Abject Cosmopolitanism

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Third World uarterly

Abject Cosmopolitanism: The Politics of Protection in the Anti-Deportation MovementAuthor(s): Peter NyersSource: Third World Quarterly, Vol. 24, No. 6 (Dec., 2003), pp. 1069-1093Published by: Taylor & Francis, Ltd.Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/3993444.

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ThirdWorld Quarterly,Vol24, No 6, pp 1069-1093, 2003 CarfaxPublishing

b j e c t Cosmopolitanismh p o l i t i c so prote tion n t h anti deportationmov m nt

PETER NYERSABSTRACT The securitisation of migrationin Western tates has resulted in anarray of restrictive laws and policies that raise importantquestions about therelationship between protection and the political. New technologies of control(such as detention) and strategies of exclusion (such as deportation) are rapidlyundermining-indeed, effectively criminalising-national cultures of asylum.This article critically analyses how these measures are being contested andcountered by the anti-deportationactivism of undocumentednon-citizen peoplein Canada. How are these campaigns re-casting the question of 'protection'intheface of deportation efforts by the Canadianstate? This is a significant issuebecause the capacity to decide upon matters of inclusionand exclusion is a keyelement of sovereign power In the case of asylum seekers, the ability to decidewho will and will not beprovidedwithprotectionis interpretedn this paper as afocal point where the state (re)founds its claim to monopolise the political.Consequently, disputes over who has the authority to protect, who will beprotected, and under what terms and conditions, can reveal new problematisa-tions as well as new ways of thinking and acting politically. Employing theconceptualframeworkof abject cosmopolitanism, his article seeks to understandhow these campaigns are, and are not, reformulating the terms of politicalcommunity, dentityandpractice.

Toflee is toproducehereal, o createife,to findaweapon. GillesDeleuze)The topic of refugees and immigrationhas always been deeply political, as itinvariablyraises importantquestions about the changing nature of boundaries,self/other relations, and ethical and political practice. In recent years Westerngovernmentshave opted to frame these questionsthroughthe prism of security.Theirrestrictive aws andpolicies have createdan elaboratearrayof bureaucraticand physical impedimentsto cross-border ravel;a vast armouryof technologiesof control and exclusion attempt to enforce these barriers.The trend towardsecuritising migrationhas only intensifiedin the wake of the violent attacksonNew York and Washington.' In this nervous state of affairs Didier Bigoarguesthat a 'govemmentalityof unease' has transformedglobal anxieties aboutPeter Nyers is in the Department of Political Science, McMaster University, 1280 Main Street West,Hamilton, Ontario L8S 4M4, Canada. Email: [email protected] 0143-6597 prin-1TI'N 1360-2241 online/03/061069-25 2003 Third World QuarterlyDOI: 10.1080/01436590310001630071 1069

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PETER NYERSmigration nto a mode of ruling.He warns of the emergencenot of a global 'pan-opticon' (where everyone is watched), but of a 'ban-opticon'(where profilingtechnologies determine who is to be placed under surveillance, questioning,detention or removal and who is to be free of such interventions).2Asylumseekers, refugees, non-statusresidents,undocumentedworkers,so-called 'over-stayers' and 'illegals'-together, they have come to constitutea kind of 'abjectclass' of global migrants.3Whatever heirdesignation, hesemigrantsareincreas-ingly cast as the objects of securitised fears and anxieties, possessing either anunsavouryagency (ie they areidentity-frauds,queuejumpers,people who under-mine consent in the polity) or a dangerous agency (ie they are criminals,terrorists,agentsof insecurity).While global migrations are rendering internal and external borders lessdistinct and secure, it is clear that state capacities to enable inclusions andenforce exclusions have not diminished, only taken on new forms. This point isoften lost in all the hype about the hybrididentities generatedthroughbordertransgressions.Westernstateshave, in fact,demonstrated remarkablelexibilityin responding to the dynamism of contemporarymigrationflows. For example,SandroMezzadra sees in 'safe thirdcountry'agreementsnot simply a bilateralpact, but a broader transnational ystem of exclusion. These agreementsact inways thatreversethe flows of establishedtransnationalmigratorypaths,turningtheminto transnational orridorsof expulsion.In thecase of theEuropeanUnion,Mazzadraexplains that this involves exporting border control technologies tofrontiercountrieseagerto gainentryinto the EU.

Havingbeen identifiedas a 'safe thirdcountry',Polandmustacceptall refugeesandmigrantsexpelled from Germanywho enteredthrough ts territory.But Polandhasin turnconcludeda series of similaragreements, or example with the Ukraine.As aresult, there are now plans to construct detention centres in the Ukraine onthe Germanmodel, which already exist in Poland. The point is that this path ofexpulsion-Germany, Poland,Ukraine-follows in reverse the path establishedbythe migrants hemselves.4Since it is the migrants themselves, mostly from Asia and Africa, who havechosen the Ukraine as theirpreferredpoint of entryinto the frontierzone of theEU, Mezzadragives them credit for possessing enough agency to relegate 'theexclusionary measures to the status of a mere response'.' Nonetheless, in theirdesire to manageandcontrol the migrationprocess,these bordercontrolpoliciesarecreatinganabjectdiaspora-a deportspora.There is a growing interest in critically analysinghow restrictive mmigrationmeasures are being contested and counteredby global and local political move-ments of refugees, migrants and their allies.6 This article seeks to contribute othis literatureby approaching he topic througha cosmopolitanframe of analysis.Such a framework s advantageous or developinga strategyfor contesting thesecurity fixations of the sovereign state as well as for providing a possibleantidote to the anxious subjectivities fostered by recent securitisations. Toconsider how the political campaigns by abject migrants are potential sitesof a critical cosmopolitanism involves identifying and assessing such acts ofcitizenship for how they contest and reshape the traditionalterms of political1070



