From the “Migration Burden” to Migrants’ Burden: Exile in Malta or the Condition of Inter-jobs

Abstract

Confronted with a “migration burden” deemed unbearable by the authorities, Malta is seen as one of the emblematic spaces of exclusion of exiles in Europe. However, the relegation of undesirables, isolated in the island’s “open centres”, does not equate to their removal from the local economy and society. By looking at circulation between state institutions designed to exclude exiles and the routine organisation of informal labour on the island, this article explores the ambivalence between the distancing and the workforce mobilisation of “undesirables”, between the doctrine of the “migration burden” and the burden on exiles in Maltese production. It shows how exiles are called upon to join the ranks of what I call “inter-jobs”, filling the interstices formed by a capitalist system whose erratic, casual and ephemeral labour needs presuppose a waiting population continuously at its disposal, a labour force that can be endlessly mobilised and de-mobilised.