Criminalization of migration and mediated labour

• In Event: Criminology of Mobility. Panel 3. Migrants, labour and exploitation

Abstract

Past research on the reciprocity between history of capitalism and history of regulation of migration has shown that contemporary regimes of mobility control do not attempt to completely exclude migrants from the labour market, but rather include them – through their criminalization – as an easily exploitable labour force. Border regimes provide the labour market with a labour force made up of people facing deportation, people without work permits and people whose legality of residence in a country is directly linked to their employment.
In this paper, I will use the concept of multiplication of labour (Mezzadra and Neilson) to explore the ways in which agents who mediate between employers and migrant workers are correlated with criminalization and how they contribute to labour force fragmentation. The presentation will explore different forms of subordination, characteristic of migrant workers, which result from the different types of mediated labour and the legal grey areas through which migrant labour is supplied to employers.

Author

• Živa Šketa, Institute of Criminology at the Faculty of Law Ljubljana