Abyección, Cospolitismo, Inclusión y Migración: Cómo las buenas intenciones reafirman la discriminación

This seminar is linked to the European project MiCREATE

Introduction to the seminar

One of the controversial questions raised by the social sciences in relation to the (non) reception policies carried out by European countries after the exodus of refugees from the wars in Syria and Libya, is related, according to Nyers (2003, p. 1069), to the emerging forms of subjectivity and political practice that challenge the State’s claim to monopolize the protection of subjects in its territory.

Problematizing or contesting this claim, becomes a critical moment of dissent from the rationality of the universal subject that comes from cosmopolitan theory.

In this process of problematizing the introduction of the concept of abjection and its relevance, it could be a strategy to understand the tension between the consideration of the migrant as a foreigner/object —in the case of the MiCREATE project as a child/young migrant— and its “impossibility “to be part of a cosmopolitan society and school.

The approach of the seminar

In each of the four encounters, we propose to think and dialogue around a text that explores, from different points of view, the issues set forth in the previous sections. From these articles we can address issues such as:

Abjection as a way of reflecting on the complex set of inclusion and exclusion relationships that affect migrant children.
Educational policies and school practices as devices that incorporate certain qualities of life and of migrants. But they also exclude them simultaneously.
Thinking of cosmopolitanism as a process of abjection allows us to think differently about the schooling of migrant children and practices and research focused on the ‘child-centered’ approach.
Finally, we rescue the proposal of Judith Butler (1993) that invites us to question what is seen and done —for example, the focus centered on childhood— as something natural to generate subjects and regulate their behavior.

Articles to read

Nyers, Peter (2003). Abject Cosmopolitanism: the politics of protection in the anti-deportation movement. Third World Quarterly, Vol 24, No 6, pp 1069-1093.

Popkewitz, Thomas. S. (2009). The double gestures of cosmopolitanism, globalization, and comparative studies of education. In R. Cowen & A. M. Kazamias (Eds.), International Handbook of Comparative Education, 379–395. Springer Science.

Genova, Nicholas de (2010). The Queer Politics of Migration: Reflections on “Illegality” and Incorrigibility. Studies in Social Justice, 4 (2), 101-126.

Babana, Feyzi; Rygielb, Kim (2017). Living, with others: fostering radical cosmopolitanism through citizenship politics in Berlin. Ethics & Global politics, 10 (1), 98–116. https://doi.org/10.1080/16544951.2017.1391650

Cano Abadía, Mònica (2017). Vulnerabilidad posthumana cosmopolita. Desplazamientos críticos para una justicia global. Astrolabio: revista internacional de filosofia, 19, 269-279.