Abstract
This article examines processes of migration and border control, illustrating the ways by which everyday housing and welfare services function as mechanisms of exclusion in both direct and indirect ways. Using the thesis of crimmigration, the article demonstrates how border controls have become deeply implicated in systems claiming to offer welfare support—and how a global public health emergency has intensified exclusionary processes and normalised restrictive practices. The article compares border controls in two localities—under the UK government’s coercive ‘hostile environment’ policies (based on technologies of surveillance) and a more indirect ‘programme of discouragement’ in The Netherlands (based on technologies of attrition). The study demonstrates the role of contemporary welfare states in entrenching inequality and social exclusion (from within), arguing that the exceptional circumstances of the COVID-19 pandemic have facilitated the differential everyday treatment of migrants, revealing a hierarchy of human worth through strategies of surveillance and attrition.
Highlights
Bordering Practices in the Contemporary Welfare StateA succession of ‘crises’ observed in the 21st century—including the rise of terrorism, and more recently, the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic—have reinforced the role of borders as defensive barriers against undesirable influences and external threats, helping to construct the contemporary ‘problem’ of migration (De Genova and Tazzioli 2016)
This article examines how housing and welfare services have become increasingly implicated in decisions relating to border control and national security and how the COVID-19 pandemic has exacerbated the bordering practices that operate in everyday services (Paasi 2009) to incorporate practices of exclusion from within
The two countries were chosen on the basis that they represented contrasting approaches to welfare delivery—on the one hand, a regime dominated by neoliberal ideology (UK) and, on the other, one that has adopted an approach influenced by social democracy (Netherlands) which limits the inclusionary nature of the welfare state through hard and soft power to preserve a sense of social security for its members (Barker 2018)
Summary
Bordering Practices in the Contemporary Welfare StateA succession of ‘crises’ observed in the 21st century—including the rise of terrorism, and more recently, the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic—have reinforced the role of borders as defensive barriers against undesirable influences and external threats, helping to construct the contemporary ‘problem’ of migration (De Genova and Tazzioli 2016). Intended to protect national security and promote peace, freedom and prosperity, physical boundaries have served to strengthen societal divisions through intensifying ‘paradigmatic borders’—between inside and outside, citizen and noncitizen—in law, public discourse and everyday human interaction (Krasmann 2007; Paasi 2009). Revealed within these societal divisions is a hierarchy of human worth, maintained by the expanding application of state technologies of control, categorisation, surveillance and punishment in migration governance which regards foreigners or noncitizens as suspect persons, and as such, they are assigned a dual identity of ‘criminal’ and ‘migrant’ combined: ‘the crimmigrant’ This article examines how housing and welfare services have become increasingly implicated in decisions relating to border control and national security and how the COVID-19 pandemic has exacerbated the bordering practices that operate in everyday services (Paasi 2009) to incorporate practices of exclusion from within
Sign-in/Register to view highlights & summary Sign-in/Register to access full text options 
Talk to us
Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have
Schedule a callDisclaimer: All third-party content on this website/platform is and will remain the property of their respective owners and is provided on "as is" basis without any warranties, express or implied. Use of third-party content does not indicate any affiliation, sponsorship with or endorsement by them. Any references to third-party content is to identify the corresponding services and shall be considered fair use under The CopyrightLaw.