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POLITICSOF PROTECTIONN THEANTI-DEPORTATIONOVEMENTcommunity, identity and practice. To contribute to an understanding of thiscomplex politics, this article focuses on the contested governanceof 'protection'in Canadian mmigrationand deportationpractices.Whenever a state ponders whether or not to grant asylumto an individual, t ismaking an intervention n the politics of protection.This is a significantpoliticalissue because the capacity to decide upon mattersof inclusion and exclusion is akey element of sovereign power. Since Hobbes, the modern state has assertedamonopoly over matters of security,claiming to protect citizens from both eachother (through aws and police) and from the external aggression of other states(through he military,borderpolicing, etc). This monopoly,we know, is a crucialsource of legitimacy for sovereign power. In the case of asylum seekers, thedecision over who will, andwho will not, be providedwith protection s not justa humanitarian etermination,but a moment when the sovereign state (re)foundsits claim to monopolise the political.Anti-deportation ctivism,therefore,can beread in terms of contemporarydisputes over who has the authority o protect, andunder what terms and conditions. Such activism can reveal new problematisa-tions as well as new ways of thinking and acting politically. Who is to beprotected? Who will do the protecting? Who represents those in need ofprotection?Can the endangeredspeak for themselves? What are the possibilitiesand constraintsthat (dis)allow political activism by non- or quasi-citizens?Fortheir agency to be recognised as legitimate and heard as political, does it requiremediation from other citizen groups?Most importantly,what implications doesthe activism of abject migrantshave for regimes of the political which operate onthe assumption that such acts of agency are, in fact, impossible? The struggleover these questions can be revealing in terms of emerging forms of politicalsubjectivity and practice that contest the state's claim to monopolise thesubject(s) of protection on its territory.To problematise or contest this claim,therefore,becomes a critical momentof cosmopolitandissent.The argumentbegins by way of an introduction o the conceptof abjection andits relevance to understanding the theory and practice of a critical cosmo-politanism. Next, Bonnie Honig's recent intervention nto cosmopolitantheoryisconsidered.Honig arguesthat the ambiguousnarrativesregardingthe figure ofthe foreigner can serve as a critical resource for moving beyond state-centricaccounts of political agency.Herthinking, therefore, s relevantto understandingthe significanceof the critical citizenship practicesof abject migrants.Drawingon the political theory of Jacques Ranciere, Honig argues that in thesepolitical campaignsis an emerginganddemocratictaking subjectivity hat can bepotentially alignedwith a democraticcosmopolitanpolitics.Who are these taking-subjects, hese abject cosmopolitans?The final sectionsof this article consider the activism of a group of Algerian non-statusrefugeesliving in Montreal, Quebec who have self-organisedas the Comite~ 'Action desSans-StatutAlge'riens CASS). hese Algerians had their applicationsfor refugeestatus refused by the Canadian state; however, they could not be returnedtoAlgeria because of a moratorium on removals to that country in effect sinceMarch 1997. Held in immigration limbo, these Algerians continue to live inCanada, mostly in Montreal, but without the formal legal status that wouldallow them to have secure access to work, education,social services, etc (hence

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PETER NYERSthe designation 'non-status'). After the Canadian government removed itsmoratorium in April 2002, the CASS mounted a vigorous and highly visiblecampaign to put a stop to the deportationsand to regularisetheir immigrationstatus in Canada.In doing so, the CASS employedtactics to amplifytheirpoliticalvoice andlay claim to political space. Does this make them viable candidates ordemocraticcosmopolitanism?

AbjectcosmopolitanismThe idea of cosmopolitanism is making something of a comeback in con-temporarypolitical theory and practice.No longera 'dead idea' to be relegatedtothe footnotes of critical enquiry, cosmopolitanism is the subject of a growingnumber of academic studies of impressive quality.7 The reasons for thisresurgenceare complicated,to be sure.However, t is clear that the globalisationof late modernityhas created an historical context for rethinking he possibilitiesof cultural engagement, social affiliations, legal authorityand political actionbeyond the state. But just as globalisation represents a diverse, uneven andunequal set of dynamics and processes, the various histories and practicesassociated with cosmopolitanism are also quite large, and markedby their owncontroversies.This is an age of proteancosmopolitanisms,and the conceptneedsto be thoroughlypluralised,historicisedand differentiated.To think of cosmopolitanism in the plural is to upset much of the receivedknowledge we possess on the subject. Cosmopolitanism,after all, is famouslyuniversalistic n its aspirations.It is well known for disregarding he particular-istic logic of nationalism, with its imagined spatial communities and terni-torialised identities. Cosmopolitanism follows its own categorical imperative,takingall humanity, rrespectiveof place, alongfor the ride. For all its associationwith universality,however, the sheer diversityof perspectivesand practices ofcontemporary cosmopolitanism testify to the deep plurality of modes ofcosmopolitan conduct. James Clifford, for one, doubts whether 'a coherentcluster of experiences' could ever fall under the banner of cosmopolitanism.Heprefers, instead,to talk of 'discrepant'cosmopolitanisms:pluralised,he says, 'toaccount for a range of uneven affiliations' But if Clifford's discrepantcosmo-politanisms 'begin and end with historical interconnection and often violentattachment', he cosmopolitanactionsI am interested n analysingandtheorisingconcern those who have been de-connected, subjected to often violent detach-ment.As the editorsof a recent volume on cosmopolitanismpoint out, 'Cosmo-politans today are often the victims of modernity, ailed by capitalism's upwardmobility, and bereft of these comforts and customs of national belonging'.9Therefore, while these editors call for a 'situated universalism' to groundcosmopolitanpractice, we must ask the question of what is the 'situated'contextof these 'victims of modernity'?For abject migrants, he cast-offs of worldorder,theirsituatedness s displacement.Therefore, f cosmopolitanism 'catches some-thing of our need to groundour sense of mutuality n conditions of mutability',we should also add mobility to these conditions.10In this article I speak of'abject cosmopolitanism' to describe the emerging political practices andenduring political problematicsassociated with refugee and immigrantgroups1072



