘migrant agency’ (Squire, 2015b). As Cetta Mainwaring (2016: 5–6) has more recently
suggested, paying attention to the ‘agency used to negotiate mobility’ is to look at the
‘intersection between migrant agency and sovereign power’ in terms that demonstrate
migrants are not ‘victims or villains’. Indeed, an emphasis on migrant agency has become
increasingly prominent in literatures in the field of migration and border studies, precisely
in order to challenge oversimplified conceptions of people on the move either as victims
of violence and exploitation or as villains who commit crimes (Anderson, 2008; Sharma,
2003; Squire, 2009). In this context, Brigit Anderson and Martin Ruhs (2010: 178) argue
that ‘theorising migrant agency is of crucial importance’ because migrants ‘interact with
and help shape policy, which is itself reactive to migrants as well as to broader political
and economic climate’.
This article draws on the critical insights of scholarship that emphasises how migrant
agency, subjectivities, and practices are dimensions that are often lacking from analyses
of unauthorised or irregular migration (see also Squire, 2011).1 Yet in taking seriously
Anderson and Ruhs’ suggestion, it also seeks to contribute to such literatures by interro-
gating the concept of ‘migrant agency’ in further detail. In particular, the article interro-
gates the structure/agency debate in social science as a means to highlight the analytical
and normative importance of exercising care in engaging the concept of ‘migrant
agency’.2 The so-called European ‘migration crisis’ does not only raise questions for pol-
icy-makers and for European politics more broadly. It also raises questions about how a
critical analysis of the politics of unauthorised migration can effectively proceed in both
analytical and normative terms. The challenge then is how to develop analysis that fosters
full understanding of the dynamics of unauthorised migration, yet in a way that can shift
the terms of a debate which has become worryingly polarised. More precisely, how to do
so in a way that does not perpetuate broader assumptions about people on the move as
being victims of circumstance and/or culpable for their situation?
In reflecting on such questions, this article considers what the most appropriate con-
ceptual tools are by which to develop an analysis of ‘unauthorised migration’. It asks, is
“migrant agency” an effective critical concept in the context of a so-called European
migration “crisis”? How helpful are the social scientific concepts of structure and agency
for critical scholarship in the field of border and migration studies? By considering
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