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Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies

ISSN: 1369-183X (Print) 1469-9451 (Online) Journal homepage: http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/cjms20

‘Transit’ and ‘Suspension’: Migration Managementor the Metamorphosis of Asylum-Seekers into‘Illegal’ Immigrants

Christina Oelgemöller DPhil

To cite this article: Christina Oelgemöller DPhil (2011) ‘Transit’ and ‘Suspension’: MigrationManagement or the Metamorphosis of Asylum-Seekers into ‘Illegal’ Immigrants, Journal ofEthnic and Migration Studies, 37:3, 407-424, DOI: 10.1080/1369183X.2011.526782

To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/1369183X.2011.526782

Published online: 25 Nov 2010.

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‘Transit’ and ‘Suspension’: MigrationManagement or the Metamorphosis ofAsylum-Seekers into ‘Illegal’ImmigrantsChristina Oelgemoller

This article explores the historical construction of the ‘transit country’ as one answer to

the perceived loss of control over migration that governments of the developed North have

increasingly felt. A frenzy of re-conceptualisations has taken place over the past 20 years,

leading to a discourse*unquestioned and accepted by policy-makers and many

academics*of Migration Management. A consequence of the evolution of Migration

Management is captured by the notion of ‘suspension’, which often refers to either the

physical or the metaphorical death of a certain minority of illegal migrants. However, I

argue that such ‘suspended’ illegal migrants have the capacity to reinvent themselves

precisely because they are outside the realm of juridico-political categorisation and

enumeration.

Keywords: Migration Management; Asylum-Seekers; Illegal Migrants; Transit Country;

European Union; ‘Suspension’

Introduction

One phenomenon resulting from European governments’ impression of having lost

control over the regulation of international migration is that they have started to

impose ‘premature labelling’ on people who may be migrants, of whatever kind, or

may not even be migrants at all. Premature labelling, or the imposition of a juridico-

political status from one sovereign state into the realm of another, assumes that

people are illegal migrants1*either trafficked or smuggled*before they have even

entered the territory of the state passing judgement. Since trafficking and smuggling

Christina Oelgemoller is completing a DPhil in Migration Studies at the University of Sussex. Correspondence

to: Ms C. Oelgemoller, School of Global Studies, University of Sussex, Falmer, Brighton BN1 9SJ, UK. E-mail:

e.c.oelgemoller@sussex.ac.uk.

Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies

Vol. 37, No. 3, March 2011, pp. 407�424

ISSN 1369-183X print/ISSN 1469-9451 online/11/030407-18 # 2011 Taylor & Francis

DOI: 10.1080/1369183X.2011.526782

are legal categories, they need to be enacted by institutional act.2 For this to be

possible a person needs to be already identifiable as a juridico-political unit with a

passport or another method of identification. However, even if some of these persons

indeed intend to engage in cross-border movement, there are no reliable indicators as

to whether or not they really will. Thus, prematurely labelling individuals who cannot

even be identified as international migrants leads to the construction of identities

with no evidential basis whatsoever.

The unquestioned assumption is that migrants in ‘transit’ countries are ‘would-be

asylum-seekers’ and are automatically understood as illegal (Duvell 2006). This

perception is at the same time contradicted and manifested by the UNHCR assuring

European governments that the agency does not regard ‘stranded migrants’ as

refugees, thus invalidating the possibility for migrants to claim protection needs on a

rights basis, but leaving them space to call for protection needs on humanitarian

grounds (Dowd 2008). Discussions then unfold about length of stay, possible

indicators of potential intent to move on, and ways to reach such a population in

order to conduct (ethnographic) research. This is instead of conceptualising ‘transit

country’ as a political tool for European governments and asking questions about the

legitimacy of Europe’s reach in imposing policy, or interest in avoiding such people

being understood as potential asylum-seekers. Academics in the field of migration

studies are guided by questions formulated*explicitly or not*by policy-makers and

try to offer solutions via empirical research structured in a way which often ignores

deeply political connotations (Bakewell 2008; Black 2001); in this case the use of the

idea of ‘transit’.

In this article, I hold that the concept of ‘transit country’ has a vital political

function still situated in an ‘us v. them’ binary which is conceptually undecided about

whether to formulate itself as a security/threat or a development/humanitarian

discourse, or both. As Collyer (2007) points out, many geographers have long

emphasised that imposing a linear logic to human mobility between country of origin

and that of destination is insufficient, and that including the transit space is common

practice (see also Helliwell and Hindess 2002; Jones, 2004; Legg 2005). However, the

meaning and connotations attached to the idea of the ‘transit country’ have changed

in recent times, but these changes have gone unnoticed by those using the concept in

their research. Accordingly, I propose a set of necessary questions which academics

should explore: How was the term ‘transit country’ constructed? What role does the

concept play? And how can we overcome the criminalising/victimising of premature

labelling and its destructive effects for those so labelled?

