MAJEURE : Migrations en Europe : les frontières de la liberté
FRONTIÈRES ET FRONTS. CHAÎNES MIGRATOIRES
By THOMAS ATZERT, YANN MOULIER BOUTANG, SANDRO MEZZADRA, ISABELLE SAINT SAËNS, RALTL SANCHEZ.
The « migrant » cannot dissolve in the figure of « the Other » : if European societies have spent so much energy, for decades and centuries, marking migrants (with passports, visas, or refusal to grant such papers) and parking them (in ghettoes, townships and camps), it is because they see in the « intruder,) a reflection not of the Other, but of themselves : of this very liberty and equality which they shamefully deny in practice while proudly claiming them in principles. This introductory article surveys the various aspects discussed in this issue of Multitudes about the current stakes of migrations, usually obliterated by nebulous meditations on « Alterity ».
CAPITALISME, MIGRATIONS ET LUTTES SOCIALES. NOTES PRÉLIMINAIRES POUR UNE THÉORIE DE L’AUTONOMIE DES MIGRATIONS
By SANDRO MEZZADRA.
The author discusses some of the challenges coming from the current development of migration theory and migration studies on the international level. Such « hydraulic » theoretical models as the « push and pull theory » seem to experience a deep crisis when confronted with contemporary global migrations. The role migrants play in the production of new transnational social spaces and in new political, social, and even economic networks is recognized by a growing number of scholars, e.g. by the representatives of the so-called new economics of migration. The aim of the article, which is to be understood as the presentation of a research project, is to outline some of the features of a possible new theoretical framework, trying to link this role with a critical understanding of the transformations of citizenship, labor market, and « class composition » in the global age.
LES CHAÎNES DE LA MIGRATION EN EUROPE.
By YANN MOULIER BOUTANG.
Europe has not yet gone through its process of internal decolonization. The project of European Constitution missed a historical opportunity to abolish the regime of apartheid which will continue to haunt its inner space and its borders in the decades ahead of us, leading to a multiplication of discriminations, harassments, oppressions, and camps. The less the European Union will be federally integrated, the more its migration policies will be characterized by repressive absurdities. The networks of European activists will sooner or later lead us to consider migrants as the people crucially missing from the concert of European nations.
LE MYSTÈRE DE L’ARRIVÉE. DES CAMPS ET DES SPECTRES
By MANUELA BOJADZIJEV, SERHAT KARAKAYALI, VASSILIS TSIANOS.
The authors are focusing on the relation of migration and labour by discussing Michael Hardt and Antonio Negri’s « Empire » on the one hand, and Giorgio Agamben’s notion of Lager on the other. Migration, they argue, can be understood as a form of class struggle, in which demands for autonomy and self-determination find their spontaneous expression.
UNE HISTOIRE DE PETITS RENONCEMENTS SUCCESSIFS. LE H.C.R. ET LES POLITIQUES D’ASILE EN EUROPE
By VIOLAINE CARRÈRE.
The author analyses the recent prevarications of the High Commissioner for Refugees towards the increasingly restrictive and repressive measures taken by European States against asylum-seekers. Instead of defending the rights of the refugees who are supposedly under its protection, the HCR was quick to bend over to the rhetorical displacements presenting asylum-seekers, no longer as victims, but as « cheaters » imposing an « unbearable burden » on rich West-European societies. As a consequence of a series of self-repudiations, it now approves of projects leading to the confinement of asylum-seekers, thus acting directly against the spirit and the letter of the Geneva Convention it is in charge of enforcing anywhere in the world. A sad but exemplary case of pragmatism going adrift.
DES CAMPS EN EUROPE AUX CAMPS DE L’EUROPE
By ISABELLE SAINT SAËNS.
Foreigners’ camps have existed in Europe for a long time. If, from the French waiting zones to the camps in the Greek islands, the regulations, the average duration of stay, the status of the detainees (whose only crime is the infringement of, or the attempt to infringe, the rules enforced by the states for the crossing of their borders) vary, the common characteristics are the violation of fundamerntal rights and physical as well as psychological violences. A camp is also a process (of control, of filtering) : not only as a space for confinement and immobilization, but as a spatialized attempt to channel movements, manage routes and make mobility productive. All of which is not taken into account by the old Fortress Europe slogan, carrying along victimary and paternalistic schemes which negate migrants as subjects. The recent European plans for externalizing camps for asylum seekers outside Europe (Libya, Morocco, Ukraine) are a critical turning point: EU states dodge the responsabilities imposed on them by the international Treaties they signed (Geneva Convention,…), asylum and immigration policies are openly defined, in the European doxa, as tools for police control and migratory utilitarianism, of which the camps are an essential mechanism.
