Programme full

Friday 17 April 2015 11:00 - 12:30
PAPER SESSION 7
(Re)shaping the Undocumented Transmigrant ‘Subject’: The Politics of Humanitarianism in Mexico
Solano, P.
(Lund University)
Mexico has the most transited migratory corridor in the world. Despite the high degree of complexity that marks the
migratory flows transiting the country—Mexican, Central and South American— they have historically been perceived
as labour and voluntary migrations and used in the production of 'illegality'. 'Illegality' demarcates and 'invisibilises'
individuals eligible for protection. Incidents such as death, rape, kidnappings and other types of abuse faced by transit
migratory flows across borders and Mexican territory have brought about a debate on protection through a resurgence
in appeals based on human rights for migrants. Protection has still not been clearly delineated for the undocumented
and seems to be eclipsed through the criminalisation of migration. These humanitarian appeals and other forms of
emerging humanitarian aid dynamics are occurring outside the refugee protection regime. The purpose of this paper—
based on extensive qualitative research in transit-assistance based places in Mexico, inclusive of in-depth interviews
with human rights defenders and ethnography in shelters—is to delve into the contribution of the politics of
humanitarianism in (re)shaping the undocumented transmigrant 'subject'. I will explore identification framings and
mechanisms in relation to threat and sentiment to better understand the aporia of humanitarian governmentality in
Mexico. More generally I seek to better understand the relationship between humanitarianism and the undocumented
migrant situation and its potential impact on the category 'humanity'.
Rights, Cities and Sociology: Introducing the Human Rights City
Grigolo, M.
(Nottingham Trent University)
This paper discusses the relation between rights and cities focusing on cities whose local governments engage in
human rights and eventually use human rights as a framework for organising local policy. I call these cities 'human
rights cities'. Drawing on secondary literature, the paper aims to position the discussion, analysis and broader
research agenda of human rights cities within a sociology of human rights, highlighting both the emancipatory and
disciplinary dimensions of local human rights work. In this perspective, this paper suggests an approach to the study
of human rights cities which takes into account, on the one hand, the structuring force of established and legalised
notions of human rights at international and national level and, on the other hand, the agency of an increasing number
of actors, including local government, concerned with promoting old and new ideas about human rights and/in cities.
The paper focuses mainly on the United States and Europe, although reference is made to human rights cities
elsewhere. Different parts of the paper explore the emergence and diffusion of human rights cities, new ideas about
human rights promoted by cities, and the local organisation and implementation of human rights. Issues that the paper
deals with include civil and human rights, non-discrimination and equality, the right to the city, local participation,
equality and intersectionality, and the enforcement of, and mediation around, rights and human rights. In conclusion
the paper reconnects human rights cities to a broader discussion about rights, cities and sociology.
Cosmopolitanisation through Human Rights: How Far? The New Asylum and Immigration Policy of Turkey
Soykan, C.
(Ankara University)
As Lydia Morris claims cosmopolitanism both as a broad sociological argument and an advocate of the idea of human
rights for global justice can provide us the necessary tools to think about immigration and asylum law, migrants' rights
and immigration control. In the scholarship, while cosmopolitanism refers to the normative-philosophical level,
cosmopolitanisation by contrast is defined as a forced cosmopolitanism, which challenges and changes the
experiential spaces of the nation-state from within against their will.
In this paper, I will look at Turkey's EU candidacy process as a type of cosmopolitanisation. To do this, I will
specifically focus on the country's commitments in the field of migration and asylum. Since immigration as a policy
area lies at the crossroads of the debates on globalisation, state sovereignty and the impact of international norms on
the nation-states, the drafting process of the first asylum law of the country can be analysed part of this transformative
process. By assessing the mixture of external constraints and internal policy needs in the case of Turkey, I will
contemplate on the patterns of domestic norms incorporation and explain how and why Turkey's national structure
rather gave a different policy outcome. In the end, I will argue that although the EU accession process as an external
factor pushed for a change at the domestic level, it was the national characteristics shaped the new immigration and
asylum policy, and hence the new law in Turkey.
BSA Annual Conference 2015 276
Glasgow Caledonian University