Routing the camp: experiential authority in a politics of irregular migration

Abstract

Often approached through Giorgio Agamben’s work, the camp-like spaces associated with asylum-seeking and refuge in Europe have been portrayed as sites of abjection to a predatory sovereign logic. In this article, I claim this reading overlooks the forms of authority in play at such sites. Through a theoretical interrogation of a politics of irregular migration and an empirical investigation of No Borders’ practices, I emphasise the ‘experiential’ forms of authority through which subjects are already taking and remaking the meaning of citizenship. Through Jacques Rancière’s philosophy of politics and sense, I argue that the task of discerning productions of experiential authority within new geographies of mobility is a critical political task of our time.

Keywords:

• authority
• irregular migration
• ethics
• experience

Notes

1. Biological life is somewhat distinct in this sense, as it bears claims which can be tested and verified through shared measures and procedures. As such it stands as a potential vehicle for forms of politics which translates between experience and experiment to constitute tentative, revisable claims, which can be tested by other parties (and see Blencowe, 2013)

2. For Agamben, ‘biopolitics’ refers to the state’s assumption of responsibility for the care of the nation, and a highly particular inscription of ‘bare life’. According to Agamben, therefore, and in contrast with Foucault’s definition, ‘politics is always already biopolitics’ (Lemke 2005, p. 4). The critical point about the productive capacity of power in Foucault is, in contrast, that the future remains open – power is reciprocal and not merely an effect of control (Gill 2010).