Proliferating borders in the battlefield of migration : rethinking freedom of movement

This chapter will take as a point of departure the current proliferation and hardening of borders in many parts of the world – from the Mediterranean Sea to the borderlands between Mexico and the United States, from the Bengali borderland to Latin American countries. It will critically take this trend as a key feature of a global political conjuncture characterized by the surge of nationalism as well as by various degrees of combination between neoliberalism and authoritarianism. The proliferation and hardening of borders will be analyzed by several points of view, including their implications for contemporary capitalism, the relations between geopolitical and other kinds of boundaries, and the increasing criminalization of “humanitarianism” and more generally of solidarity. The stubbornness of migration, the persistent challenge that movements and struggles of migration pose to borders will also be emphasized. “La frontera está cerrada, pero vamos a pasar” (“the border is closed, but we will cross”), a phrase taken from a Honduran song circulating among migrants’ caravans, will be taken as an iconic instantiation of this “stubbornness,” which is constitutive of the current global battlefield of migration. The analysis of this battlefield will provide the background for an attempt to develop in the last part of the talk a “left case” for freedom of movement and open borders.