MIGRATION AND ITS ENEMIES In accordance with neo-liberal doctrine, a free market in ideas, information, finance, goods and services gradually pervaded our lives from the 1970s. However, free market doctrine is notably absent in international migration policies. Here three major social actors are in play: • Employers who often want to increase the supply of imported labourers, either because they cannot find suitable local workers or because they wish to reduce their labour costs. • Migrants who are often stopped, but sometimes bypass border control illegally, through being trafficked or at their own initiative. • Politicians who are under pressure, often from local workers and sometimes from extreme xenophobic elements, to restrict immigration. In this book, Robin Cohen shows how the preferences, interests and actions of global capital, migrant labour and national politicians intersect and often contradict each other. Does capital require subordinated labour? Is it possible for capital to move to labour rather than labour to capital? Can trade substitute for migration? Cohen explores how nation-states segment the ‘insiders’ from the ‘outsiders’ and how politically powerless migrants relate to more privileged migrants and the national citizenry, discussing the functions and effects of social exclusion and deportations. He asks whether politicians can effectively control national borders even if they wish to do so. These important questions are addressed in a wide-ranging, lucid and accessible narrative, offering readers a compelling account of the historical origins and contemporary dynamics of global migration. Robin Cohen is ESRC Professional Research Fellow and Professor of Sociology at the University of Warwick. He served as Dean of Humanities at the University of Cape Town in 2001-3, and directed the nationally designated UK Centre for Research in Ethnic Relations from 1985-9. He has also held academic positions in Nigeria, the Caribbean, the USA and Canada. His many books include The New Helots: Migrants in the International Division of Labour (1988); The Cambridge Survey of World Migration (edited, 1995); Global Diasporas: An Introduction (1997) and Global Sociology (co-authored with Paul Kennedy, 2000). His work has been translated into Danish, French, German, Greek, Italian, Japanese, Mandarin, Portuguese and Spanish. Research in Migration and Ethnic Relations Series Series Editor: Maykel Verkuyten, ERCOMER Utrecht University The Research in Migration and Ethnic Relations series has been at the forefront of research in the field for ten years. The series has built an international reputation for cutting edge theoretical work, for comparative research especially on Europe and for nationally-based studies with broader relevance to international issues. Published in association with the European Research Centre on Migration and Ethnic Relations (ERCOMER), Utrecht University, it draws contributions from the best international scholars in the field, offering an interdisciplinary perspective on some of the key issues of the contemporary world. Other titles in the series International Migration Research: Constructions, Omissions and the Promises of Interdisciplinarity Edited by Michael Bommes and Ewa Morawska ISBN 0 7546 4219 4 East to West Migration: Russian Migrants in Western Europe Helen Kopnina ISBN 0 7546 4170 8 Migration and its Enemies Global Capital, Migrant Labour and the Nation-State ROBIN COHEN University of Warwick, UK © Robin Cohen 2006 All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise without the prior permission of the publisher. Robin Cohen has asserted his right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988, to be identified as the author of this work. Published by Ashgate Publishing Limited Ashgate Publishing Company Gower House Suite 420 Croft Road 101 Cherry Street Aldershot Burlington, VT 05401-4405 Hampshire GU11 3HR USA England Ashgate website: http://www.ashgate.com British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data Cohen, Robin, 1944- Migration and its enemies : global capital, migrant labour and the nation-state. - (Research in migration and ethnic relations series) 1.Alien labor 2.Emigration and immigration - Economic aspects 3.Emigration and immigration - Government policy 4.Alien labor - Great Britain 5.Great Britain - Emigration and immigration - Economic aspects 6.Great Britain - Emigration and immigration - Government policy I.Title 331.6'2 Library of Congress Control Number: 2005933809 ISBN 0 7546 4657 2 (Hbk) ISBN 0 7546 4658 0 (Pbk) Typeset by Oxford Publishing Services. Printed and bound in Great Britain by TJ International Ltd, Padstow, Cornwall. Contents Acknowledgements vi Acronyms and