For the third and final day of the RGS Annual Conference, I attended a double session titled ‘Geographies of Migrant Politics’. The morning focused on ‘Performing Politics’, with three speakers discussing three very distinct studies. First up was Valeria Raimondi’s paper ‘Refugees’ Squats as Strategies of Resistance’. Alongside a very interesting description of her time living in the City Plaza squat in Athens, Valeria outlined some of her initial conclusions. She framed these spaces as forms of political resistance and rescaled ‘border struggles’ to ‘urban struggles’. The issue of autonomy became a focus of the questions afterwards, which gave me lots to think about in terms of the decision-making process within my own proposals.
The next two papers also focused on the relationship between the state and its people. Hebe Nicholson’s paper on the flooding resettlement in Malawi emphasised the need for migration to be on the terms of the would-be migrants, describing the many ways in which non-participatory decisions breed mistrust for the state and NGOs alike and reinforcing the questions posed by Valeria’s paper. Janroj Keles presented ‘Diasporas, Agency & Enterprise’, which explored the entrepreneurship of Kurdish migrants as a form of political action. I found the notion of businesses transcending borders particularly interesting - in this case, mainly TV and radio platforms, but the idea could easily be transferred.
In the afternoon session explored ‘Spaces of Politics’, specifically in Singapore and the Midlands. Orlando Woods’ paper ‘Christian Inclusions, Ethnic Exclusions’ presented a rather tongue-twisting depiction of the issues with the segregated church spaces in Singapore. The idea of migrants and locals leading ‘parallel lives’ caught my attention, as something which I have read so often as a major problem with many migrant populations - Ceuta seems to be no exception. Agamben’s work on ‘exclusionary inclusion’ was mentioned and is certainly something I will follow up on.
The closing discussant, Marta Bivand Erdal, brought together several of these themes and posed two key questions. What is ‘political’? Here, she drew on Hebe’s paper, nothing that the village migrations require a decision from the residents, thereby automatically framing a political stance. Secondly, and perhaps more fundamentally, what is a migrant? She discussed Marie-Bénédicte Dembour’s book-turned-blog ‘When Human Beings Become Migrants’, which sounds fascinating. Seeing the political outside of politics seems to be an unavoidable element of migration studies.
The conference has felt much longer than just three days, with all the fabulous papers on offer. It’s been a wonderful - and thorough - foray into so many overlapping topics and I’ve come away feeling invigorated for the next few months of fieldwork.