I argue here that the particular historical construction of ‘transit country’ gives rise

to the need for a new analytical lens. Current thinking constructs migrants as being

invisible, illegitimate or in need of humanitarian aid; this leads to the assumption

that they can be found, enumerated and categorised. I apply Agamben’s (1998)

notion of ‘suspension’ in a first step towards understanding the role of the ‘transit

country’. This notion is largely understood as describing exclusion from society with

the ultimate outcome of death (Rajaram and Grundy-Warr 2004). However, I argue

408 C. Oelgemoller

that Agamben uses the idea of suspension as a vehicle to describe solely the

temporary juridico-political debarment of a person. At this point, I want to offer a

new perspective which moves away both from the criminalising and victimising

notions of people in transit countries and from the fatalistic implications of ‘death’.

Instead, Arendt’s (1958) ‘logic of action’ allows me to conceptualise such potential-

but-not-(yet)-migrants as people inhabiting a space in which there is opportunity for

reinvention rather than death.

I draw on source material3 from the Intergovernmental Consultations on

Migration, Asylum and Refugees (IGC) to examine the historical construction of

the concept of ‘transit country’. With some of the material going back over 20 years,

the IGC documents offer a historical perspective on how governments have perceived

their predicament and on their particular truth constructions about their situation.

The material comprises letters between embassies and participants, memos, back-

ground papers and other working documents written between 1982 and 1992. They

constitute a body of ‘grey literature’ insofar as they were generated by the activities of

a particular organisation; however they also stand as individual pieces of evidence, as

their authorship varies. Deconstruction then offers a way to interpret and formulate

an understanding of how we have arrived, today, at ideas that we take for granted.

The IGC and Migration Management

A paradigm of Migration Management has evolved over the last two decades, with

international migration being described today as an increasingly complex phenom-

enon in terms of patterns, causes and categories of movement. Paradoxically,

however, it is also being reduced to two categories of ‘legal’ and ‘illegal’ migration.

Legal migration has come to mean any movement of persons regarded as productive,

efficient and framed as a lawful act, whereas illegal migration already connotes any

mobility which deviates from the norm. As a paradigm, Migration Management is

now regarded as an appropriate answer to interdependence and globalisation; one

which enables governments to avoid contentious deliberations and to operate at the

level of pragmatism and technocracy.

The perception among Western European governments of having lost control, in

the face of what was constructed to be overwhelming flows of people with illegitimate

claims, resulted in governments coming together for consultation. At the heart of

these consultations was the question of how to deal with what came to be termed

‘illegal cross-border movement’. The forum specifically concerned with this aspect is

the IGC*a complex of power and knowledge where government officials come

together on an ad hoc basis to discuss issues of international migration, clarifying

their definitions and exchanging knowledge and their respective national data.

Consequently, it is also the place where concepts were originally (re-)formulated and

subsequently translated into many of those categories which we commonly use today

to make sense of international mobility.

Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies 409

The IGC evolved out of a UNHCR in-house working group in the early 1980s and

moved to autonomy, away from the scrutiny of the international community, in the

late 1980s. The IGC’s coordinator summarised its history as follows:

When the irregular movements of asylum-seekers started to increase, contacts weremade between states in the region to discuss this new situation [in 1982/3]. Thesecontacts led [. . .] to the establishment by the UNHCR of a working group onIrregular Movements [. . .]. However, the appreciation of states concerned at thisjuncture was that neither of the formal institutions [i.e. the UNHCR] was offering afully appropriate framework for interstate discussions on multilateral cooperationrelated to the new situation [. . .] [t]here was the impression among states that thequalitative changes underway as regards the new flows of asylum-seekers were nottaken seriously enough by the UNHCR.4

Governments at that time sought to develop pragmatic approaches to an asylum

situation that was understood to be ‘acute’. This was done in a confidential and

largely technocratic manner with the sole involvement of government actors. One

Dutch participant noted in 1991 that confidentiality is important to prevent the

participating governments from being seen as a group of 16 Western nations, taking

‘common policy measures against refugees and asylum-seekers’.

Yet, it is clear from the IGC documentation that this is precisely what they did.

Representatives of Western governments, right from the start, used the IGC to talk

about illegal migration, rather than about refugees or asylum-seekers. Their

discussions focused on measurement and control, rather than on protection. This

is problematic not only because it is a one-sided approach, but also because the

consequences of moulding new ideas and implementing them administratively

conceal the political nature of defining.

The Emergence of the ‘Transit Country’: Historical Trajectory

The changes which led to the perception in European countries of having lost control

over the governance of international migration started in the late 1960s. These were

sparked not only by the slow dismantling of the Bretton Woods Institutions and the

coming together of what is now the European Union, but also by the ensuing war

between Iran and Iraq and conflicts further afield which produced refugees from

Indo-China, Africa and the Middle East. When Collinson wrote, in 1993, ‘Indeed, the

pressures which could give rise to large-scale migration into Western Europe in the

years to come are intensifying’ (1993: 2), she expressed what government officials

were already thinking in the late 1970s (Huysmans 2000: 755). Academic publications

from 1993 speak of ‘mass migration in Europe’ and draw mainly on figures provided

by government statistical sources since the 1950s largely looking at the 1970s and

1980s (e.g. King 1993). However, these immediate indicators are insufficient to

explain the ensuing reaction towards international migration as a general problem

threatening Europe.

