Law and Legal Order as Seen by Economic Migrants in Germany
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CONTRIBUTORS:
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CONFERENCE NAME:
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CONF. LOCATION:
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Leuven (Belgium)
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CONFERENCE YEAR:
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2005
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PUB TYPE:
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Conference Presentation
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SUBJECT(S):
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None
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DISCIPLINE:
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Law
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HTTP:
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LANGUAGE:
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English
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PUB ID:
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103-412-447
(Last edited on
2006/06/01 12:37:28 GMT-6)
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SPONSOR(S):
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ABSTRACT:
Although migration for economic reasons from the southern to the northern hemisphere has become an important social reality, the legal apprehension of this phenomenon is still mainly determined by the established nomenclature of national migration laws which generally simply qualify it as “illegal”. This state law centered perspective leaves few place for an understanding of other social contexts in which the migration is embedded.
This PhD project raises the question as to what can be considered as “law” and “legal order” from a migrants’ point of view. It intends to apprehend the legal phenomenon from an anthropological perspective, focusing on what is individually understood as sanctioned obligations – either towards state law or towards other social actors.
Fieldwork carried out in Europe and Africa explores the social relations of a group of 15 Basaa migrants from Southern Cameroon living in Berlin and having migrated to Europe individually in different moments of time over the past 15 years. All of them say to have come for economic reasons and for a limited period of time. They all have faced different situations of illegality with regard to state migration laws, but most have since succeeded to regularize their presence. Trying to identify the “legal” within their social interactions, the aim of the project is to analyze their involvement in hierarchies and obligations of the African homeland and to question the importance of local communitarian ties, as well as links with family and with migrant networks spread all over Europe.
The main focus of the project thus is not on the experience of “illegality”, but on the general legal context in which this experience takes place.
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Main hypotheses:
The migrants' experience of exile (regarding the society of origin) and of rejection (regarding the legal order of the destination society) leads to the emergence of groups and communities of migrants with a specific legal culture and forms of domination which are influenced by state law, its inherent logics and the way it defines status.
Within these communities of exiles, the legal concepts and hierarchies of the society of origin are consensually redefined.
On this background, the migrants individually renegotiate their position in their society of origin, thus undermining the initial return project.
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