Governing by debasing migrant lives. Reconceptualising biopolitics and extractivism in migration geography

Abstract

This article offers a nuanced understanding of the biopolitics of migration, interrogating the ways in which migrants are object of value extraction by being devalued and debilitated. The paper introduces the concept of governing by debasing that encapsulates the twofold process of socio-economic devaluation and psycho-social debilitation. To develop such a concept, it intertwines geography literature on biopolitics with debates on extractivism. Drawing on feminist debates on social reproduction, it shows that hampered social reproduction activities underpin modes of governing by debasing. The article calls for a research agenda that investigates a biopolitical hold grounded on the de-accumulation of life.

Keywords

migration biopolitics extractivism debasing social reproduction debilitation devaluation

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