410 C. Oelgemoller

It is worth quoting at length from a document which the UNHCR drafted in 1985 for

the ‘Consultations on the Arrival of Asylum-Seekers and Refugees in Europe’5 where the

High Commissioner addresses a ‘large-scale influx [of people]’ as one then-key current

issue. This ‘large-scale influx’ is to be understood as the precursor to how the migration

problem was framed in policy-making and*to some degree*in academic circles.

In recent years, large-scale influx into developing countries has been a prominentfeature of the world refugee situation. To quote some examples, countries in Africa,[. . .] and several countries in South-East Asia have provided first asylum to largenumbers of asylum-seekers. [. . .] Except for South-East Asia, from where, in theabsence of alternative durable solutions, nearly one million displaced personshave been resettled mainly to industrialized countries, the greater part of therefugee population has remained in countries of first asylum [. . .].6

Setting this description in a wider context, it becomes clear that many of those

displacement-producing conflicts are a direct result of the struggles to end

colonialism and of the transformation of colonised countries into independent and

sovereign states mainly in Africa (Allen 1995; Hyndman 2000; Mkandawire 2002).

American involvement in wars against communism in some Asian countries was

another important factor (Buckley 2002: 13). However, industrialised Western

European countries’ perceptions of ‘masses’ entering Europe appears somewhat

exaggerated relative to the world’s population and compared to the relatively small

numbers of refugees which Western countries hosted (and are still hosting today).

Despite the best efforts of the Governments of first asylum countries and thefinancial support of industrialized nations, conditions for refugees and asylum-seekers in developing countries of first asylum in many instances remainproblematic. [. . .] In such circumstances, there is a natural tendency amongstrefugees and asylum-seekers, particularly young men and/or those of urban/professional background, to seek an appropriate durable solution elsewhere. Forrefugees in this situation, industrialized countries, including Western Europe, withtheir relative economic prosperity and liberal asylum traditions, have become apole of attraction.7

The logic portrayed here has, ever since, remained the leitmotiv for governments to

think about migration. Europe is economically attractive, its policies are too liberal

and it is in relatively close proximity with regard to cross-border movement, as well

as having historically close ties to countries in Africa and Asia. Although many

migrants could go to countries in closer geographic proximity, for all the above

reasons they do not. There are two main streams to regulate this ‘large-scale influx’ or

‘mass migration’ from the perspective of Western countries: support countries of first

asylum with aid and/or cope with those who move on*through ‘transit countries’.

Western European governments fear(ed) the latter, which made the focus on country

of first asylum and consequently ‘transit countries’ an important caveat in debates on

Migration Management.

Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies 411

Assuming that the fear of numbers is a symptom of broader underlying

uncertainty and change, additional issues mentioned in the documents reviewed

become crucial: matters of economic stringency and high rates of unemployment.

Most migration literature refers back to the oil crisis of 1973/4 in order to explain

why guestworker programmes were abandoned (Appleyard 2001; Castles 2000;

Joppke 1998; King 1998; Weiner 1995). However, following Pollard (1985) I want to

propose that the end of the Marshall Plan and the slow dismantling of the Bretton-

Woods System were potential conditions for growing globalisation and interdepen-

dence. This offers a more important explanatory approach for change, not only for

the end of guestworker recruitment, but also for the rise in restrictive mechanisms

and the conflation of refugees and economic migrants into illegal migrants. The

wider effect of the end of the Bretton-Woods System and of colonialism was a

complexification of relationships into*paradoxically*more fragmented relations at

the same time as interdependence was felt more strongly. This condition had a more

concrete impact for the field of international migration, in that clear distinctions

between voluntary and forced migration were questioned. The 1985 response by

UNHCR to the delegation of the US Embassy as a follow-up to an informal meeting

of the IGC includes the following passage:

The High Commissioner also wished to provide a forum [. . .] for Europeancountries which are encountering similar problems in relation to arrivals of asylumseekers and refugees [. . .]. It is apparent that some of the problems discussed atthese Consultations will be pertinent to certain issues raised in the context of [. . .]irregular movement [. . .] One of the concerns expressed by the United States ininformal discussions is that the UNHCR study would address broader issues ofeconomic migration.8

This short quote shows the beginning of the conflation of formerly distinct categories

into ‘irregular movement’; justified by the perceived instability of the welfare state

and by international political unrest more generally. Hence, drawing on Memor-

andum 391.84 of 28 October 1987 by IGC co-ordinator Jonas Widgren, I argue that

the terminology of ‘irregular movements’ precisely establishes this conflation of

forced and voluntary migration. ‘Irregular movement’ and, by extension, the ‘illegal

migrant’ were thus constructed and already firmly in usage by the mid-1980s.