AUX FRONTIÈRES DE L’EUROPE. CITOYENNETÉS POSTCOLONIALES DANS L’EUROPE ÉLARGIE
By ENRICA RIGO.
This article offers a critical view of the process of material constitutionalization of the European citizenship, through an analysis of the transformations of its outer borders in the phase of enlargement. The repositioning and deterritorialization of the inner and outer borders of the EU lead to a decomposition of its judiciary space, which illustrates the way in which borders have become an instrument of governance of Europe’s postcolonial condition. The analysis focuses on the recent legislative transformations introduced in Poland, Romania and Bulgaria in order to adapt their national judicial systems to EU common rules.
RACISME CORSE ANTI-MAGHRÉBIN : L’ACTION DU COLLECTIF AVA BASTA
By NOËLLE VINCENSINI.
The author, President of the Corsican antiracist collective Avà Basta, presents the specific forms taken by immigration and by its integration in a Corsican society deeply marked by its insularity and its unique history. She describes an immigrant population mostly of Moroccan origins, and analyses the role played by the identitary-nationalist Corsican reference in the racist discourse as well as in the anti-immigrant violence of the last months. She stresses the necessity, for Avà Basta, beyond its struggle against injustice and discrimination on a universal basis, to demand that the nationalist movement position itself in favor of a definition of the Corsican nation based on a « community of fate s, ruling out any ethnicist temptation.
MIGRATIONS ET AUTOVALORISATION. ENQUÊTE AUX MARGES DU SYSTÈME
By ALESSANDRA CORRADO.
This article is the synthesis of a research project that took place in Bamako, Mali, which observed the experimentations in new conditions of living set in place by sub-Saharan migrants. This chronicle suggests that migration constitutes a subversive and creative subjective experience. Migrants in Bamako, far from being reduced to a mere clandestine and over-exploited work force within the economies of the core of the capitalist system, create their own conditions of valorization, in autonomy, through a direct control of their power to invent and through renewed forms of social cooperation.
DE LA COMMUNAUTÉ D’INTÉRÊTS À LA LUTTE DE CLASSE. «CONSTITUTION DU TRAVAIL» ET MIGRATIONS DANS LES ÉCRITS DE MAX WEBER SUR LES TRAVAILLEURS AGRICOLES
By FURIO FERRARESI ET SANDRO MEZZADRA
In his early writings, devoted to the farm workers of Eastern Prussia (1892-1897), Max
Weber described with great insight the tensions caused simultaneously and jointly by transformations in the economic structures and by migratory phenomena. Between nationalist ideals, conquest of world markets, class struggles and transnational competition among workers, these texts provide us with many important clues better to understand Weber’s thought, as well as with many echoes anticipating the current debates about migrations.
INSERT : Pragmatique du voile
PRAGMATIQUE DU VOILE
By MARTIN COLLETTE.
Laws do not suffice to make societies. Gabriel Tarde could have expressed this warning under two hats, first as a legal theorist, then as a sociologist. However, this does not lead him to dissolve society into merely individualistic calculations. His concept of imitation calls for a distributive description of social facts. Its other virtue directs our attention towards the secret sources of invention, which cannot be predicted by the legislator, and which keep the sociologist from being able to close his system (this is Tarde’s bone of contention against Durkheim). The « social body » is infiltrated from all sides by upsurges of novelties, variations, and adaptations. Hence, and even though Tarde opted for a metaphysical foundation, his sociology is bound to pragmatic demands. The recent French controversy about the Islamic veil provides a testing board for such propositions.
MINEURE : Internet : la fin des intermediaries ?
DISQUAIRES DE RÊVE ET BOÎTES À MUSIQUE : LA «FIN DES INTERMÉDIAIRES» À L’ENVERS
by FRANÇOIS DEBRUYNE.
