IFF Research Seminar: David Owen (University of Southampton), "Displacement, Solidarity, Counter-Government"

One central site for the emergence of displacement as a contemporary form of life is the relationship between recent transformations of migration and border governance in globally advantaged states, especially of the Global North, and the refusal to be governed in this way, at this cost, by those people on the move who are disadvantaged and dominated by these racialised regimes of rule. What is at stake in this agonistic relationship between (white) governors and (non-white) governed is, on the one hand, the ability of globally advantaged states to arrange the governance of transnational movement (to regulate who may enter where, under what conditions, for what purposes) in ways designed to sustain their advantaged position in the hierarchical racialised ordering of global politics – and, on the other hand, the power of those displaced people who are disadvantaged and dominated by this order to contest and transform it into an order that acknowledges the equal claim of their black and brown bodies to conditions of freedom and dignity.

It is against this background that I want to address the topic of solidarity with those people in displacement who enact this refusal of contemporary migration and border governance. The focus of this chapter concerns two conceptions of solidarity which I’ll refer to as ‘humanitarian solidarity’ and ‘counter-governmental solidarity’, and the value of the distinction between them for understanding the practice of solidarity in relation to the effects of European borders policies in the Mediterranean Sea. However, in order to situate these conceptions as conceptions of solidarity, I will preface this discussion with a very brief set of reflections on the concept of solidarity and the salience of the difference between concept and conceptions. Following the focus on practices of solidarity in the Mediterranean Sea, the final section of the chapter considers the relationship between the two conceptions of solidarity and displacement as a contemporary form of life.

Wednesday 28/10, 14:15 – 16:00

Location: Teorifagbygget HUS1, Innsikten 1.524 and on Teams

This seminar is part of the IFF Research Seminar series. For link to Teams, please contact the organiser.