Another moment driving governments to re-think international migration was

when asylum-seekers and refugees began to be constructed as economic migrants and

thus suspected of fraudulently claiming protection. For instance, in the mid-1970s

and early 1980s the Malaysian response to Indochinese refugees illustrated the

challenge that the UNHCR and the international community had to face. Malaysia

perceived itself to be overwhelmed by a sudden mass influx of people who were

ethnically related to the Malaysian minority and therefore seen to threaten the

stability of the receiving country (Abbott 1989). In effect Malaysia refused them entry

(the situation in Thailand was much the same). In response, Indochinese refugees

were resettled as prima facie refugees. Everyone who declared belonging to that group

412 C. Oelgemoller

thus automatically fell under the protection of the UNHCR and was signed up for

resettlement programmes in the Global North without any further questioning. The

case was much the same for Hong Kong*then a British territory*where boat people

landed and were processed for third-country resettlement immediately. This practice,

however, was soon seen as lending itself to fraud and subsequently led to frustration

within the international community (Abbott 1989). These events introduced notions

of displaced people as a threat to the stability of a potential host country, and the

numbers of those resettled or spontaneously arriving in Europe as overwhelming.

Both these arguments were justified by an underlying notion that new arrivals were

claiming for something they did not deserve (Holborn 1975).

In parallel with the above, another key event influenced both the perception and

the steering of international migration: the signing of the Helsinki Accords in 1975

between the Western and Eastern geo-political blocs, the Final Act of which was a

major contribution to detente (Edwards 1985). Two particular sections in the Act

were explicit with regard to freedom for human contacts and to the rights of

minorities more generally. The right to family reunification is derived from this and

thus made emigration possible (Gaddis 2005). However, with emigration*that is,

freedom of movement*on the increase after 1975, a dilemma was created for the

West. On the one hand, the West had pressed for adherence to international

instruments, in particular the human rights covenants and conventions emphasising

freedom of movement. On the other, Western governments faced the prospect of an

East European exodus, and international crisis situations elsewhere, creating

conflicting pressure on how the steering of migration was perceived and

implemented.

The key moments outlined above give an overview of the context within which

interpretation and debate took place at the IGC and which firmly established the

notion of an ‘illegal migrant’. Set against this background, the events which unfolded

after the Iranian Revolution in 1979 put Turkey in a very particular position, to

which I now turn.

The Pilot Project: Turkey

Events which followed the Iranian Revolution added an element of urgency to

developments in migration policy-making. Both the Revolution and its aftermath

highlighted Turkey’s important geopolitical position between Eastern and Southern

countries on the one hand and Western and Northern countries on the other. Turkey

became the first country to be what is now termed a ‘transit country’, mainly for

Iranians and Iraqis, but also for people from the Balkans, the Caucasus and the

Middle East (Icduygu 2005).9

The full round of Informal Consultations in 1987 introduced a catalogue of

measures which had been developed in previous years by the IGC. A list of tools to be

implemented included:

Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies 413

� the coordination of visa practices, among which the exchange of conditions for

granting visas and the harmonisation of such practices;

� ways for improving the control of immigrants from countries with migration

problems*carrier controls in national and international legislation;

� the abolition of the privilege of transiting without a visa (including, more

specifically, the common introduction of transit visas and exchange of information

and agreements which oblige transit countries to examine applications of asylum-

seekers who seek transit. This is linked to a Europe-wide agreement on Country-of-

First-Asylum processing, known today as the Dublin Convention and Dublin II);

� improved measures to prevent illegal entry, among which the exchange of

information on ‘filieres’, today known as either (networks or chains of) smugglers

or traffickers, penalties for illegal residence and the use of Interpol for their

identification;

� the exchange of asylum-seekers’ personal data*today implemented in the

Schengen Information System.10

A second working paper for the 1987 IGC ‘full round’ meeting outlines the

potential use of international economic, financial and development assistance in

preventing illegal movements. This was geared at addressing internal migration in so-

called source countries, and defining measures to be taken by so-called ‘transit

countries’.11

Turkey was the first country chosen to implement these measures. A fax sent from

UNHCR headquarters in Geneva on 21 May 1987 by Jonas Widgren records the

following agreement:

Re Meeting W.G. on Iranian Asylum Seekers and Refugees on 18 and 19 May

[. . .]

Secundo . . . It was stressed that the issue of strengthening the control of irregularoutgoing flow as well as other matters relating to the situation of Iranians in Turkeyshould be re-examined with the Turkish authorities through UNHCR.

Tertio . . . It was agreed that the process should continue and that UNHCR shouldhave further contact with the Turkish authorities as soon as possible to transmit theparticipants’ message. Next W.G. meeting foreseen end June; at which time sixmonth trial period for arrangements made at the meeting will start.12

Thus, Turkey was now considered a country where illegal migration originated, and

not as one from which to recruit labour migrants. As opposed to undocumented

migrants, who were already in the host country and had lost their status mainly with

regard to social security, this new category of migrants crossed international borders

without legal documentation permitting them to transit through another country.

