Panel 11: Contesting Borders, Reimagining Mobility: Perspectives on Migration Regimes and Governance (EN)

Chair: Ajay Kumar (Amity University Haryana) & Sunil Choudhary (Amity University Rajasthan)

15 April, 5:10 pm | Room C002

Decolonising the Migration State: Rethinking Migration Norms Owing to the Resurgence of Far-Right Nationalism in France and Germany

Ishan Fouzdar (Shiv Nadar University)

The norms of inter-state migration carry two biases: the Eurocentric bias and the host country bias. Both have fed into one another because, since the Second World War, Europe and the U.S. became the prized host destinations, shaping migration norms and laws by keeping the Westphalian nation-state at the centre. Thus, the ’ migration state ’ emerged, which manages migration by balancing economic benefits and national sovereignty. Inherent in this concept is the right of the states to exclude political aliens, which stems from the Hegelian idea that a state should hold one homogenous nation. A critique of this led to political stranger exceptionalism, which has translated into the Geneva Convention for Refugees, making an exception for refugees within the signatories’ right to exclude political strangers. However, the resurgence of far-right nationalisms in Europe raises questions about this exception. This paper tackles one of them: Why have the Front National and Alternative for Germany (AfD) been able to rally against immigration in the presence of international conventions? Furthermore, their rise has been contingent upon their anti-immigration agenda, which raises doubts about the safeguards and the norm of political stranger exceptionalism that the European Union and the Geneva Convention have deemed to guarantee. These developments, this paper argues, reveal the inadequacy of the mainstream theorisation of international migration. The refugee rights were guaranteed as an ‘exception’, and exceptions prove the rule rather than reforming it. This study suggests that reforming migration norms demands critical theorisation by moving away from the Eurocentric and host country bias and bringing in the views from the Global South. To do the same, it tries to decolonise the norm of exclusion by reforming the idea of sovereignty using Walter Mignolo’s Decoloniality and Boaventura Santos’ Epistemologies from the South. A critical theorisation of migration that considers the South’s views will act as an inclusive foundation for reforming migration norms that have a better firewall against the xenophobic propaganda of far-right nationalism.

Keywords: refugees; migration norms; decoloniality; far-right nationalism

Towards a Theory of the Multiplicity of Borders

Lisa Ann Senecal (ICS, Universidade de Lisboa)

Borders are structures that influence, control and regulate mobility. Although it is true borders are physical, the empirical research associated with this presentation evidences how the physical aspect of borders tends to overdetermine what borders are, where borders are found and what borders do. Agnew (1994, 2008) dubbed this tendency – to think of borders as facts, “edges” of space, or lines drawn on maps – the “territorial trap”. This research isolates four aspects of borders. They divide physically, institutionally, conceptually and emotionally. I have adopted Balibar’s (2009) concept “the regime of borders” to speak to the articulation and disarticulation of these aspects of borders. I have relied on the term “the experiential borders”, created in this research, to indicate how border-crossers of Malta’s regime of borders reported sensing, feeling – indeed experiencing – borders in unique, separate, individualized and differential ways. I have prioritized the practice, the lived-experience, the phenomenological borders over its discursive or representational aspects. Significantly, the intervention I propose is to challenge the notion that there is one, singular, unified border – instead, I posit that there exists a “multiplicity of borders”. The function that these borders serve is at once segregating and segregated. European borders are separate and unequal. Borders are illusive, allusive and elusive. This means that they take on the quality of illusion: borders appear to be something they are not or exist in places they do not seem to. They take on the quality of being allusive; they allude to, suggest indirectly or refer to something else. They are situated within a historical continuum that orders people and cultures. Finally, they take on an elusive quality because they are difficult to “pin down”; they escape or defy capture. I explore how current borders are linked with historical ones and with the ideological gaze of colonialism. Depending on the markers of class, race, and the passport one holds – due to the randomness of who or where one was born (Shachar, 2009) – the borders are different. They are more deadly and dehumanizing. The lethality of borders is grounded in orientalism. This grounding must be deconstructed and deracinated from the legal regimes that support imperial logics. In this paper, I aim to challenge the singularity of the border, the dialectic of legality-illegality and propose the alternative polylectic, that is, the multiplicity of European borders.

Keywords: regime of borders; ethnography; Malta; noncitizens; decoloniality

Third-Country Agreements and Externalisation of Migration Management by the European Union

Ajay Kumar (Amity University Haryana)

In the wake of the huge influx of migrants on European soil, the adoption of the Pact on Migration and Asylum by the European Parliament in April 2024 paved the way for a new migration governance mechanism for the member states of the European Union. The pact, aimed at stemming the flow of migrants to European shores and reducing the burden on frontline countries like Italy, Greece, Malta, and Spain, sought to influence the migratory policies of origin and transit countries through a host of measures with countries on the other side of the Mediterranean Sea. The transactional approach undertaken by the EU in the form of the signing of the Memorandum of Understandings (MoU) and agreements between transit countries and third-countries point towards the externalisation of migration management outside the EU borders. These agreements with transit and third countries like Egypt, Tunisia, Türkiye, Libya, Jordan and Lebanon mark a departure from the traditional migration management to a new calibrated approach rooted in the outsourcing of the migration and asylum process by the EU, where third countries stem the flow of migrants in exchange for preferential economic and trade benefits. However, these agreements largely ignore the human rights and the free movement of people, two important ideals of the EU. The control and selection on the movement of people by the EU stands in stark contrast with the declining birth rate and the scarcity of workforce on large-scale in many countries across continental Europe. Bringing into focus the human rights of migrants enshrined in international law and the need of labour force across Europe, this paper aims to highlight the risks and challenges of the externalization of the migration governance mechanism by the EU to transit and third countries in the Mediterranean and beyond.

Keywords: migration; externalization; human rights; third country; Mediterranean

Negotiating Mobility: India’s Role in Europe’s Labour Migration Landscape

Sunil Choudhary (Amity University Haryana)

In an increasingly globalised world, the prominence of migration reveals the uneven development of the four economic freedoms: capital, goods, services and labour. While trade and capital flow freely across borders, human mobility or migration remains deeply politicised and unevenly regulated. This paper focuses on the evolving regime of labour mobility between India and the European Union, examining it as a site of contestation, negotiation, and potential collaboration.

Against the backdrop of demographic decline and rising political anxieties in many EU states, legal migration has become both a necessity and a politically sensitive issue. At the same time, India, with its growing economy and young labour force, seeks to convert its demographic surplus into a global advantage through migration partnerships, as exemplified in its pursuit of Migration and Mobility Partnership Agreements with various European countries.

This paper explores how migration regimes between the Global South and Europe are shaped by economic asymmetries, policy discourses, and public anxieties. It engages with the dual nature of Indian emigration, comprising both high-skilled professionals and unregulated and often undocumented workers. It examines how these different streams are received, regulated, or resisted within European labour markets and political frameworks.

In doing so, the paper contributes to a larger conversation about how mobility regimes are constructed and contested across borders. It also considers how migration governance can be reimagined to address host country concerns while ensuring fair, legal pathways for migrants, thereby satisfying the political and economic interests of both the host population and incoming migrants.

Keywords: migration regimes; India; labour mobility; European Union; circular migration