Social Inclusion Open Access Journal | ISSN: 2183-2803 Volume 6, Issue 1 (2018) TheThe TransformativeTransformative ForcesForces ofof Migration:Migration: RefugeesRefugees andand thethe Re-ConfigurationRe-Configuration ofof MigrationMigration SocietiesSocieties Editors Ulrike Hamann and Gökçe Yurdakul Social Inclusion, 2018, Volume 6, Issue 1 The Transformative Forces of Migration: Refugees and the Re-Configuration of Migration Societies Published by Cogitatio Press Rua Fialho de Almeida 14, 2º Esq., 1070-129 Lisbon Portugal Academic Editors Ulrike Hamann (Humboldt University of Berlin, Germany) Gökçe Yurdakul (Humboldt University of Berlin, Germany) Available online at: www.cogitatiopress.com/socialinclusion This issue is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (CC BY). Articles may be reproduced provided that credit is given to the original and Social Inclusion is acknowledged as the original venue of publication. Table of Contents The Transformative Forces of Migration: Refugees and the Re-Configuration of Migration Societies Ulrike Hamann and Gökçe Yurdakul 110–114 Mobile Peoples: Transversal Configurations Engin Isin 115–123 Municipal Responses to ‘Illegality’: Urban Sanctuary across National Contexts Harald Bauder and Dayana A. Gonzalez 124–134 Refugees’ Access to Housing and Residency in German Cities: Internal Border Regimes and Their Local Variations Nihad El-Kayed and Ulrike Hamann 135–146 The Civil Society Dynamic of Including and Empowering Refugees in Canada’s Urban Centres Oliver Schmidtke 147–156 Imperceptible Politics: Illegalized Migrants and Their Struggles for Work and Unionization Holger Wilcke 157–165 Facing Precarious Rights and Resisting EU ‘Migration Management’: South European Migrant Struggles in Berlin Celia Bouali 166–175 The Politics of Syrian Refugees in Turkey: A Question of Inclusion and Exclusion through Citizenship Sebnem Koser Akcapar and Dogus Simsek 176–187 Dancing with ‘The Other’: Challenges and Opportunities of Deepening Democracy through Participatory Spaces for Refugees Maria Charlotte Rast and Halleh Ghorashi 188–198 Who Undermines the Welfare State? Austerity-Dogmatism and the U-Turn in Swedish Asylum Policy Simone Scarpa and Carl-Ulrik Schierup 199–207 Social Inclusion (ISSN: 2183–2803) 2018, Volume 6, Issue 1, Pages 110–114 DOI: 10.17645/si.v6i1.1482 Editorial The Transformative Forces of Migration: Refugees and the Re-Configuration of Migration Societies Ulrike Hamann * and Gökçe Yurdakul Department of Diversity and Social Conflict, Institute for Social Sciences, Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, 10099 Berlin, Germany; E-Mails: [email protected] (U.H.), [email protected] (G.Y.) * Corresponding author Submitted: 16 March 2018 | Published: 29 March 2018 Abstract In this thematic issue, we attempt to show how migrations transform societies at the local and micro level by focusing on how migrants and refugees navigate within different migration regimes. We pay particular attention to the specific formation of the migration regimes that these countries adopt, which structure the conditions of the economic, racialised, gendered, and sexualized violence and exploitation during migration processes. This interactive process of social trans- formation shapes individual experiences while also being shaped by them. We aim to contribute to the most recent and challenging question of what kind of political and social changes can be observed and how to frame these changes the- oretically if we look at local levels while focusing on struggles for recognition, rights, and urban space. We bring in a cross-country comparative perspective, ranging from Canada, Chile, Spain, Sweden, Turkey, and to Germany in order to lay out similarities and differences in each case, within which our authors analyse these transformative forces of migration. Keywords citizenship; migration; refugees; transformation Issue This editorial is part of the issue “The Transformative Forces of Migration: Refugees and the Re-Configuration of Migration Societies”, edited by Ulrike Hamann and Gökçe Yurdakul (Humboldt University of Berlin, Germany). © 2018 by the authors; licensee Cogitatio (Lisbon, Portugal). This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribu- tion 4.0 International License (CC BY). Migration has deep impacts on social structures and shaped by migration, the regimes that try to regulate it, socio-political power relations in departure, transit, and and by the struggles of migrants, refugees, and solidar- arrival countries. Migrants and refugees contest and ity movements for social inclusion and participation. In transform dominant notions of the nation-state, state this framework, social transformation has two main com- control, national