Migration of this kind was new in the sense that those international migrants

coming into a European country had in previous years been easily absorbed into the

labour market (and had thus been given a legal status); they had not been asked

414 C. Oelgemoller

about their motivation for movement or their legal status. This is relevant insofar as

the majority of people moving through Turkey were fleeing turmoil and violence in

countries on Turkey’s southern and eastern borders (Duvell 2006). Thus, refugees

searching for a safe haven could not*and still cannot*reasonably be expected to

have a passport, apply for a visa to the country in which they may end up applying

for asylum, or wait to organise a transit visa in a country where they may be at risk of

persecution.13

In consequence Turkey corresponded to the particular geopolitical situation which

the IGC participants described during their discussions about international mobility

and illegal migration, where categories conflate and general distrust is normalised so

as to obscure migrants’ legitimate intentions of movement. A pilot project on Turkey

was set up to gain more information and to develop new approaches.14 In addition to

the issues raised above, the project included three working groups: one on irregular

movements, a second covering issues of return/readmission, and a third concerned

with the notion of non-refoulement, i.e. advocating for the Turkish government to

give protection to asylum-seekers even though Turkey is not a signatory to the 1969

Protocol.15 Issues of interest to European countries were given precedence. In the

annex it is noted that

[. . .] the Working Group endorsed, in July 1987, the idea of establishing a‘Tentative joint operational scheme on Iranians in Turkey’. Furthermore, theWorking Group authorized UNHCR to mention to the Turkish authorities that anannual total of 3,000 resettlement places might be placed at the disposal ofUNHCR, depending on the extent to which the Turkish authorities were prepared toparticipate in the various elements which would form part of a mutual informalagreement.16

Turkey’s sovereignty was actively undermined through an informal agreement which

nonetheless bound Turkey to introduce formal measures, setting a precedent for the

political, diplomatic and (although problematic) legal function of a ‘transit country’.

The above elaboration has shown that the term ‘transit country’ seems to be

attractive to the labelling entity*the European Union. Yet, it can also be attractive to

the labelled entity*i.e. the ‘transit country’ itself. The labelling entity is, for various

reasons, in the controlling position*Turkey is a case in point. Turkey has been

involved in accession talks with the European Union since the 1960s, putting the EU

in a position where it can make demands on Turkey to implement certain practices,

and to show goodwill in relation to their wish to accede to Union membership.

Turkey, on the other hand, benefits from development and capacity-building support,

but is also indirectly given the legitimacy to side-step its responsibilities and justify

any controversial actions by calling on its difficult geo-political position. On these

grounds, I argue that ‘transit country’ is a politically constructed space, which fulfils a

convenient labelling function in various ways. The consequence, however, is that it is

not a neutral analytical concept through which to understand the particular situation

of a person who finds him/herself in such a country.

Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies 415

The ‘Transit Country’ as a Tool

In previous sections I have shown how the conflation of voluntary and forced

migrants has brought about a new definition of ‘illegal migrant’. I have then argued

that the notion of ‘transit country’ has been re-conceptualised from being a

descriptive idea in geography to becoming a tool of governance. In this section I

will show the far-reaching ideational influence of discussions within the IGC. It is

important to reiterate that the change in discourse brought about by the IGC and

picked up by academics has led to the particular phenomenon in ‘transit countries’ of

the ‘suspension’ of people who cannot actually be identified.

The practical outcome of this concept introduces the following logic: (1)

protection in the region of origin (the notion of ‘country of first asylum’) leads to

(2) the assumption that there are countries labelled ‘safe third countries’ and, (3) on

those grounds, to the inference that people who move on from a place where they had

found protection must necessarily be illegal.

As of 1985, Western countries had already restricted entry into their territory to

such a degree that the UNHCR commented that

Restrictive trends have been noticeable in applying the concept of country of firstasylum and the refugee concept itself. One result of the restrictive application of theconcept of country of first asylum has been that a relatively short period spent inanother country with which the asylum-seeker has no other connection has beenincreasingly considered as sufficient for that country to be regarded as the countryof first asylum.17

This concept was not only applied to the countries surrounding Western Europe, but

more so to ‘the region of origin’ as this was linked with the logic of financial aid and

capacity-building. Thus, reflections such as ‘It is evident that many difficulties,

including those discussed in the present note, could be alleviated if refugee problems

were to be addressed effectively at their origin’18 are important in supporting the idea

that refugees are better protected and supported in close proximity to where they had

to flee from (see Gent 2002).

The next step in this line of argument has thus been the labelling of some countries

as ‘safe third countries’. The UNHCR had already started to collect ‘country-of-origin

information’ as mandated by its Executive Committee (ExCom) in its conclusions 8

(1977) and 30 (1983). Thus, governments had a template for categorising countries

as ‘safe’ or ‘not safe’. All Western European countries considered each other as ‘safe

third countries’; however, this idea was extended to Asia, Africa and the Middle East.

Such policy provided the basis for the idea that people could find a place of

protection near to their putative home. This proposal is referenced in an IGC

document:19

[. . .] co-operation would be to elaborate joint assessments on the situation inrelevant countries of origin. States participating in the Schengen co-operation hadalready established a similar system. As suggested in the Swiss working paper [its

416 C. Oelgemoller

original source], one might even go one step further, i.e. to establish joint ‘lists onsafe countries of origin’.

A fax sent some time after this meeting endorses the Swiss working paper. In effect,

there was no longer any legitimate reason to attempt to enter and seek protection in

Western European countries.20

In the wake of these developments, governments experimented with language such

as ‘onward migration’, ‘secondary movement’ and the like (Betts 2006a, b; Loescher

and Milner 2003; Feller et al. 2003). Noll writes that:

It is quite another matter if persons attempt to migrate westwards after they havebeen recognized as refugees. Anecdotal evidence suggests that this happens, but it isnaturally hard to substantiate this claim with any official statistics (2000: 327).