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POLITICSOF PROTECTIONN THEANTI-DEPORTATION OVEMENTresisting theirtargetedexclusion.When the word 'abject' is used to describe a dimension of world affairs, it isusually employed to highlight some of the gravest ills of the contemporaryage.The global problemof 'abjectpoverty' is a good example. But what does it meanto speak of an abject cosmopolitanism?The conjoiningof these two terms invitesserious conceptualconfusion,as their use andmeaning could not, it would seem,be furtherapart.While the Oxford English Dictionarydefines cosmopolitanismas 'belongingto all parts of the world', etymologies of abjectionpoint to its Latinroot abjectus, meaning 'throwaway' or 'cast-off'. The abject is someone who iscast-out, discarded and rejected. In contrast to the vaunted status of cosmo-politanism,the abject are held in low regardas outcasts. While the cosmopolitanis at home everywhere, the abjecthave been jettisoned, forced out into a life ofdisplacement.When consideredtogether,therefore, the 'abject' andthe 'cosmo-politan' appear as stark contrasts, relating to one another only in highlyoppositional terms: high/low, hope/despair,beautiful/ugly, belonging/exclusion,everywhere/nowhere.Abjection, therefore, describes a degraded,wretched and displacedcondition.Cosmopolitanism,we are told, is quite a differentthing, calling for an inclusive,sophisticatedand worldly demeanour.But abjectcosmopolitanism? s the stateofcosmopolitantheory and practice today such that it deserves the same adjectiveused to describe global patterns of inequality and poverty? Is the problemof universalism too great to be successfully navigated without (re)creatingimperialist prejudicesunder the guise of, say, a common Europe, a global civilsociety, or the family of humanity?Are today's cosmopolitans none other thanthe subjects of Empire?11 erhaps. However,there are many who would surelyoppose characterising cosmopolitanism in this abject manner, calling it adisservice to the noble and highly regarded tradition of thinking and actingbeyondthe state. But whatif cosmopolitanism'shigh value nonethelessrelied ona relationshipwith an abject non-value for its condition of possibility? Butlerargues that 'the exclusionarymatrixby which subjects are formed requiresthesimultaneous production of a domain of abject beings'.12 Do cosmopolitansubjectsconstitute themselves similarly?Kristevacalls abjection'a preconditionof narcissism'."3Does the elevated statusof cosmopolitanism-its narcissism,asit were-also rely on the constructionof an abjectother?The discordance of abject cosmopolitanism, therefore, exceeds the impliedpejorativeconnotation over the state of cosmopolitan theory today.The 'abject'is not just an adjective qualifying the noun 'cosmopolitanism'. Instead, theabject-subjecthas an importantconstitutive role in self/other encounters andrelationships-including those of the cosmopolitan variety. The 'moralcartography'of abjection is, however,riddledwith some familiar us/them powerrelations.'4All too often it is an 'us'-Westerners, Europeans, humanitarians,etc-who are the cosmopolitans, the champions of justice, human rights, andworld order; eaving 'them'-the ThirdWorlders, he global poor, the 'wretchedof the earth'-as the abject,the societies andsubjectsin crisis, the failed statesinneed of intervention. Consequently,answering the questions about alternativemeanings for abject cosmopolitanism requires some critical self-reflection onwhat Linda McDowell calls the 'categorizationof the classifiers'. She warns,

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PETER NYERSin particular,against 'those Western theorizers who see themselves as cosmo-politans but define others, the classified, as creoles' -or, in this case, abjecthumanbeings.'5The tendency to see therelationshipbetweencosmopolitanismandabjectionasone of mutual exclusion needs to be problematised. Indeed, relationships ofexclusion should always be regardedwith some suspicion, especially when theyinvolve sharp binary distinctions. These dualisms tend not to be balanced orsymmetrical, but are rather deeply hierarchical and disjointed, riddled withunequal power relations.Accordingto Engin Isin, one of the key assumptionsofany discourseutilising a 'logic of exclusion' is thatthe characteristicsassociatedwiththe 'excluded' predate heirexpulsion.

