Migration management for the benefit of whom? Interrogating the work of the International Organization for Migration

Abstract

This paper examines the relationship between the nation-state and migration through the activities of the International Organization for Migration (IOM). The IOM operates at the intersection of nation-states, international human rights regimes, and neo-liberal governance. We find that the IOM enforces the exclusions of asylum seekers and maintains the central role of nation-states in ordering global flows of migration. In addition, we argue that the IOM acts on behalf of nation-states by using the language of international human rights, as though working in the interests of migrants and refugees. In providing a geographic appraisal of the IOM alongside its image and presentation with an analysis of its activities on voluntary returns, we address the new spaces of ‘networked’ governance that control and order migratory flows in the interests of nation-states.

Keywords:

• International Organization for Migration
• nation-state
• migration
• detention
• neoliberalism

Acknowledgements

We thank many people who gave time in the field to support this research. We are also grateful to the editors of Citizenship Studies, three anonymous reviewers, and Jennifer Hyndman for thoughtful feedback. This research was supported by a Research and Writing Grant from the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation.

Notes

1. This research consisted of semi-structured interviews, visits to detention centers, and archival analysis in Australia, Indonesia, Italy, Switzerland, England, and the USA between 2006 and 2008.

2. Subheadings are taken from IOM publications, websites, and voicemail messages.

3. http://www.iom.int/jahia/jsp/index.jsp.

4. Also see IOM (2008), ‘While not formally part of the UN system, IOM has a similar intergovernmental structure consisting of a Council, a Standing Committee on Programmes and Finance, an Executive Committee and a Subcommittee on Budget and Finance’ (footnote 1).

5. Please see McKinley (2000).

6. IOM voicemail.

7. Interview, London, June, 2006.