Now*two decades later*the term ‘irregular secondary movement’ is normalised in

both policy and academic parlance. Indeed, it is interesting to observe how normalised

this concept has become, so much so that even NGOs self-mandated to monitor

governments and international organisations use this language in their advocacy to

maintain standards of protection for refugees. For example, the international Council

of Voluntary Agencies (ICVA 2004), during the UNHCR’s Forum on Irregular

Secondary Movements of Refugees and Asylum-Seekers, asserts that

The issue of secondary movement is not an isolated one, and must be considered inthe context of principled approaches to responsibility- and burden-sharing, as wellas the question of effective protection.

‘Irregular secondary movement’ has come to denote a situation in which a first

forced movement within the region of origin has taken place, with protection of some

sort found. In the case of Turkey, the country was expected by IGC members to

provide protection and at least temporary residence to (Iranian) refugees. However,

no questions were asked with regard to the sufficiency or the appropriateness of the

de facto protection offered on the ground. This covers not only socio-economic

provision and the granting of rights for self-sufficiency, but also takes into account

the wider political environment. The same holds true for Europe’s activities in the

Maghreb, to the degree that Morocco has instituted ‘show-policing’ which involves

dumping people identified as illegal migrants in the Sahara, on the Algerian side of

the border (see Collyer 2006). Consequently, where people are thought to attempt to

move on to Europe, this new step makes people illegal on the basis of Western

countries’ understanding and regulations of control. Why should European countries

offer asylum if the claimants have already found protection elsewhere? Should these

‘would-be-asylum-seekers’ ever make it into Europe, their claims would be

considered unfounded and therefore rejected.

This also held true for movements from other parts of the world. An enumeration

of asylum-seekers in the IGC documents informed governments who participated

Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies 417

that, since 1984, more than 60 per cent of asylum-seekers have come from Asian

countries, less than 20 per cent from Eastern Europe and little more than 10 per cent

from Africa (Anon 1988). Put differently, it follows that a person arriving in Western

Europe must already have been able to find protection in the region of origin, because

of the development aid and capacity-building invested in migrant-sending regions.

Should a person move on, this would, firstly, be illegitimate, and secondly, s/he must

have passed through a ‘safe third country’ and should thus at least be ‘readmitted’ to

this ‘transit country’. Therefore, Western European countries could argue that they

were not engaged in the refoulement of persons in need of protection (Hyndman and

Mountz 2008).

The above description of potential conditions leading to the specific definition and

function of what a ‘transit country’ constitutes is the condition under which ‘illegal

migrants’ can be constructed as persons who are neither physically nor individually

known or identifiable for governments, as they have not, in effect, actually moved in a

politico-juridically relevant fashion. Thus, the ‘transit country’ is about the

potentiality of someone being in existence who has in fact not yet materialised. If

the phenomenon I have described above is not empirically tangible, how then can we

understand what the phenomenon is and what its consequences are?

Consequences Arising from the Concept of ‘Transit Country’

Our state-centric account of spatiality is characterised by three assumptions.

According to O’Tuathail (1998: 17), these are, ‘first, that states have exclusive

sovereign power over their territories; second, that ‘‘domestic’’ and ’’foreign’’

are separate and distinct realms; and third, that the boundaries of a state define the

boundaries of society’. Proponents of this view take structures for granted and so

the mode of thinking and working is declarative and imperative, much like political

realism. In this mode of thought the aspiration is to give advice to those in the

decision-making body, while not realising that this approach necessarily thinks in a

binary of ‘us’ v. ‘them’ and ‘here’ v. ‘there’.

Authors of a post-structural critique denounce this as a ‘superficial and self-

interested [as well as exclusionary] way in which orthodoxy ‘‘reads the world political

map’’ by projecting its own cultural and political assumptions upon it while

concealing these very assumptions’ (O’Tuathail 1999: 108). Such a critical perspective

wants to examine theoretical assumptions in order to question the existing structures

of power and knowledge. ‘Knowledge’, writes O’Tuathail, ‘is always situated knowl-

edge, articulating the perspective of certain cultures and subjects while marginalizing

that of others’ (1999: 108). The realist approach is contradictory: a simplified notion

of territoriality, where the possibility for universal prescription is assumed and

institutions still base their decision-making and implementation on the tools and

mechanisms of the past (O’Tuathail 1999). At the same time, arguments about fluidity,

interdependence and uncertainty are employed to legitimise new knowledge. Above

I have shown the evolution and critically assessed the knowledge and truth-creation of

418 C. Oelgemoller

the narrative linking ‘transit country’*a particular governmental tool*with the

definition of an ‘illegal migrant’, an individual who cannot be empirically identified, a

person disappeared from juridico-political recognition.

