Mapping the Order of New Migration. Undokumentierte Arbeit und die Autonomie der Migration

Abstract

Migration studies tend to oscillate between pure descriptivism and strong theory. Until today theories of migration either explicitly or implicitly refer to neoclassical presumptions on labour markets or tend to proliferate funcionalist ex-post concepts. So do theories of migration systems overemphasize the primacy of political and economical structures over collective and individual ageny of migrants. The paper argues that a shift in theoretical perspectives is linked the settings in the political arena of migration. Epistemological barriers are relate to political ones, this relation is condensed in certain figures of migration. One of the leading figures of current migration is the „illegal migrant“. The paper tries to grasp how illegal migration is related to changing patterns of work and production and whether the concept of a migration regime would be more appropriate to understand the ongoing processes, since it focusses on agency rather than on systemic logic. Finally the paper aims at exploring if migration can be conceived as a social movement. In this regard, the programmatic concept of the autonomy of migration is significant, because it looks for a political perspective over the questions of exodus and flight that are stake in global migration today. The paper claims that the comprehension of the relation of flight and immobilization demands both historically and actual a shift of paradigms in migration politics and theory. The concept of migration regime can help here as it puts agency, namely the struggles of migration in the foreground of any understanding of migration.