Moving out of the Shadows: Resistance and Representation in the Struggle for Migrant Rights

This thesis examines organizational attempts at and consequences of institutionalizing support for migrants. In addition, the thesis investigates specific instances of migrant mobility and strategic incapacitation as resistance to regimes of immigration enforcement and as contestation of US claims to sovereignty. Immigration enforcement depends upon the policing and subsequent restriction of migrants’ movement. These regimes of enforcement crossing multiple scales serve as a dragnet, generating a pretext for law enforcement interaction with migrants with potential for bypassing the criminal justice system. Immigration enforcement as well as local practices, discourses, and policies work together to render migrants as racialized, criminal subjects facing detention and removal. Connecting specific case studies of localized regimes of enforcement and targeted acts of resistance, this thesis exposes how migrants come to be understood as either lawful and worthy to remain in the US, or criminal and deserving of removal. This thesis discusses specific instances of enforcement through migrant incapacitation as well as mobility-centric attempts at resistance. I critique actions carried out by national campaigns and organizations by examining strategy behind these attempts at resistance as well as general effectiveness in contesting the discursive and practice-based criminalization of migrants. In its exploration of migrant advocacy and regulation, this paper argues for a new rights-based organizing approach no longer dependent on the binary opposition of migrants as criminal/lawful.

Name thesis:degree_name

Master of Arts

Level thesis:degree_level

masters

Discipline thesis:degree_discipline

Geography

Grantor dc:publisher

The Ohio State University

Year dc:date

2013

Author dc:creator

• Hines, Lauren Elizabeth

Contributors dc:contributor

• Coleman, Mathew
• Ettlinger, Nancy
• Wainwright, Joel

• Geography
• Philosophy of Science
• immigration
• enforcement
• resistance
• migrant

Statement dc:rights

• unrestricted
• This thesis or dissertation is protected by copyright: all rights reserved. It may not be copied or redistributed beyond the terms of applicable copyright laws.

Language dc:language

English

Repository record dc:identifier

http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=osu1365589635

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:etd.ohiolink.edu:osu1365589635