Agamben (1998) portrays the disappearance-from-recognition as a technical

procedure where it is sufficient*in a world that recognises belonging in terms of

passport, identification cards and other methods of visualising eligibility and rights*to render such status invalid. It is useful to draw on Agamben’s (1998) ‘zone of

indistinction’ to clarify what ‘suspension’ means. ‘Suspension’ is generally understood

to mean a temporary debarment from or cessation of a privilege. I propose to

understand the ‘transit country’ as the ‘zone of indistinction’. In this zone persons may

find themselves suspended from their juridico-political existence in two ways: either a

person’s passport is not recognised as legitimate or s/he does not have an identity

document and, as a result, is denied access, by way of necessity, to the wider

community. Agamben’s main line of distinction is the natural existence (zoe) and the

juridico-political status (bıos) of a person. The decision over life and death ‘no longer

appears today as a stable border dividing two clearly distinct zones’ (Agamben 1998:

122), indicating that these two domains merge. Thus, zoe and bıos can merge into a

‘zone of indistinction’. Therefore, at the beginning of all politics, there is the

establishment of a border-zone that is deprived of the protection of the law: ‘The

original political relation is the ban’ (Agamben 1998: 181). It is this border-zone, I

argue, that some persons fall into and, in so doing, die metaphorically out of their own

existence: they are banned. The suspended is no longer recognised as a human being.

From this perspective Lemke (2003) explains that the production of homines sacri

is a constitutive but unrecognised part of politics. The suspended are individuals who

may be killed by anyone*without the perpetrator being condemned for homicide*since they have been banned from the juridico-political community. While a

criminal, such as a smuggled migrant, could claim the right to certain legal

guarantees and formal procedures, this ‘sacred man’ is completely unprotected and

reduced to mere existence. Since these individuals are ascribed a status beyond

human and divine law, the suspended becomes*temporarily or not*some kind of

invisible living dead (Lemke 2003). In this paper I argue that the labelling of a person

as an ‘illegal migrant’ in a country where they are not physically present because they

are in a ‘transit country’ renders s/he ‘suspended’. Thus, in opposition to Rajaram and

Grundy-Warr (2004), who focus on the wider argument which Agamben puts forth

in formulating homo sacer, I am interested in the crucially temporal notion of

suspension, and in defining ways out of the singularly pessimistic analysis that is

Agamben’s broader argument. In other words I am interested in the phenomenon of

a person who is not yet actually placed into a category but who is constituted through

the discourse led by Western industrialised countries. These ‘non-existent-but-

assumed-to-be-existing’ beings fulfil a political function.

People today fall through the juridico-political gap assumed in a bipolar migration

paradigm. International borders are still seen as linear; the territoriality and

sovereignty of nation-states is still awarded a pre-theoretical condition upon which

Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies 419

governments within the IGC based their ideas and policy deliberations. Yet,

designating countries bordering European member-states as ‘source’, ‘transit’ or

‘destination’ countries (or all at once) is arbitrary. The accession countries in the

European East, for example, can highlight how the discourse changes over time.

Considering ‘transit countries’ to be a worry, the EU imposed regulations upon them

from the 1990s, funding capacity-building to improve border control and admin-

istrative systems. However, as soon as these transit countries acceded to the EU, they

were re-labelled ‘destination countries’ and, as a result, attention and resources were

directed towards other countries*such as Ukraine and Moldova (Lavenex 2006). This

experiment and its outcome serve as a blueprint and legitimising example, since it is

regarded as knowledge and information derived from an evidence-based approach.

I have shown examples of illegitimate responsibility-shifting, based on the argument

of interdependence and globalisation, and supported by a rhetoric of threat employed

to combat unwanted asylum-seekers, now commonly subsumed under the heading of

‘illegal migrants’. Such migrants, stuck in a ‘transit country’, lose their juridico-

political status, as they are assumed to be illegitimate migrants, changing from bıos to

zoe. In line with Agamben, our discursive construction of ‘illegal secondary

movement’ and ‘transit country’ thus turns migrants into ‘living dead’.

A convenient outcome (for governments) is that ‘the suspended’ become invisible.

Governments would not need to recognise individuals and their needs. So migrants

are held in ‘suspension’, because the suspended are operational in giving validity to the

old narrative (us v. them) and in maintaining order. And the notion of ‘the suspended’

keeps governments alert enough to maintain and manifest this new discourse of

uncertainty. After all, ‘the suspended’ are themselves highly uncertain. This

consequence, arising out of the construction of the ‘transit country’, then poses

questions about sovereignty and citizenship. The classic notion of sovereignty*pertaining to territorial integrity, political independence and non-interference*allows one to read the political landscape only in terms of friend or enemy: the

former has rights and duties, while the latter poses a threat. Thus, space is constructed

and invested with power through a Foucauldian creation of knowledge. However,

together, Agamben and O’Tuthail provide analytical tools with which to grasp the

effects of spatial and political change*both fundamental for a classic understanding

of sovereignty. What is not offered is an aid to thinking constructively in the future.

We can learn through reflexivity, but how can we develop alternatives on the basis

of such a critique? I want to suggest that Arendt’s (1958) human condition of ‘action’

based on the concept of ‘natality’ offers a more forward-looking perspective. Most

philosophical approaches take the human condition to be death (Agamben 1998);

and our existence is fulfilled when we engage in goal-oriented activities of survival.

Yet, Arendt defines the human condition to be birth (natality) and explains: ‘Because

they [the newborn] are initium, newcomers and beginners by virtue of birth, men

take initiative, are prompted into action ’ (Arendt 1958: 177).