On the basis of a comparison between a French record store and a Malian street vendor, the article questions the various forms of listening at stake in each case, forms which constitute simultaneously various modes of appropriating the music, and various trademarks of possible worlds of musical exchanges. In such worlds, ordinary and specific as they are, the shop-keeper remains our favorite gate-keeper: this is a tale of the « withering away of the intermediaries s, only in reverse.
DÉSINTERMÉDIATION ET DÉMOCRATIE : QUELQUES QUESTIONS DANS LE DOMAINE CULTUREL
By HERVÉ LE CROSNIER.
The so-called « Californian » hypothesis proved wrong: the intermediaries did not wither away with the arrival of the Internet. In the field of scientific publications, in the recording industry (labels, DJs, critics) or in the world of books and periodicals, intermediaries are being forced to re-invent themselves, sometimes discovering new ways of doing things that are more flexible and more open to the outside.
RETOUR SUR LE LYBER.
By MICHEL VALENSI.
The « Editions de l’Éclat » have taken on the challenge of making available online, in full-text, a significant proportion of the books included in their catalogue. If this hasn’t hurt them sofa, it is no doubt because the book as an object still has a strong appeal, in spite of the conveniences of the digital version. At the same time, the Internet opens new possibilities for the circulation of texts, induces new reading practices, and could soon force itself into the lives of all publishers as the only means to ensure their survival.
L’ÉTOILE DU BERGER. RÉFLEXIONS SUR LES NOUVEAUX INTERMÉDIAIRES DE LA CHAÎNE CULTURELLE
By NICOLAS AURAY.
Starting from an analysis of the various links constituting the cultural chain (production, distribution, exploitation) and through a historical contextualization of the « Top 40 » techniques set in place by the majors, the author shows that their intermediation has resulted in a state of artificial scarcity (a few titles take most of the market shares) and in an acceleration of time (these title come and go at great speed). He then considers whether peer-to-peer connections and the current hunger for culture on the net are more likely to upset or to fuel the current logics at work in the cultural chain.
HORS-CHAMPS : Warschawski : impasse en Palestine / Israel
SRAÉLIENS ET PALESTINIENS DANS UNE IMPASSE SANGLANTE
By MICHELWARSCHAWSKI.
A tireless Israeli activist for peace between the Palestinian and Israeli people, Michel Warschawski paints a lucid picture of the terrible current situation. In front of a Palestinian population which is condemned to passive resistance and mere survival, his analysis of the Oslo Agreements and of the Sharon Plan is merciless. Considering the disproportion of forces and the fact that Palestine is « the outpost, as well as in some ways the laboratory, of global war and of the recolonisation of the world », he calls for an urgent mobilization of the international community.
LIENS
ÊTRE NÉ DE L’ÉCUME / SPHÈRES 111
By PETER SLOTERDIJK.
This article presents excerpts from the introduction to Peter Sloterdijk’s forthcoming book (in French translation), Foams. Plural Spherology, third volume of Spheres, where the author defines a Foam-model as the condition of a neo-monadology. This almost-nothing, which nevertheless carries a form, a surface, a fragility and its own temporality, opens a space for the subversion of the notion of substance. Following the analogy between foams (in German: Schäume) and dreams (Träume), Sloterdijk reconfigures the images and anxieties of modernity in order to sketch an « aphrology » -from the Greek aphros, «foam » – a theory of the systems characterized by relations of co fragility.
FEMMES MIGRANTES : INVISIBILITÉ, ETHNICISATION.
By GISELLE DONNARD.
In its effort « to reconsider the sexist and racist biases that lead to ignore the fundamental role played by migrant women in our society s, this collection of articles stresses both the invisibilization and the ethnicization of the work performed by migrant women, as it is inscribed within the sexual division of labor. The analyses provided here cover various European countries, Spain, France, Italy.
QUI A PEUR DES POST COLONIAL STUDIES EN FRANCE?
By LAURENCE ALLARD.
Two recent publications investigate the nexus that ties together gender, cultural and postcolonial studies, Les féministes et le garçon arabe by Nacira Guénif Souilamas and Eric Macé, and a French translation of Paul Gilroy’s The Black Atlantic : Modernity and Double Consciousness. Both contribute to refresh the Franco-French debate on immigration by linking issues of gender, class and race at work in today’s social conflicts.