The logic of exclusion presupposes that the excluding and the excluded areconceived as irreconcilable;hatthe excludedis perceivedin purely negative terms,having no propertyof its own, but merely expressing the absence of the propertiesofthe other;thatthese propertiesare essential;that the propertiesof the excluded areexperienced as strange, hidden, frightful, or menacing; that the properties of theexcludingarea mere negation of thepropertiesof the other;and that exclusion itself(orconfinementorannihilation)s actuated ocially.'6As the embodiment of exclusion, the abject are prime candidates for 'hidden,frightful, or menacing' subjectivities to define their condition. Understoodpolitically, they stand in contrast o the purityof citizenship,ie the authoritative,articulate,visible andpolitical subjectivity. nstead,the abjectsuffer from a formof purity that demandsthem to be speechlessvictims, invisible and apolitical. Ina twisted reversal,the impurityof abjectionbecomes the purity of the abject.Thus there is an easy association with the 'cast-offs', the 'rejected',with a formof bodily wretchedness,mutedpoliticalagency,criminalityand moraldisrepute.'7It is important to highlight the arbitrarinessof these designations, and theviolence thatgoes into the enforcementof prevailingaccounts of political speech,agency, visibility, and reputablebehaviour. After all, the lowly status of the'abject' is by no means their 'natural' condition. 'Abjection',as Nikolas Rosedeclares, 'is an act of force'.'8 The historical practices of casting-off, ofdemotingan/other'sstatus to a lower mode of existence,areas varied as they arecomplicated.However,to see abjection as a practice of force underscores how'being abject'is, in fact, alwaysa matterof 'becomingabject'.As Rose states:

Abjection is a matter of the energies, the practices,the works of division that actupon persons and collectivities such that some ways of being, some forms ofexistence are cast into a zone of shame, disgrace or debasement,renderedbeyondthe limits of the liveable, denied the warrant of tolerability, accorded purely anegativevalue.'9Does this process of abjection not describe the experience of large numbers oftoday's global 'cast-offs'-the refugee,the asylumseeker,the 'illegal' worker? stheir 'zone of shame, disgrace or debasement' not the interminable 'waitingareas', the detentionfacilities, deportation lights, and lives forcedunderground?Whatare the possibilities for political agencyin such abject 'zones' today? Whenconfronted by such questions, we should not be entirely pessimistic in our1074



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POLITICSOF PROTECTIONNTHEANTI-DEPORTATIONOVEMENTresponse. Judith Butler, for one, argues that abjection can serve as 'a criticalresource in the struggle to rearticulate he very terms of symbolic legitimacy andintelligibility'.20 How are the 'cast-off' today taking up the cosmopolitan call and,with their practices,recastingthe possibilities for local/global political life? Here,abject cosmopolitanism describes not a problematic cosmopolitanism for theabject, but rathera problematisingcosmopolitanismof the abject.

Democratic cosmopolitanism: taking on the politicalIn Canadathe topic of abject migrationbrings forth a remarkablymessy mix ofxenophiliac and xenophobic statements and practices. For example, after aJanuary2003 census report ndicated that the numberof immigrantschoosing tosettle in Canadahadrisen steadily throughout he 1990s, the Minister of Citizen-ship and Immigration, Denis Coderre, boasted that Canada is 'a place whereimmigrants will find hope, hospitality and opportunity'.The Minister indicatedhis immensepleasurethat so many inumigrants eem Canada'choiceworthy' and,thus, seek membership through citizenship: 'So many immigrants choose tobecome Canadians because they recognize the Canadian values of respect,freedom, peace and belonging'2 Only a few days later, however, an incident atVancouver International Airport revealed another, more troubling, side toCanada'srelationshipwith foreigners. When an Iranian woman whose refugeeclaim had been rejected by Canadian officials was about to be deported, shemade headlines by making a dramatic escape-'running for her life', as hersupportersput it.22The woman and her family had been living and working inCanadafor four years, had never been on welfare, had strong ties to the localcommunity,etc. By all accounts they were a 'model' immigrant amily, the kindpraised by Minister Coderreonly a few days earlier.However, nsteadof praisingher determination to stay in a country where 'respect, freedom, peace andbelonging' supposedly reign, the Minister rose in Parliament to reassure thepopulace that the Iranian woman and her family had been apprehendedand deported.He also chose the moment to publicly boast about the number ofdeportationshis ministrysuccessfullycarriesoutper year (about 8400).How should we understandthis confused state of affairs that surrounds theforeigner? An important new book by Bonnie Honig, Democracy and theForeigner,respondsto this thornypolitical problem.Honig arguesthat the storiestold about a recurringfigure in Westernpolitical culture-that of the 'foreign-founder'-are importantbecause they revealthe pivotal role that foreigners playin founding political communities.An importantpartof this argument s thatthemoment of foundingis not only locatable somewherein a nation'spast. Honigpersuasively argues that the distinctiveness of every national culture has to beperiodically refurbished;populationshave to be reassured,and their affectationsfor the nation reaffirmed.Every political community must, in short, re-founditself. Honig explores this process of renewal by considering narrativesaboutforeigners (wantedand unwanted, egal and illegal, celebratedand scorned)andthe various ways they are received by political communities. What emergesfrom her analysis is an appreciationof what might be called a 'doubleness' toforeignness: it can operate as both a support and a threat to the political

