Abstract
The “everyday bordering” concept has provided key insights into the effects of diverse bordering practices upon social life, placing the bordering of the welfare state among wider state interventions in an autochthonous politics of belonging. Sociological contributions have also introduced new explanations as to why states pursue such measures, positing that neoliberal states seek legitimacy through increasing activities to (re)affirm borders within this politics of belonging, compensating for a failure to govern the economy in the interests of citizens. To what extent is this visible in the state-led emergence of (everyday) borders around welfare in the United Kingdom, often cited as a key national case? This article draws from 20 elite interviews to contribute to genealogical accounts of the emergence of everyday bordering through identifying the developing “problematizations” connected to this kind of bordering activity, as the British state began to distinctly involve welfare-state actors in bordering policies in the 1990s and early 2000s. This evidence underlines how these policies were tied to a “pull factor” problematization of control failure, where the state needed to reduce various “pull factors” purportedly attracting unwanted migrants in order to control immigration per se, with little evidence that legitimacy issues tied to perceived declining economic governability informed these developments in this period. These findings can inform future genealogical analyses that trace the emergence of everyday bordering.
Highlights
The everyday bordering concept has emerged as a popular lens for understanding a range of policies that include barriers to accessing social rights for immigrant groups in Europe and the linkage of welfare and immigration-control systems
Situating these policies within a wider array of “bordering” measures that require a diverse range of social actors to participate in immigration policing (Yuval-Davis et al 2019; see Griffiths and Yeo 2021), policies that may be understood as the enactment of welfare chauvinism or nationalism are contextualised within a larger, emergent form of governance
While the everyday bordering concept is increasingly referenced in examinations of a wide range of policies regarding immigrants and minorities in Europe especially, the general notion that borders have proliferated within societies themselves has been developing throughout the post-Cold War period
Summary
The everyday bordering concept has emerged as a popular lens for understanding a range of policies that include barriers to accessing social rights for immigrant groups in Europe and the linkage of welfare and immigration-control systems Situating these policies within a wider array of “bordering” measures that require a diverse range of social actors to participate in immigration policing (Yuval-Davis et al 2019; see Griffiths and Yeo 2021), policies that may be understood as the enactment of welfare chauvinism or nationalism are contextualised within a larger, emergent form of governance. Providing a distinct sociological viewpoint, these contributions have offered a clear conceptual linkage among interventions into separate policy domains, by underlining the social functions of this array of policies–highlighting their effects on everyday interaction, social relations, and larger accounts and experiences of belonging This literature has developed cohesive new propositions about why states have pursued these everyday bordering measures, toward a genealogical understanding of this form of governance that traces new and receding governmentalities. This article concludes by summarising its findings and the questions these raise for future genealogies of everyday bordering
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