Migrant struggles and moral economies of subversion: mimicry and opacity.
Border regimes are pervaded by moral economies that justify practices of regulation and control. This article attends to the moral economies that animate migrants' struggles and related practices of subversion. Based on a reading of moral economies close to E.P Thompson's original formulation of the...
| Publicado en: | Journal of Ethnic & Migration Studies Vol. 51; no. 10; pp. 2648 - 2668 |
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| Formato: | Artículo |
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Taylor & Francis Ltd
May2025
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| Acceso en línea: | Ver este registro en EBSCOhost |
| fields | @attributes: recordID: 1 pdfLink: plink: https://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=hlh&AN=185032019&site=ehost-live header: @attributes: shortDbName: hlh uiTerm: 185032019 longDbName: Humanities International Complete uiTag: AN controlInfo: bkinfo: jinfo: jid: 1369183X 56F jtl: Journal of Ethnic & Migration Studies issn: 1369183X maglogo: N pubinfo: dt: May2025 vid: 51 iid: 10 pid: 377 pub: Taylor & Francis Ltd artinfo: ui: 185032019 10.1080/1369183X.2025.2461355 ppf: 2648 ppct: 20 formats: fmt: – @attributes: type: T – @attributes: type: P size: 491KB tig: atl: Migrant struggles and moral economies of subversion: mimicry and opacity. aug: au: Scheel, Stephan affil: Leuphana University of Lüneburg, Lüneburg, Germany su: Biometric identification Postcolonialism Immigrants Biometry Ambiguity sug: subj: Biometric identification Postcolonialism Immigrants Biometry Ambiguity keyword: Autonomy of migration biometrics colonialism identification resistance ab: Border regimes are pervaded by moral economies that justify practices of regulation and control. This article attends to the moral economies that animate migrants' struggles and related practices of subversion. Based on a reading of moral economies close to E.P Thompson's original formulation of the concept, it investigates the norms and beliefs that are carried by migrants' practices of appropriation. By showing that these practices are, from migrants' viewpoint, just and legitimate insofar as they defend or restore traditional rights, customs and entitlements, the analysis destabilizes dominant framings of migrants as cunning tricksters. Moreover, the analysis of the moral economies of migrants' border struggles allows to distinguish between two different logics of appropriation. To this end, I mobilize two figures of thought from postcolonial theory. First, Homi Bhabha's notion of mimicry captures the logic of practices that repurpose mechanisms of control in ways that allow migrants to obtain a visa, asylum, or a residency title (subversion through documentation). Second, Eduard Glissant's work on opacity enables us in turn to theorize practices of appropriation that rely on the creation of ambiguity and multiplicity to counteract authorities' attempts to assign migrants a unique stable identity by means of biometrics (subversion of documentation). pubtype: Academic Journal doctype: Article src: R language: English refInfo: copyright: @attributes: flag: Y custom: Copyright of Journal of Ethnic & Migration Studies is the property of Taylor & Francis Ltd and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites without the copyright holder's express written permission. Additionally, content may not be used with any artificial intelligence tools or machine learning technologies. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. item: Journal of Ethnic & Migration Studies holder: Taylor & Francis Ltd dt: @attributes: year: 2025 holdings: @attributes: islocal: N |
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