Governing Migration Through Paperwork: Legitimation Practices, Exclusive Inclusion and Differentiation

To better understand migration governance and the concrete, daily practices of civil servants tasked with enforcing state laws and policies, it is important to focus on documents, which are core artefacts of bureaucratic work. These can include certificates, letters, reports, case files, decisions, internal guidelines and judgements, in both digital and paper form. Based on ethnographic studies in various geographical and bureaucratic contexts, this collection shows how civil servants produce statehood, restrict migrants’ movements and engage with migrants’ strategies to make themselves legible. It contributes to the study of the state as documentary practice and highlights the role of paperwork as a powerful practice of migration control.

Lisa Marie Borrelli works as Associate Professor at the University of Applied Science - HES-SO Valais, Institute of Social Work, Switzerland. Her research interests circle around the broader concepts of exclusion and banishment, including a focus on how noncitizens’ rights are restricted by states in the fields of migration law, welfare policies and public administration.