Us and Them?

This book troubles the distinction between Us and Them, migrant and citizen. It explores how borders create social, political and economic relations and argues that these are not solely the concern of migrants. The exclusion of migrants helps define the privileges and limitations of citizenship, and close attention to the border (physical and metaphorical) reveals much about how we make sense of ourselves. The book explores how the migrant is a normative as well as a legal construct which is deeply problematic for technocratic policies. Immigration status is not only about legal technicalities, but it is about status in the sense of value, worth and honour, that is, membership of the community of value. Seen this way it is possible to link ‘The Migrant’ to others who are excluded or included only contingently in the community of value such as ‘The Criminal’ and ‘The Benefit Scrounger’. The book emphasises the centrality of subject making in research, policy, law, media coverage and public debate, focussing particularly on the UK. Us and Them? theorises immigration debates in order to re-politicise them and reveal what is at stake, not only for migrants, but also for citizens. It is multi-disciplinary, drawing on insights from sociology, history, politics, law, economics, geography and normative political theory. It outlines the challenges that migration and migrants pose to liberal democracies, arguing that these go to the heart of liberal principles of equality, rights, autonomy, freedom and membership. They are matters as much for citizens as for migrants.

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