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PETER NYERScommunity in question. From this perspective, the seemingly contradictorycomments madeby the Canadian mmigrationMinister take on renewedimport;they are partof the ongoing processof utilising the 'foreigner'for the purposeofnational (re)founding.While there is nothing inherent in foreignness to make it correspond tonationalisation or de-nationalisation projects, Honig makes it clear that shefavours the latter,albeit in the qualified form of 'democraticcosmopolitanism'.This critical cosmopolitanism s not an argumentn favour of a specifiedform oftransnationalgovernance;it does not have global citizenship or world govern-ment as its telos. Honig's cosmopolitanism similarly avoids the entrapmentsofinternational aw, recognising that this arena,while significant,is no substitutefor the difficult and complex politics that democraticcosmopolitanismcalls for.Rather,democraticcosmopolitanismseeks to 'widen the resources and energiesof an emerginginternationalcivil society to contest or supportstate actions inmatters of transnational and local interest such as environmental, economic,military, cultural, and immigrationpolicies'. As a form of activism, democraticcosmopolitanism seeks to 'denationalise the state' by 'scrambling'the opposi-tions of 'instrumental' versus 'affective' citizenship. In doing so, it rendersvisible 'already existing sites of sub- and internationalactivisms and member-ships that are affective,butnot nationalist,rootedbut not simply in culture, deepbut not particularist,ransnational ut not simply disloyal'. This is a democraticform of cosmopolitanism,moreover,because of its commitment o promoteat thelocal, national or international levels 'popular empowerment,effective repre-sentation, and the generationof actions in concert across lines of difference'.Honig has a vigorous understanding f democraticpracticein mind, calling forcosmopolitans to 'risk their cosmopolitan (and nationalist) principles byengaging others in theirparticularities,while at the same time defending, (re)-discovering and (re)articulatingocated universalismssuch as humanrights andthe equal dignity of persons'. Finally,andperhapsmost importantly,democraticcosmopolitanismis abouttransforminghe meaning and practiceof citizenshipfrom 'a juridical status distributed(or not) by states' to 'a practice in whichdenizens, migrants, residents, and their allies hold states accountable for theirdefinitions and distributionsof goods, powers, rights, freedoms, privileges, andjustice'.23There is much to admire in Honig's cosmo-political thinking. Honig is anexemplary contemporary hinker about the abjectzones and subjects,the limit-spaces and conditions of the political. In the figure of the foreign-founder,shecritically examines subjectivities that are simultaneously 'inside' (because oftheir residency) and 'outside' (because of their lack of status) the politicalcommunity.In doing so, Honig's argumenthas some fairly radical implicationsfor who counts as a political subject and what counts as political agency. Herdiscussion of the 'myth of immigrantAmerica' is a revealing example in thisregard.This myth posits that the continuationof America's democraticpoliticalculture is dependent upon the vitality and enthusiasmof incoming immigrantpopulations.Here,the foreignerserves as an important supplement o the nation,an agentof nationalreenchantment hat might rescue the regime from corruptionand return it to its first principles'.24 Such moments of (re)founding by1076



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PETER NYERSdemocraticpractice'. This positive assessment of the foreigneras a 'democratictaker' paves the way for Honig to consider how foreignness workson behalf of ademocraticcosmopolitanproject.28The idea of a taking-subjectivity s one that Honig borrowsfrom the Frenchpolitical theorist, Jacques Ranciere. Politics, for Ranciere, is an activity that'turnson equalityas its principle'. Equality,however,'is not a given thatpoliticsthen presses into service, an essence embodied in the law or a goal politics setsitself the task of attaining'. Rather,equality is an 'assumptionthat needs to bediscerned within the practices of implementing it'. The practices that enactpolitical equality, however, are not necessarily coextensive with the legal statusof citizenship.Acts of citizenshipare as likely to be enactedby abject subjectsasby citizen subjects.For Ranciere,the point is thatpolitics is 'a specific kind ofconnection' that 'comes aboutsolely through nterruption'.29his involves thosemoments when abjectsubjects (in Ranciere's terms,those who have 'no part' inthe social order) articulatea grievance as an equal speaking being. For Ranciere,this is a radicalpoliticalmoment.It qualifiesas a quintessentialpolitical moment,what Isin identifies as the 'moment when the naturalnessof the dominantvirtuesis called into question and their arbitrariness evealed'. Such moments enabletheexcluded-the abject-'to constitute themselves as political agents under newterms, takingdifferentpositions in the social spacethan those in whichthey werepreviously positioned'."3Honig's taking foreigner is in the peculiar position of being an unwantedstranger o the polity andmay, therefore,be classified as ill qualifiedto possess alegitimate political voice. The first target of taking-subjects s, therefore, alwaysspeech: political speech. Our received traditionsof politics tell us that politicalspeech is an attributebelonging to the realm of citizenship. Denied this legalstatus-and along with it, the onto-political status of a speaking being-theseforeigners (historicallyrepresentedby alien suffrage movementsin their variousforms) have to interrupt he dominantpolitical (speaking) order not just to beheard,but to be recognisedas a speaking being as such. Not surprisingly, hen,Honig applaudsRanciere'saccountingof 'political activity', something which hedescribesas a formof activitythat 'shifts a body from the place assignedto it orchanges a place's destination.It makes visible what had no business being seen,and makes heard as discourse where once there was only place for noise; itmakes understoodas discourse what was once only heardas noise."'3