It then follows that the human capacity to act freely is ontologically rooted in this

condition of ‘natality’ (Vatter 2006: 137). It is not expectation (as in the perspective of

420 C. Oelgemoller

the human condition being death), but rather freedom to act, rooted in the

uniqueness of man and in the plurality of men with their interconnectedness with

the world and hence their capacity to take the initiative. This is a framework for

analysis and understanding which is open to thinking in the future and developing

alternatives for policy-making. It also represents a means to avoid being stuck between

the old story of the world map and the new story of threats caused by interdependence.

Conclusion

I have argued here that a new analytical perspective is needed not only to overcome

the contradictions between determinism in viewing the world on the one hand and

assumptions of uncertainty in policy-making and research on the other. It is also

needed to avoid falling back into the old binary oppositions which lead to either the

criminalising or the victimising of human mobility, or more broadly the categorising

of people. An asymmetry between old structures for decision- and policy-making and

a new discourse around global interdependence and proximity brings about the

phenomenon of ‘suspension within’, rather than a binary between inclusion and

exclusion. On this basis, space has to be re-evaluated as a discursive construction with

a political function within a changed global order. Thus, the ‘transit country’, as a

geo-political space, fulfils a political function of enacting ‘suspension’. Yet, rather than

understanding this as a ‘dead(ly) end’, I have here begun to conceptualise the ‘transit

country’ as a space also enabling freedom for initiative.

This offers a new perspective on the way academics draw on policy-making for

research and also, consequently, on how policy-making could move away from binary

opposites of viewing migration in terms either of skilled/wanted/legal migration or of

unskilled/unwanted/illegal migration. Such a move would enable us to take a more

differentiated view of the capacities of human beings from which societies can benefit,

and thus could contribute to more effective policy-making. It also offers a more coherent

approach to thinking in an age when the world is constructed around free markets and

pressure for individuals to be free in both their choice-making and their risk-taking.

Acknowledgements

This article evolved out of a BISA Special Workshop on Global Justice, Borders and

Migration (12�14 May 2008), hosted by Christien van den Anker at the University of

the West of England, Bristol. My special thanks for comments go to Christien, Fran

Meissner, an anonymous JEMS referee and all those colleagues who have been

supporting me in writing this article.

Notes

[1] Although the term ‘illegal migrant’ is often considered derogatory, I use it explicitly to

denote persons with no status within the law.

Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies 421

[2] In this paper I discuss neither trafficking nor smuggling, as the focus is on those not (yet)

labelled as either. For a discussion see Gallagher (2001); Salt (2002).

[3] All documents reviewed here are archived and held by the author.

[4] IGC, 29 April 1985, HCR/CAE/85/1, page 4.

[5] IGC, 29 April 1985, HCR/CAE/85/2, ‘Note by the High Commissioner’, page IV A.

[6] UNHCR, 29 April 1985, HCR/CAE/85/2, page 4 (11).

[7] UNHCR, 29 April 1985, HCR/CAE/85/2, page 4/5 (12).

[8] UNHCR, 04 April 1985, Irregular Movements of Asylum-Seekers and Refugees: Meeting of

Working Group of Executive Committee, 11�12 April 1985.

[9] More recently this list expanded to include people moving into Europe from Bangladesh,

Ghana, Nigeria, Pakistan, Algeria, Afghanistan, Sri Lanka, India, Palestine and Azerbaijan

(Icduygu 2005).

[10] IGC, Gerzensee, 29 January1987, Working Paper Agenda Item 4 C.

[11] IGC, Gerzensee, 29 January 1987, Working Paper Agenda Item 4 D.

[12] IGC, 21 May 1987, HC TX EA, 391.84 100.GEN.IRN.

[13] This is already mirrored in the 1951 Convention (Art. 31), which provides that asylum-

seekers should not be criminalised due to not being able to show legal documentation.

[14] A collection of memoranda, faxes, notes and letters concerning the pilot project in Turkey

in the context of the IGC from the year 1987 is held by the author and can be consulted on

request.

[15] Jonas Widgren, Fax, EA 89 391.84, 9 May 1988, Confidential, Provisional Agenda for the

informal consultations in Oslo, 18�20 May, Agenda Item 5, Annex 6.

[16] IGC, EA 89 391.84, 9 May 1988, Agenda Item 5, Annex 6, emphasis added.

[17] UNHCR, 29 April 1985, HCR/CAE/85/1, page 6/7.

[18] UNHCR, 29 April 1985, HCR/CAE/85/1, page 11.

[19] The document is undated and anonymous. It was sent from the BMAA-Sektion IV on 19

March 1991. The EU has formalised these deliberations with their Conclusions adopted on

30 November 1992 concerning countries in which there is generally no serious risk of

persecution, WGI 1281; Circulation and Confidentiality of joint reports on the situation in

certain third countries, 20 June 1994, and Council of the European Union, OJ (1996) 274/

43, and institutionalised these activities formally with the Conclusion of 30 November 1994

on the organisation and development of the Centre for Information, Discussion and

Exchange on the Crossing of Frontiers and Immigration (CIREFI), Council of the European

Union, OJ (1996) C274.

[20] Interview with Jeff Crisp, November 2005.

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