Year: 2024
Type: article
Abstract: Introduction: The role of vulnerability in migration governanceThis Special Issue takes stock of current debates across different disciplines and problematises the concept of vulnerability in the field of migration and its relationship to law, building on discussions held during the MAPS Project Conference of December 2020. 1 The Conference considered the treatment that migrants are facing in Europe and elsewhere, focusing on the difficulties they encounter in accessing their rights and interrogating the law's ambiguous position in their regard: exacerbating vulnerability, while, at the same time, also providing a possible source of protection that can unravel restrictive policies of deterrence and control (Moreno-Lax, 2017;Moreno-Lax and Giuffré, 2019).This dual role of the law vis-à-vis migration, as simultaneously a generator of vulnerability and its potential antidote, is what contributions to this Special Issue grapple with and aim to elucidate.Vulnerability is gaining traction as an explanatory paradigm in (human rights) law (e.g.Shue, 1996;Turner, 2006;Del Mar, 2012;Heri, 2021) and other areas in the social sciences (e.g.Kirby, 2006;Oliviero, 2016), in medical ethics (e.g.Hurst, 2008;Macklin, 2012), environmental studies (e.g.Cutter, 1996;Adger, 2006), and disaster research (e.g.Bankoff, Frerks and Hilhorst, 2004;Levine, 2004).Some even speak of a 'vulnerability zeitgeist' taking hold across academic disciplines, drawing on vulnerability as 'an entry point for discussing inequalities and adversities' of different kinds (Brown, Ecclestone and Emmel, 2017, p. 497).Yet, the concept is rarely defined and has no single agreed meaning.Its use is contentiousevoking notions of victimhood, othering, and marginalisation.Furthermore, it is also contestedvulnerability is paradoxical, described as both universal and particular, individual and categorical, inherent and situational, and as contributing to the normalisation of oppression, while also offering a means of liberation.The concept, and the tension lying at its core, have made their way into legal and policy instruments of migration governance in incoherent fashion, whether as part of administrative detention regimes (Pétin, 2016) or asylum reception and qualification systems (Leboeuf, 2022), also providing a basis for recent decisions of international Courts and Treaty bodies (Peroni and Timmer, 2013; and, respectively, Hudson, Baumgärtel and Ganty, and Ippolito, in this issue) as well as domestic judgments (Wallbank and Herring, 2014; and, respectively, Benslama-Dabdoub, Grundler, and Ippolito, in this issue).However, the crucial role of migration law and policy structures in creating or exacerbating vulnerability is often overlooked (for notable exceptions: Sözer, 2020; Da Lomba and Vermeylen,
Authors: Violeta Moreno-Lax, Niovi Vavoula
Institutions: Queen Mary University of London, Universitat de Barcelona
Language: English
Subfield: Health
Field: Social Sciences
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: hybrid
Estimated APC paid: $3,450
Funder: Queen Mary University of London
OpenAlex ID: W4393281176