Austere Borderlands: Recession, Migration, and Contested Means of Belonging in the E.U.

This project proposes to conduct ethnographic research that examines how austerity
measures together with restrictive immigration policies shape constructions of belonging
in the E.U.-North Africa borderlands. Future phases of this project will include U.S. field
sites for comparative analysis with the E.U.-North Africa borderlands. There is
a particular interest in the intimate dimensions of economic restructuring (e.g.,
austerity, policies emerging from economic recession) and how institutional practices and
arrangements linked to economic restructuring compound the marooning effects of
restrictive immigration laws in shaping social relations and feelings of belonging or
exclusion. The project examines laws through everyday social relations and explore how they
articulate with state policing and border-controls, constructions of social inclusion and
exclusion, and migrant subject formation. In addition, the project will examine the ways that
laws may become internalized and embodied by migrant populations thereby contributing
to a pathologization of the experience of exclusion.