Border Abolitionism: Migrants Containment and the Genealogies of Struggles and Rescue
By (Author) Martina Tazzioli
Manchester University Press
Manchester University Press
18th October 2023
United Kingdom
Tertiary Education
Non Fiction
Political science and theory
Political geography
304.8
Hardback
200
Width 156mm, Height 234mm, Spine 13mm
454g
Building on an abolitionist perspective, this book offers an essential critique of migration and border policies, unsettling the distinction between migrants and citizens.
This is the only book that brings together carceral abolitionist debates and critical migration literature. It explores the multiplication of modes of migration confinement and detention in Europe, examining how these are justified in the name of migrants protection. It argues that the collective memory of past struggles has partly informed current solidarity movements in support of migrants. A grounded critique of migration policies involves challenging the idea that migrants rights go to the detriment of citizens. An abolitionist approach to borders entails situating the right to mobility as part of struggle for the commons.
'Martina Tazziolis book challenges us to connect struggles for the freedom of movement to commoning practices and abolitionist worlding projects, to decompartmentalise migration, border and refugee studies. To build these transversal alliances, Tazzioli grounds border abolitionism in migrants escapes, autonomous mobilities and spaces, and free spots, beginning not from state enclosure projects, but from actually existing abolitionist practices. Border abolitionism calls on us to do more than document the needless drownings, wasted times and choked lives or the injustices of contemporary migration control regimes. To practices border abolition, we must learn from migrants how to live and build institutions otherwise.'
Lauren Martin, Associate Professor of Political Geography, Durham University
Martina Tazzioli is Reader in Politics & Technology at Goldsmiths, University of London