The limits of democratic cosmopolitanismHonig admits that her focus on the myth of immigrantAmerica has its limita-tions. In the first place, it focuses quite narrowly on a particular class ofimmigrant-ie the one who consents out of his/her own free will to immigrate othe USA. This account,of course,obscures how almost all states are founded onan unpleasantarrayof non-consentingpractices.Honig recognisesthat Americanliberaldemocracy s founded:

not only on immigration but also on conquest (Native Americans) and slavery(the forced importationof African slave labour) and, in the postfounding era, on1078



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POLITICSOFPROTECTIONNTHEANTI-DEPORTATION OVEMENTexpansion (Hawaii, Alaska, Puerto Rico, etc), annexation (French settlements inIllinois, St. Louis, and New Orleans as well as a significant Spanish-speakingpopulation n the southwest as a resultof a war with Mexico), and more slavery.32

It would be unreasonable to expect anyone to address all these moments of(re)founding, no matter how significant they are. But Honig's noted omissionsare nonetheless notable. Her focus seems to be on a contested politics of co-optation and national integration nvolving foreigners who come to America-willingly or forced, legally or clandestinely,admirably t doesn't matter o Honig.She problematises his integration;unsettles it; finds emerging subjectivities andpolitics there. But for all her emphasis on the foreigner, Honig doesn't considerthe external dimension to (re)founding moments. Expulsions, deportations,defections, population transfers,forced transportationsand coerced migrationsare an important dimension of the constitutive relationship between politicalcommunities and foreigners. Yet Honig's focus is uni-directional. She looks atthe local/global struggles of foreigners residing within a state. She does notconsider the difficult struggles of thoseon their way out.Unfortunately, his is a significantomission on Honig's partbecause it fore-closes some important heoretical and practical considerations. In particular,byexcluding from consideration the abject-foreigner (the deportee, the failedasylum applicant, the overstayer, etc) Honig side-steps the crucial issue ofsovereign power. Honig's unwillingnessto confrontthe questionof sovereignty sa puzzle, especially given that her concluding statement about democraticcosmopolitanism is an expression of hope that it may 'stop us from rescripting[the paradoxes of foreignness] into political problematics that usually end uppitting "us"against "them"'.3Given such concerns, it is surprisingthat Honigdoes not consider the particular form of us/them relationship of politicalcommunities constituted as specifically sovereign states. This is an importantomission because with sovereignty, as Schmitt and others have observed, theself/foreigner relationship ends to be resolved as a self/enemy confrontation.Inthis context it seems obvious that to be a foreigner,not least in the USA today,isto be an easy targetof the sovereign's exceptional powers, especially in mattersof inclusion and exclusion.34 n fact, in this globalised world, 'deportationclass'has become one of the fastest and cheapest ways to fly.For all the ambiguitythat Honig attributes o self/foreigner relationships,thelines between these identities become very sharpindeed once the question ofsovereignty is provoked. The violence that is the concomitant partner tosovereignty's self/other resolution makes sovereignty an especially interesting,dangerousand politically pressing object of critical analysis. What is Honig'sassessment of this violence? How would her 'democratic cosmopolitanism'resolve the problem of (re)founding in ways different (and presumably lessviolent) than that of the sovereignty dynamic?Honig neverconfronts the issue ofsovereigntyand, therefore,has no explicitanswerto these questions.In this respect Honig's discussion of the changing possibilities for politicalagency and subjectivitywould have been betterserved if she had also taken intoaccount the spatial dimension of (re)founding practices. Isin emphasises howspatial practicesare key factorsin the constitutionof citizenship.He arguesthat

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PETER NYERS'space is a condition of being political' and points to the various buildings(parliament, guildhall), configurations (forum, plaza), and arrangements(assembly) that are spatial expressions of citizenship.35n a similar fashion weneed to discern the spatial practicesof abjectionandtheirrelationship o politicalpractice.36What buildings, configurations and arrangements are the spatialexpressions of the foreigner without legal status? At the limit, there are theairport waitingarea',the immigrationdetentionfacilities, the deportation light.These are the mezzaninespaces of sovereignty-that is, those spaces which arein-between the inside and the outside of the state. A common question arisesfrom sites as diverse as the sanctuaries of the sans papiers in France, to therioting refugees in the detentioncamps of Australia,to the non-statusAlgeriansorganisingagainstdeportationsn Montreal-what are the implicationsthat arisefrom the political becoming of the abject? If these foreigners demonstrate ataking-subjectivity,hen theirabject cosmopolitanismconstitutes a very difficultmomentfor the state.Throughan impossibleactivism-'impossible' because thenon-statusdo not possess the 'authentic' dentity (ie citizenship) that would allowthem to be political, to be an activist-they make visible the violent paradoxesofsovereignty. Consequently, the risks taken by the taking abject foreigner-ietaking the risk to become a speaking agent-is risky for the sovereign account ofthe political as well. Not surprisingly, representativesof the sovereign orderdisplay a strikinganxiety whenever the abject foreignertakes on the status ofa political activist engaged in acts of self-determination(eg stopping his/herdeportation).