sovereignty, citizenship, and participa- ponents, one is how newcomers transfer society, this is tion. In migration processes, both newcomers and citi- what immigrant and refugee-receiving countries are ex- zens address issues of equality and inclusion while rene- periencing. The other is how societies create specific sub- gotiating the meaning of (national) belonging and citizen- ject positions through their legal, political decisions and ship in terms of social and civil rights. Such processes can through engaging with social boundaries and cultural bring up unexpected alliances between social actors and repertoires (Lamont & Molnar, 2002; Yurdakul, 2013). new definitions of “who we are.” We observe processes Depending on the specific socio-political and legal of transformation of migration societies through such ev- context of the destination country, the relations be- eryday practices and state decisions on who belongs and tween immigrants and their new societies change dra- who does not belong to polity. matically. In this thematic issue, we attempt to show In this thematic issue, our focus lays on the chal- how migrants and refugees navigate within these migra- lenges to and transformation of societies, which are tion regimes, specifically, in times of neoliberal transfor- Social Inclusion, 2018, Volume 6, Issue 1, Pages 110 –114 110 mations of the welfare state and with right-wing strate- how social rights and local administrative reality con- gies of Othering in terms of class, gender, and racializa- flicted with each other in the realm of housing. Thirdly, tion present. We also pay particular attention to the spe- we focused on the transformation within the cities. In cific formation of the migration regimes that these coun- this way, we saw the effects of specific urban politics re- tries adopt, which structure the conditions of the eco- garding the struggles of refugees and immigrants in the nomic, racialised, gendered, and sexualized violence and cases of sanctuary cities (Bauder & Gonzalez, 2018), or exploitation during migration processes. This interactive refugees’ housing problems (El-Kayed & Hamann, 2018). process of social transformation shapes individual expe- The cross-cutting issues in answering these questions riences while also being shaped by them. have been dealing with racist politics and attitudes; the Building on our previous work (Hamann & Karakayali, effects of neoliberal policy-making on immigrants and 2016; Yurdakul, Römhild, Schwanhäusser, & zur Nieden, refugee/immigrant struggles in negotiating their rights 2018) and the inspiring work of others (see e.g. Ataç, Ry- and fighting against racism, and for acceptable labour giel, & Stierl, 2016; Fiedler et al., 2017) on the issue of conditions (Bouali, 2018). The answers to these ques- transformation since the long summer of migration (Kas- tions are overlapping in each article, but cross-cutting all parek & Speer, 2015), we aim to contribute to the most of them. recent and challenging question of what kind of political These three questions can only be framed in a solid and social changes can be observed and how to frame theoretical base. Engin Isin (2018) starts a new stream these changes theoretically if we look at local levels while of thinking society not from a static geography, but from focusing on struggles for recognition, rights, and urban the mobility of people. Centuries of migration, diaspora, space within societies shaped by migration. We bring in traveling, and flight have made mobility the norm rather a cross-country comparative perspective, ranging from than the exception, a reflection leading him to a new con- Canada, Chile, and Spain to Sweden, Turkey or Germany. cept of thinking society through migration. From this cru- Such a cross-country perspective is useful in order to see cial turn of perspective he asks: why were ‘mobile peo- how each country case differs from or resembles each ples’ constructed as an exception in the first place? His other in terms of their historical shifts, policy changes, new concept is a logical step from his influential work and their reaction towards immigrant struggles. Many on citizenship that can rather be seen as a practice, as contributions have applied a methodological approach acts, practised by people who are present with or with- developed in critical migration studies that goes “beyond out a formal state membership (Isin & Nielsen, 2008). the established paradigms of both traditional and critical With his new concept of ‘mobile peoples’ Isin goes one migration studies to create different relationships with step further. He not only theorises the way of practicing migrants and migrants’ struggles” (Casas-Cortes et al., participation in a social entity from each status