Ambivalence and Citizenship: Theorising the Political Claims of Irregular Migrants

Irregular migration gives rise to political claims that test the limits of political community and the expression of human rights in an increasingly interconnected world. This article provides a theorisation of the political claims of irregular migrants that starts with the notion of ambivalence. I argue that the ambivalence present in such claims can be understood as a political resource that is generative of new political relations across the terrain of human mobility and border control. In order to discern the generative quality of ambivalence, I argue in addition for an approach to theory production that is grounded in concrete migrant struggles. The argument is made via a critique of two theoretical perspectives that are influential amongst scholars working at the intersection of Migration Studies and Political and International Theory: the work of Giorgio Agamben and the ‘Autonomy of Migration’. An approach that avoids the reductive accounts of power evident in both perspectives provides a better starting point from which to assess the transformative potential of irregular migrants’ political claims.