Martina Tazzioli, Border abolitionism. Migrants’ containment and the genealogies of struggles and rescue, Manchester University Press, 2023. Forthcoming July
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.
Contents
Introduction
1 The zero-sum rights’ game: border abolitionism as an analytical gaze
2 ‘Confine to protect’: hybrid spaces of migration containment
3 Participatory confinement: extractive humanitarianism and asylum seekers’ unpaid labour
4 Towards a genealogy of migrant struggles and border violence
5 A history of mountain runaways and rescue: migrants at the Alpine border
Conclusion
Martina Tazzioli is Reader in Politics & Technology at Goldsmiths, University of London
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