Harnessing the Forces of Disorder. New Forms of Control in the Age of Transmigration
Neuerscheinung | Special Issue @ Behemoth. A Journal on Civilization 5(1/2012)
Edited by Elena Buck, Serhat Karakayali, Mathias Rodatz
The four articles collected in this special issue contribute to the effort of theorizing emerging forms of governing transmigration. They are exploring how the relations between transnational “life” and social practice on the one hand, and norms and forms of regulation on the other hand, are negotiated and accomplished in different cases. While the contributions cover a wide variety of topics and trends, they are corresponding in that they consider migration’s deterritorrializing effects not from the angle of their opposition to the »national« state and »national« society, but rather as something that is increasingly contained by concepts of governing.
The common framing of migration as something external to society, and the corresponding role of the state acting in “defense of society” (Foucault) against migration as a central force of disorder “flooding” or “invading” sovereign territory, seem to be losing momentum. The dynamics and velocity associated with transnational mobility are increasingly perceived as corresponding with rather than in opposition to the way society organizes itself. The perception of transmigration and its governance as a neoliberal project is probably strongly related to this fact. Control, here, is much more than the taming and prevention of disorder in the context of the paradigm of sovereignty criticized by Foucault, but rather resembles a form of laissez-faire aimed at harnessing the productivity of heterogeneous orders. Thus, the diagram of power is rendered relational. As such it allows for a totalizing and dystopian perspective, according to which there is nothing beyond these powers of control – but at the same time, it reveals how power always relies on potentially heterotopic practices.
Contents/Inhalt
Elena Buck, Serhat Karakayali, Mathias Rodatz | Editorial [english]
Sabine Hess | Gefangen in der Mobilität. Prekäre Zonierungsprozesse an den Rändern Europas [deutsch]
joshua j. kurz | (Dis)locating Control: Transmigration, Precarity and the Governmentality of Controll [english]
Sebastian Sierra Barra | Postliberale Souveränität und Datenkörper–Ungeplante Assoziationen [deutsch]
Mathias Rodatz | Produktive „Parallelgesellschaften“. Migration und Ordnung in der (neoliberalen) „Stadt der Vielfalt“ [deutsch]

