Metropolitics

The Asylum Story: Narrative Capital and International Protection

Emily Reid — 2021-02-02T06:00:00Z

Obtaining international protection relies upon an ability to successfully navigate the host country's asylum regime. In France, the récit de vie, or asylum story, is critical to this process. An asylum seeker must craft their story with the cultural expectations of the assessor in mind. The shaping of the asylum story can be seen as an act of political protest.
Names and identifying details have been altered to protect the privacy of individuals' stories.
The role of the asylum story within

- From the Field / asylum, migrants, migration, borders, France, immigration, immigration control, Europe

Moving Inside City Limits: The Urban Mobility of Undocumented Youth

Stephen P. Ruszczyk — 2019-06-04T05:00:00Z

The urban context and public transportation shape how undocumented youths move within cities. In a comparison of New York City and Paris, Stephen Ruszczyk shows how cities can strengthen mobility for undocumented youths, and for all residents, regardless of legal status.
Five years after Liang's parents left him and their hometown of Wenzhou in southeastern China, Liang, who was then 13 years old, reunited with them in central Paris. He lacked a visa to enter France, and had taken a plane,

- From the Field / RESF, immigration, immigration control, immigration policy, youth, undocumented youth, illegality, public transportation, transport, mass transit, Paris, New York, Featured

Struggles over Rights and Representations in the Migrant Metropolis: Reverberations of the Trump Effect in the Global South

María V. Barbero — 2016-12-07T06:00:00Z

While Latin America figures in US debates about immigration as a source of immigrants, Trump-style anti-immigrant politics have gained a following in Latin American countries as well. María Barbero examines rhetoric and resistance in Argentina.
It is 5:30 in the afternoon on November 22, 2016, and the sun is beaming on the faces of about 500 of us marching from Avenida de Mayo to the congressional palace in Buenos Aires. I am surrounded by flags of Bolivia, Paraguay, Senegal, and Brazil, the

- From the Field / immigration, Global South, Latin America, Donald Trump, immigration policy, Argentina, immigration control, migrant metropolis

Looking Inward, Across the Border

Harel Shapira — 2016-04-19T05:00:00Z

In the constellation of anti-immigrant politics in the United States, groups like the Minutemen, civilians who patrol the border with military gear, stand out for taking matters into their own hands. Harel Shapira explains that these militiamen are motivated not just by reflexive right-wing anti-immigrant ideology, but also by a nostalgia for their own lost worlds of work and meaning forged in military careers.
Presidential candidate Donald Trump has made the construction of a high border

- From the Field / immigration, United States, work, migration, borders, community, Minutemen, patrol, military, nostalgia, Mexico, immigration control, Featured