Illegality
Regimes:
Mapping the Law of Irregular Migration
A
Conference at the VU University Amsterdam
30
May - 1 June 2013
Recent
years have seen the development of increasingly sophisticated legal and policy
approaches to address the phenomenon of irregular immigration. Many states have
moved beyond traditional means of law enforcement, such as criminalization,
without necessarily abandoning them. In addition, they have begun to employ
other areas of law (such as administrative law and labor law) in pursuit of
controlling irregular immigration.
For
example, the verification of legal residence status, by means of ID-controls,
has become increasingly necessary in the day to day life of all people: citizens
and non-citizens alike. Private citizens, and not government agents, are
evolving into the primary enforcers of these policies, as they have been made
legally responsible for the control of legal residence status, for example in
the case of employment.
These
legal and policy instruments have sometimes been justified with reference to
economic theories, such as 'attrition through enforcement', the broken window
theory, and most recently 'self-deportation', a term that ironically originated
in a stand-up sketch performed by two Hispanic comedians in the mid '90s, and
has since then been promoted to a major policy proposal in the Romney campaign
for the US presidential elections.
Among
economic scholars, a debate about the (lack of) effectiveness of these policies
has been growing the last couple of years. What is still absent, however, is a
more rigorous analysis by legal and other social science scholars. This
conference aims to explore the more systemic dimensions of these responses to
irregular migration. For this purpose, scholars from all disciplines are invited
to consider (any of) the following questions, or to respond with additional
insights and approaches:
Consider
the following examples:
o
What
effect have programs such as e-Verify (in the US) had on labor law and labor
relations?
o
What
effect has the use of administrative detention as the primary means of coercion
had on the field of administrative law?
o
What
effect has the widespread use of immigrant detention regimes had on criminal
(procedural) law?
o
What
are the various ways in which illegality regimes have imposed a growing reliance
on ID-verification? How should the consequences of this development be
assessed?
o
By
what means have private agents been increasingly 'deputized' into becoming
enforcers of these policies? How should the legal and other consequences of this
development be assessed?
o
How
has the regulation of surveillance technologies impact these various
developments?
o
We
are also interested in philosophical or theoretical analyses that consider the
background themes that underlie this topic, such as the spread of securitization
& surveillance, the increased reliance on 'profiling' in the construction of
(legal) identities, and the idea that illegality regimes are a manifestation of
neo-liberal approaches to governmentality.
Additionally,
we welcome historical, sociological, and ethnographic ventures into these
questions. We also welcome contributions from as many countries as possible, so
that we can benefit from a plurality of experiences and approaches.
Submissions:
Abstracts
of no more than 500 words should be emailed (preferably attached in .pdf format)
to submissions(at)illegality.org no later than 1 February 2013. Please also
include a short bio in the same document as the abstract. The closing date for
submissions of (full) papers will be 30 April 2013.
Organizing
Committee
Dr.
Juan M. Amaya-Castro (VU University) & Dr. Bas Schotel
(University of Amsterdam)
For
information, please contact us: info(at)illegality.org
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