Conveners: Bruno Meeus, Karel Arnaut | University of Leuven, Department of Social and Cultural Anthropology, Leuven, Belgium
When documenting and representing the nexus of migration and urbanization, urban studies in Europe, the UK and the US have long relied heavily on the Chicago School model of the transition zone and particularly the neighbourhood of transition. Although the neighbourhood still has an important social and spatial ordering function, this focus on neighbourhood logics also tends to continue locating migrants' 'transition processes' or ‘becoming otherwise’ more generally in larger metropoles where such neighbourhoods can/could develop. The side effect of this is that solidarities-in-diversity that develop outside of large cities are also less readily seen, let alone that they are linked to solidarities that develop in the metropole. Nevertheless, there is reason to assume that the 'migrant metropolis' being created by 'the disruptive and incorrigible force of migrant struggles that dislocate borders and instigate a rescaling of border struggles as urban struggles' (De Genova 2015: 3), is not exactly limited to the familiar list of metropolitan neighbourhoods. Recent work by among others Kleinman (2014), Xiang & Lindquist (2014), Burchardt (2016), Hall et al (2017), Meeus et al. (2020) and Wajsberg & Schapendonk (2021) suggests the possibility to escape the territorial trapping of the neighbourhood imagination and conceptualize migrant infrastructures, migration infrastructures, arrival infrastructures and social infrastructures not only as networked objects but also as an ‘infrastructuring practice’. The question is however whether our research methods, our definition of research ‘sites’ and our forms of representation are ‘fit’ for such a conceptual shift towards infrastructure – as object and as practice. In this paper session, therefore, we want to take stock of existing and explore the potential of new strategies to document and represent infrastructures and infrastructuring practices/work in ordinary cities.
When documenting and representing the nexus of migration and urbanization, urban studies in Europe, the UK and the US have long relied heavily on the Chicago School model of the transition zone and particularly the neighbourhood of transition. Although the neighbourhood still has an important social and spatial ordering function, this focus on neighbourhood logics also tends to continue locating migrants' 'transition processes' or ‘becoming otherwise’ more generally in larger metropoles where such neighbourhoods can/could develop. The side effect of this is that solidarities-in-diversity that develop outside of large cities are also less readily seen, let alone that they are linked to solidarities that develop in the metropole. Nevertheless, there is reason to assume that the 'migrant metropolis' being created by 'the disruptive and incorrigible force of migrant struggles that dislocate borders and instigate a rescaling of border struggles as urban struggles' (De Genova 2015: 3), is not exactly limited to the familiar list of metropolitan neighbourhoods. Recent work by among others Kleinman (2014), Xiang & Lindquist (2014), Burchardt (2016), Hall et al (2017), Meeus et al. (2020) and Wajsberg & Schapendonk (2021) suggests the possibility to escape the territorial trapping of the neighbourhood imagination and conceptualize migrant infrastructures, migration infrastructures, arrival infrastructures and social infrastructures not only as networked objects but also as an ‘infrastructuring practice’. The question is however whether our research methods, our definition of research ‘sites’ and our forms of representation are ‘fit’ for such a conceptual shift towards infrastructure – as object and as practice. In this paper session, therefore, we want to take stock of existing and explore the potential of new strategies to document and represent infrastructures and infrastructuring practices/work in ordinary cities.
Session 1
Movement Beyond the Pathway: Exploring the field of Irregular Migration through an Ethnographic Dialogue
Shila Anaraki, Aso Mohammadi
Migrants and the ordinary city: Analysing private rental tenure (PRT) as an arrival infrastructure in inner-city Santiago, Chile
Carolina Moore
Space or practice? The making and unmaking of 'home' and 'neighborhood' through urban arrival infrastructures
Anna Steigemann
Migrants in old train wagons in Thessaloniki. From abandonment to infrastructures of communing
Zacharias Valiantzas, Paschalis Arvanitidis
“Sometimes people call me from the other end of Germany” – Understanding arrival infrastructures through mapping
Miriam Nessler, Heike Hanhörster
Shila Anaraki, Aso Mohammadi
Migrants and the ordinary city: Analysing private rental tenure (PRT) as an arrival infrastructure in inner-city Santiago, Chile
Carolina Moore
Space or practice? The making and unmaking of 'home' and 'neighborhood' through urban arrival infrastructures
Anna Steigemann
Migrants in old train wagons in Thessaloniki. From abandonment to infrastructures of communing
Zacharias Valiantzas, Paschalis Arvanitidis
“Sometimes people call me from the other end of Germany” – Understanding arrival infrastructures through mapping
Miriam Nessler, Heike Hanhörster
Session 2
Migrants’ hostels (foyers) in the infrastructuring of arrival of West Africans in the region of Paris
Laura Guérin, Aïssatou Mbodj-Pouye
Mapped to see: the productive value of a spatial lens in the research on arrival infrastructures
Martina Bovo, Dounia Salamé
Follow the commutes: Commuting trajectories of migrant workers as lens to understand arrival infrastructures and infrastructuring practices beyond cities and neighborhoods
Carolien Lubberhuizen
Arriving in Peripheral Contexts – Spatial Patterns of Accessing Arrival Infrastructures
Nihad El-Kayed
Laura Guérin, Aïssatou Mbodj-Pouye
Mapped to see: the productive value of a spatial lens in the research on arrival infrastructures
Martina Bovo, Dounia Salamé
Follow the commutes: Commuting trajectories of migrant workers as lens to understand arrival infrastructures and infrastructuring practices beyond cities and neighborhoods
Carolien Lubberhuizen
Arriving in Peripheral Contexts – Spatial Patterns of Accessing Arrival Infrastructures
Nihad El-Kayed
Session 3
The Dual Devolution of Migration Policy: Examining Local and Sub-Federal Regulations of Migration Infrastructures
Edward Mohr
Infrastructures of arrival in East German Large Housing Estates – sites of negotiation between inclusion and bordering practices
Madlen Pilz, Stefanie Rößler, Katja Friedrich
Institutional Analysis and Mapping of “infrastructuring practices”. The case of two small cities in Central Greece
George Papagiannitsis, Paschalis Arvanitidis, Aimilia Voulvouli, Athina-Zoe Desli
Infrastructures of abandonment and arrival: Refugees and processes of ruination, displacement, and dispossession in a disempowered city
Cansu Civelek, Ayşe Çağlar
Edward Mohr
Infrastructures of arrival in East German Large Housing Estates – sites of negotiation between inclusion and bordering practices
Madlen Pilz, Stefanie Rößler, Katja Friedrich
Institutional Analysis and Mapping of “infrastructuring practices”. The case of two small cities in Central Greece
George Papagiannitsis, Paschalis Arvanitidis, Aimilia Voulvouli, Athina-Zoe Desli
Infrastructures of abandonment and arrival: Refugees and processes of ruination, displacement, and dispossession in a disempowered city
Cansu Civelek, Ayşe Çağlar
