Lawless Zones, Rightless Subjects: Migration, Asylum, and Shifting Borders

The transnational movement of peoples is one of the burning issues of our times, giving rise to populist anger against migrants and refugees. Studying the radical reconfiguration of territory, rights, and jurisdiction currently taking place, this volume examines its implications for the future of democratic governance within and across borders. Throughout the world, states are employing increasingly punitive responses under cover of law to arrest mobility, evade rights, and detach borders from fixed territorial markers. The consequent formation of the 'shifting border' provides tremendous power and almost boundless discretion to states (and especially their public and private delegates and partners at multi-governance levels) to rely on ever harsher techniques of migration governance and border control in order to restrict movement and constract rights. These actions extract deadly costs from migrants, families on the move, and communities everywhere.