abbreviations viii Introduction 1 1. Unfree labourers and modern capitalism 13 2. The proletariat at the gates: migrant and non-citizen labour, 1850–2000 39 3. Shaping the nation, excluding the Other: the deportation of migrants from Britain 63 4. Constructing the alien: seven theories of social exclusion 89 5. Trade, aid and migration 110 6. Citizens, denizens and helots: the politics of international migration flows after 1945 137 7. Migration and the new international/transnational division of labour 154 8. Globalization, international migration and everyday cosmopolitanism 177 9. The free movement of money and people: debates before and after ‘9/11’ 195 References 216 Index 233 Acknowledgements The author and publishers would like to make the following acknowl- edgements: The principal title of this book was found in the title of one of the subsections of an edited book by Leo Lucassen and Jan Lucassen (eds) Migration, migration history, history, old paradigms and new perspectives (Bern: Peter Lang AG Europäishcher Verlag der Wissenschaften, 1997, p. 223). While a number of the chapters are drawn from earlier work, several are from recent essays. They all have been thoroughly revised for this publication in the hope that the book as a whole will contribute to the intellectual, political and ethical understanding of migration and its enemies. Some of the argument in the Introduction was rehearsed in a contribution to Index on Censorship (32 (2), May 2003, 60–9). Material in Chapter 1 is drawn from Robin Cohen, The new helots (Aldershot: Gower 1987, 1–30). Chapter 2 is based on a paper given to the World Forum on Workers’ Movements and the Working Class organized by the Braudel Center, NY, the Maison des Sciences de l’Homme, Paris, and the Institute for Labour Studies, Moscow (19–21 June 1991). A section of the paper was published as ‘East–West and European Migration in a Global Context’ (New Community, 18 (1) October 1991, 9–26). Chapter 3 was first published in Leo Lucassen and Jan Lucassen (eds) Migration, migration history, history, old paradigms and new perspectives (Bern: Peter Lang AG Europäishcher Verlag der Wissenschaften, 1997, 351–73). Chapter 4 was presented as a paper for a conference on Immigrazione sterotipi pregiudizi organized by the Università di Roma ‘La Sapienza’ and the Consiglio nazionale delle ricerche (Rome, 5–7 April 1995) and is revised here for publication in English. Chapter 5 is drawn from a previously unpublished report (1995) and is revised here for publication. Chapter 6 was first published in the Hitotsubashi Journal of Social Studies (21 (1) August 1989, 153–65) and subsequently in Robin Cohen, Contested domains: debates in international labour studies (London: Zed Books, 1991, 151–80). Chapter 7 was first published in Malcolm Cross Acknowledgements vii (ed.) Ethnic minorities and industrial change in Europe and North America (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991, 19–35). Chapter 8 was given as a paper to a conference on ‘International Migration and Globalization’ convened by the Portuguese Social Science Council, Casa de Mateus (Portugal, 4–5 October 2002) and was revised for publication in English in a forthcoming issue of Labour, Capital and Society. Chapter 9 was presented at the first joint ESRC/SSRC colloquium on Money and Migration, St Hugh’s College, University of Oxford (25–28 March 2004) and was posted on the web at www.csgr.org. For comments on Chapter 3 I would like to thank Jan and Leo Lucassen. For help in securing the data for Chapter 5 my thanks go to Anne Shaw at the Resources Centre, Centre for Research in Ethnic Relations, Warwick University; Diana Zinnerman, at the Center for Migration Studies, Staten Island, New York; the Librarians at the Refugee Studies Programme, Oxford University and Sharon Molteno for using her youthful eyesight to summarize the contents of an indistinct micro- film. Chapter 8 includes some text from joint publications with Paul Kennedy and Steven Vertovec. Although I recall the text concerned as my own draft inevitably there is some ‘crossover’ in joint writing and I am grateful for their permission to use these passages. Stan Cohen provided a vignette, also in Chapter 8. I wish to thank Eleni Tsingou and Sian Sullivan for comments on Chapter 9 and Martin Ruhs for giving me his joint paper with Ha-Joon Chang, which has been used here. For the book as a whole, I wish to thank Selina Cohen warmly for her editorial and production help and Jason Cohen for redrawing the graphs. I also proffer my thanks to Maykel Verkuyten, the academic editor of this series, who facilitated publication of this volume. Caroline Wintersgill and Mary Savigar were creative and supportive