Taking status: Montreal's Comite d'Action des Sans-StatutsAn emerging global politic is criticallyengagingwiththe politics of protection nthe form of anti-deportationampaignsandimmigrantregularisationmovements.To be sure,while governmentsaretakingformidablemeasuresto tightenbordersand limit the right of asylum, social movementsaroundthe world are mountingpolitical campaigns that are set on re-taking these rights. The radical cosmo-politanism of chants such as 'no one is illegal', 'no borders, no nations, nodeportations',and 'neitherhere,nor elsewhere' arebeing heardfromthe barrensof Australia, to the cosmopolitan streets of Montreal, to the activist 'bordercamps' on the outskirtsof FortressEurope. Often called 'no border'movements,Nandita Sharma describes them as having 'developed an integrated politicscalling for an end to displacement worldwide, the free movement of peopleand committed supportfor indigenous struggles for traditional land and self-determination'.7" o bordercampaigns appearin various forms and take on adiverse set of tacticsto suit theirparticular ontextsandcircumstances.Whereverthey exist, they have not been stingy in doling out surprising and innovativeforms of political action. In Australia, the policy of placing undocumentedrefugees and migrantsundermandatorydetentionhas been met by diverse anti-detentionandanti-deportationampaigns.The militancyof some of the detainedasylum seekers has inspired some audacious tactics, including the creation ofsanctuaryzones and mass convergenceson the detentioncentres of WoomeraandBaxter. In Europe,there is an extremely well developed 'no borders'movement,1080



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PETERNYERSdenied the right to make a claim in Canada.Instead, they will be sent back topursue a claim in the USA. On both sides of the borders,refugee advocates andhuman rights NGOScriticise this agreementon the groundsthat it increases therisks for asylum seekers and provides less protection or refugees. The CanadianCouncil of Refugees (ccR) has repeatedlypointedto evidence indicatingthat theUSA is not a particularly safe' countryfor asylumseekers.Forexample, asylumseekers returned to the USA will be subjected to that country's system ofdetaining refugee claimants, often among general prison populations, andexpediting their removal and deportation.4"o be sure, even the Canadiangovern-ment seems to recognisethis: it issued a travel advisoryin autumn2002 warningforeign-bornresidentsaboutthe risks of travelling o the USA.In addition to the statements of concern and the political lobbying done byNGOSsuch as the CCRand AmnestyInternational, here havealso been some moreradicalsocial responses.In October2002 a coalitionof faith groups responded othe state's restrictionson protectionwith a call to revive a sanctuarymovement inCanada and create an underground ailroad, despite the considerable risks andsevere penalties.42 imilarly, anti-racistand anti-globalisationactivists in majorCanadiancities are increasingly nvolved in local andglobal campaigns o defendrefugee and migrant rights. Montreal, Toronto and Vancouver each host anactivist groupnamed 'No One Is Illegal'. In Vancouver, he IranianandChinesecommunities have begun campaigns for the regularisation of non-statusimmigrants within their communities. In addition, the 'Open the Borders 'network in that city has begun a transnationalconversation among grassrootsorganisations on how to organise a 'no border' politics.43 In Toronto, the OntarioCoalition Against Poverty (OCAP) has developed a successful track record ofdirect action casework to stop deportations. n Montreal, campaigns to stop thedeportations of non-status Algerian, Palestinian and Pakistani refugees andmigrantshave drawn nternational ttention. n February2003 anti-racistactivistsin that city hosted a 'Consulta' to co-ordinate various local campaigns at anational level. Similarly, the STATUSCoalition has recently launched a pan-Canadian campaign for the regularisation of all non-status immigrants inCanada.4The campaign to stop the deportationsof the non-status Algerians living inMontreal s worthexaminingin some detail. The activism of Montreal'sCASS iSinterestingas a case for consideringthe limits and possibilities associated withHonig's conception of democraticcosmopolitanism. The CASS is composed ofpeople who are most directly affected by the exclusionary practices of theCanadianstate. As with the sans-papiers in France, the non-statusrefugees havethemselves taken the lead in the campaign to stop their deportations andregularise their status in Canada and Quebec. The majorityof the non-statusAlgerians arrivedin Canada as refugees seeking asylum. All were fleeing theviolence andconflict thathas pittedarmedIslamist groupsanda corruptmilitaryregime against one another since elections were suspended and a state ofemergencywas instatedin 1992. The conflict in Algeria has taken a disastroustoll on the population: over 150 000 dead, 12 000 disappeared, a milliondisplaced, and a civilian populationharassedby regular kidnappings, summaryexecutions and violent repression.45Of the Algerians who managedto arrive n1082



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POLIIICSOFPROTECTIONN THEANTI-DEPORTATIONOVEMENTCanada,some were grantedrefugee status;manywere not. While the individual-istic bias of the Canadianrefugee determinationprocess separates'genuine' and'non-genuine' refugees, the Canadian government nonetheless deemed thesituation in Algeria to be so dangerousthaton 3 March 1997 a moratoriumwasinstatedprohibiting all deportations o that country. Many of the failed asylumseekers-now so-called 'non-status'persons-noted the irony of this situation:'It's ironic that you can be refused as refugees but you can'tbe sent back to yourown countrybecauseyou'll be persecuted'.46In February2002 AmnestyInternational eleaseda reportstating thatthere hadbeen no substantialchange in the political or human rights situation in Algeriasince 1999:

