Suspension: disabling the city of refuge?

Abstract

ABSTRACT This article focuses on suspension: a process and a politics in migration governance that disables subjects and destabilises the state. Drawing on migrant, civic actor and policy-maker insights and experiences in the cities of Athens, Berlin and London, the discussion reveals how suspension is operationalised and enacted. As recorded across three cities, suspension has become a way to govern migration as an unequal and racialised system by obscuring, prolonging and deferring state responsibilities and migrants’ access to resources and rights. By focusing on who is most likely to be suspended, and how the urban convenes both everyday bordering and new solidarities, we aim to understand the politics of migration in a volatile political and economic conjuncture. Invoking the city of refuge as an actually existing but fragile ethico-political project, we critically reflect on the currency of urban politics of sanctuary cities as redemptive spaces detached from the punitive functioning of the state. We explore how suspension is operationalised in the city through three core processes: the fracturing of legalities; the devolution of care; and the spatialising of uncertainty. We further reflect on the precarious practices care and solidarity which engage our shared humanity as opposed to enforced differences.