Bordering non-citizenship assemblage through migrant legibility: a conceptual framework for tracing hidden forms of legal and bureaucratic violence
by Lindsay Larios; Rupaleem Bhuyan; Catherine Schmidt; Heather Bergen
International Journal of Migration and Border Studies (IJMBS), Vol. 8, No. 1/2, 2024

Abstract: In this paper, we conceptualise migrant legibility as a bordering practice where migrants seeking to maintain status or transition to permanent residency in Canada must negotiate the dynamic milieu of: 1) laws and regulations governing immigrant inclusion; 2) bureaucratic processes for verifying eligibility and admissibility; 3) informal social networks which can expand or restrict access to information and resources. Using two case studies from empirical research with migrants in Canada, we attend to the legal, bureaucratic, and social processes through which migrants must prove their humanity (i.e., biopolitical life) in the context of unpredictable, heterogeneous, multi-scalar, and often hidden forms of legal and bureaucratic violence. Through theorising the legal and bureaucratic violence of legibility, this paper illustrates the historical, political, and economic conditions through which migrant illegality and patterns of imperial/colonial/racial/gendered ordering operate in tandem with neoliberal multicultural constructions of equality and inclusion of autonomous and self-sufficient individuals.

Online publication date: Wed, 24-Jul-2024

The full text of this article is only available to individual subscribers or to users at subscribing institutions.

 
Existing subscribers:
Go to Inderscience Online Journals to access the Full Text of this article.

Pay per view:
If you are not a subscriber and you just want to read the full contents of this article, buy online access here.

Complimentary Subscribers, Editors or Members of the Editorial Board of the International Journal of Migration and Border Studies (IJMBS):
Login with your Inderscience username and password:

Username:        Password:          Forgotten your password?

Want to subscribe?
A subscription gives you complete access to all articles in the current issue, as well as to all articles in the previous three years (where applicable). See our Orders page to subscribe.

If you still need assistance, please email subs@inderscience.com