Spectacles of migrant 'illegality': the scene of exclusion, the obscene of inclusion

Border policing and immigration law enforcement produce a spectacle that enacts a scene of 'exclusion'. Such spectacles render migrant 'illegality' visible. Thus, these material practices help to generate a constellation of images and discursive formations, which repetitively sup...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Ethnic and racial studies 2013-07, Vol.36 (7), p.1180-1198
Main Author: De Genova, Nicholas
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
border
Borders
Citizenship
Criminalization
Immigration law
Immigration Policy
Inequality
Investigations (Law Enforcement)
Labour
Law Enforcement
Migrants
nativism/xenophobia
Noncitizens
Policing
Political Campaigns
Race
spectacle
Subordination
undocumented/illegal migration
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Summary:Border policing and immigration law enforcement produce a spectacle that enacts a scene of 'exclusion'. Such spectacles render migrant 'illegality' visible. Thus, these material practices help to generate a constellation of images and discursive formations, which repetitively supply migrant 'illegality' with the semblance of an objective fact. Yet, the more these spectacles fuel anti-immigrant controversy, the more the veritable inclusion of the migrants targeted for exclusion proceeds apace. Their 'inclusion' is finally devoted to the subordination of their labour, which is best accomplished only insofar as their incorporation is persistently beleaguered with exclusionary campaigns that ensure that this inclusion is itself a form of subjugation. At stake, then, is a larger sociopolitical (and legal) process of inclusion through exclusion. This we may comprehend as the obscene of inclusion. The castigation of 'illegals' thereby supplies the rationale for essentializing citizenship inequalities as categorical differences that then may be racialized.
ISSN:0141-9870
1466-4356
DOI:10.1080/01419870.2013.783710