Migrant Lives in a State of Exception (II): Sovereignty, Mobility and Agency in a Globalised World

The present volume is the second of two special issues that focus on Migrant States of Exception , published by Parallax as consecutive issues 27.2 and 27.3. Based on an interdisciplinary symposium at the University of Wuppertal in November 2019, these two parts function as companion pieces. In tandem, they engage and put into dialogue a variety of perspectives and disciplines – such as legal and philosophical approaches, human geography as well as literary, cultural and media studies – to gauge the complexity of a phenomenon that affects nearly every part of the world today. Neither scholarly work nor literary or filmic representations tend to have a direct influence on political or legal decision-making processes. Yet they constitute important means of reflection that are indispensable if we intend to move beyond the historically given and thus – potentially at least – to change the ways we imagine belonging, participation and, to use Benedict Anderson ’ s term, our ‘ imagined communities ’ . 1 Judging from the ever-increasing number of internal and international migrants, displaced persons, refugees and asylum seekers, we urgently need such re-imaginings and the social, political and legal possibilities that can evolve from them. first part States of attention ways borders sovereignty 2 and subversive tactics migrants negotiate borders, sovereignty and relations of power in gendered, racialised, material, embodied and manners. sections, dedi-cated ‘ Citizens, Citizen ’ and ‘ and the ’ , scholarly Sarkowsky, 3 Espinoza Garrido, 4 Eichinger, 5 as interview Spijkerboer, 6 legal readers