Abstract
This chapter provides an anthropological perspective on how public space and political mobilization becomes gendered and racialized. Drawing on fieldwork with a group of Ethiopian irregular migrants who demonstrated in the public sphere against the Norwegian government, it draws attention to how representations, the voices and frames of action, are shaped by the nation-state context in which the migrants mobilize. It asks what are the opportunities and limitations for representing ones’ claims as a noncitizen woman, and for representing oneself as a particular political subject.
By examining the dynamic interplay between Ethiopian irregular migrants’ claim-making on the one hand and how this mobilization was framed in the media on the other, I discuss how the demonstrators became shaped by gendered and socio-cultural perceptions of the “good citizen” in Norway. The chapter thus bring attention to how participation in public life is structured, how representation of migrants shapes participation in gendered ways, and the difficulties involved in contesting discourses around citizens that become, in the process, dominant.
Contributing to the scarce research that examines the process through which irregular migrants become political agents, this chapter thus shows how their political agency is constituted by the interrelated process of the socio-historical definition of who should belong in the nation-state and the responses that follow from their public voices. The nation-state sovereignty—by means of governing the public discourse on who is a potentially good citizen—shapes the lives, self-representation and subjectivation of irregular migrants because it fundamentally sets the conditions of recognition. At the same time, migrants protesting in the public become part of a genealogy of citizenship through which they also rupture and transform the content of the political community and its conditions of recognition.
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Notes
- 1.
Two other irregular migrant groups mobilized politically in the same period of time, an Iranian/Kurdish group and a Palestinian group. These groups remained ethnically distinct with little collaboration (see Bendixsen 2013).
- 2.
Within the last 10 years there have been 2928 applicants from Ethiopia (UDI, October 2011). Forty-one percent of those who received an answer to their application have been granted a permit. In 2010, there were 505 Ethiopian applicants (the fifth largest group, after Eritrea, Somalia, Afghanistan and Russia). There are 242 Ethiopians in Norwegian asylum centers with numbers declining. In 2010, a total of 29 persons returned voluntarily to Ethiopia. In the last seven years, a total of 67 persons have returned voluntarily to Ethiopia. http://www.udi.no/en/statistics-and-analysis/statistics/ (accessed 10 August 2014).
- 3.
Importantly, in early 2012, Norway finalized an agreement with Ethiopia that made it possible for the Norwegian government to return irregularized migrants to Ethiopia. More or less simultaneously, the Norwegian government offered a program of voluntary return to Ethiopian migrants (Bendixsen 2013).
- 4.
In their letter to the Prime Minister, the migrants argue that “Application for political asylum of Ethiopians is treated unjustly unfairly and collectively, rather than treating [sic] on an individual basis, i.e. on a case by case basis”—a claim which the Norwegian Directorate of Immigration later rejected.
- 5.
While some of the Ethiopian migrants were Muslims, this identity was silenced during the demonstrations, while those who were Christian emphasized their religious identity.
- 6.
A search on the database Retriever (at the University of Bergen) shows that while there were only 9 matches for “Ethiopian Asylum seekers” in 2009, and 13 in 2010, there were 126 hits in the media about Ethiopian asylum seekers in 2011. Of these, 70 were published in February 2011, which is the period of time Ethiopians entered the church in Oslo. Another 23 were published in April 2011. In 2012 there were a total of 177 results, while in 2013 it went down again to 36 results. While the newspaper articles in 2011 mainly centered around the demonstrations of irregular migrants in Oslo, in 2012 it mainly concerned the return agreement between Norway and Ethiopia, Ethiopian migrants’ fear of deportation, the nationally well-known irregular migrant child Nathan from Bergen, and arguments for and against returning Ethiopian migrants. Of the 177 results in 2012, 83 were in March 2012, same period when the treaty between Norway and Ethiopia facilitating return was signed.
- 7.
Bergens Avisen. http://www.ba.no/nyheter/irix/article5482514.ece (accessed 10 January 2014).
- 8.
In 2013 the Progress Party (Fremskrittspartiet) entered for the first time into the government—in a minority government coalition together with the largest party, the Conservative party (Høyre). I am here not viewing Sandberg’s statements as representing the political specter in Norway. Rather, his voice became particularly relevant in this case because several newspapers quoted Sandberg’s comments, his utterances were discussed by the irregular migrants and it shaped their representation in the public.
- 9.
http://www.ba.no/nyheter/irix/article5483304.ece (accessed 10 January 2014) and http://www.dagbladet.no/2011/02/08/nyheter/innenriks/papirlose/15357742/ (accessed 8 March 2015).
- 10.
http://www.ba.no/nyheter/irix/article5482514.ece (accessed 10 January 2014).
- 11.
A search on Retriever (UiB) for ‘paperless children’ indicates that the concern in the media increased more than 100 % in 2011, relative to 2008. In 2008 there were 45 matches, in 2009 there were 56, in 2010 there were 104, in 2011 there were 541, in 2012 there were 434 and in 2013 it fell down to 136. Looking at the year 2011, there were 210 results in January, 88 in February, 30 in March, 24 in April and 17 in May. In June there were 8 and in July there were 3. Importantly, in January, Marie Amelie (originally from Russia) who became an icon of “paperless” children in Norway was given prominence in the media. There are some difficulties related to such searches because there are several terms being used for the same group of people, including “illegal”, “asylum seekers”, and “irregular” (which is less frequently used). Breaking it down to “Ethiopian children” the result shows: 38 results in 2000, 33 in 2005, 63 in 2008, 70 in 2009, 62 in 2010, 133 in 2011, 243 in 2012, and 95 in 2013. Looking at the year 2011, there are only 5 results in January (before the Ethiopian migrants entered the church), and 51 results in February, in March there is 6, in April the result is 7, in May the result is 3, in June the result is 7, and in July the result is 6. Ethiopian children were thus decreasingly mentioned as the public demonstrations by the Ethiopian irregular migrants came to a halt.
- 12.
Although Nicholls neglects the gendered aspects of these processes, he pinpoints that university training received by activists transmits “middle-class” cultural attributes to those otherwise raised in working-class families and neighborhoods.
- 13.
McNevin (2011) makes use of the concept “contestation of citizenship” rather than “acts of citizenship”.
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Bendixsen, S. (2016). Can the Irregular Migrant Woman Speak?. In: Danielsen, H., Jegerstedt, K., Muriaas, R., Ytre-Arne, B. (eds) Gendered Citizenship and the Politics of Representation. Citizenship, Gender and Diversity. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-51765-4_11
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