Human ightsviolations n Algeriahave become institutionalised.n 2002 alonemorethan80 civilianswereunlawfully illedby securityorces anddozensmoretorturedr held for varyingperiodsof timein secretdetention.Some200 peoplecontinue odieeverymonth s aresultof thecontinuingecade-long rmed onflict.The level of killinghas remainedargely unchanged ince early 1999. Many ofthe deadarecivilians,ncludingwomenandchildren, illed in targeted nd ndis-criminateattacksby armedgroups.47Recognising the continuingdangerto human life in Algeria, the DepartmentofForeign Affairs issued a traveladvisory stating that 'Canadiansshould defer alltourist travel to Algeria'. However, only one day later, on 5 April 2002, theMinister of Immigration ifted the moratoriumon deportations o Algeria. Some1069 Algerians whose refugee claims had been denied would be sent back to acountrydeemedtoo dangerous or Canadian ourists.The reaction of the non-statusAlgerian community in Montreal has been tofight the government'spolicy reversal. The CASS, along with allied groups suchas No One Is Illegal (NOII), has mounted a vigorous campaign to raise publicawareness about their situation,and to organise an effective political and legalresponse.Theirdemandsto the Canadianand Quebecgovernmentsare for 1) animmediate end to all deportations;2) a return o the moratoriumon removals toAlgeria;and3) the regularisation f non-statusAlgerianresidents in Canada.48wide arrayof actions andstrategieshave been employedto push this agendaintothe publicrealm,manyof which are more in line with the radicaltactics of anti-globalisationprotestors han with the conventional egal avenues takenby humanrights NGOS.In additionto the legal avenues, the actions organizedby the CASShave includedregularassemblies to mobilise directlyaffectedAlgerians;weeklyinformation pickets outside the offices of Immigration Canada; unannounceddelegation visits, largeand small, to these offices; regularpublic demonstrationsand marches, at times with over a thousand participants; leafleting againstdeportationsat airports,drawingattention o the privatecarrierswho profitfromcarryingout state deportations;and creatinga solidaritynetwork with a diversegroupof supporters ndallies in Montreal,acrossCanada,andinternationally.49On one level, these actions have added weight to the demand to stop thedeportationsand to regularisethe status of members of the non-statusAlgeriancommunity.On anotherlevel, the significance of these measures exceeds theirtactical utility and raises some fundamental questions about the changing

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PETERNYERSpossibilities for political subjectivity and agency. Do the non-status activistspossess a taking-subjectivity, s understoodby Honig? To be in a better positionto answer this question, let us briefly examine two particular actics employedby members of the CASS:1) delegation visits to Immigration offices and2) sanctuary.These tactics have been proven to be importantor how they disruptthe administration, he routines, and, above all, the 'normality'of deportations.They are also significant, however,as form of taking-politics: delegationvisitsallow the non-status, hose who have 'no part',to assert theirpolitical voice; thecreation of sanctuaryzones similarly allows for a re-castingof political space.Understoodtogether,these tactical measuresare crucial to the possibilities of anabject cosmopolitanpolitical agency.Taking peechThe CASS organised a number of delegation visits to immigration officesbeginning in Summer 2002. There is a number of advantagesto these kinds ofvisits. An occupationby non-statuspeople disrupts he normalityof office affairs;they bring their own personal 'states of emergency' directly to the stateapparatus.Direct action tactics work best when they organise aroundexistingweaknesses and vulnerabilitiesin the system. Canadian mmigration offices inparticular do not tolerate disruption well as they operate in the context of amassive backlog of casework.50 ince these offices can't affordto be upset,a wellco-ordinateddisruptioncan create considerablepressure or officials to submit tothe request of a meeting with management and/or political officials. Thesemeetings usually include forcing officials to read the individualcase files andhearthe testimonies of the refugeeclaimants. This is the otherkey advantageofdelegation visits: they allow for face-to-face encounters with state officialsinvested with enormous powers of discretion. As one member of CASScomplained, 'We are treated as file numbers,not as humanbeings'."5 Once thecompelling individual stories behind these numbers are shared, t is not unusualfor immigrationstaffto be moved to tears.52But will they be moved enough to changed their minds about a deportationorder? The dynamics of delegation visits are revealing in this respect, as theydemonstrate he ongoing struggleof the non-status n being recognisedandheardas political actors. In an account of an unannounced visit to the offices ofImmigrationCanada made by members of the CASS'S Women's Committee andtheirchildren,Nacera Kellou describes the intense unwillingness of the govern-ment officials to speakto the non-statusAlgerians.53 he also describes the panicthese officials showed when they realised that other non-status refugees andimmigrants n the waiting roomof the immigrationoffices could see and hear theCASSdemonstration.

They were hard headed.They were telling us, 'Give us your letterand we will getbackto you'. They didn't want to speakto us all at once. They were saying, 'This isnot the way thingsaredonein Canada.We don't do it this way' ... The Immigrationofficials-they wanted us to providethe good respectful mage: that we'd come in,andwe'd go upstairs,and we'd sit down, and we'd wait, and we'd talk to them likethings arenormal.But thingsaren't normal This was panic, andwe actedin such a1084



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POLITICSOF PROTECTIONNTHEANTI-DEPORTATION OVEMENTway. We occupied all the rooms to show that this was a serious situation. Theydidn't want the other people [othernon-statusrefugees] in the waiting room to seeus because this would dirtyup their image. This would take away from their imageof their administrative ife, of things being done normally.This would ruin that.Sothat's how we approachedt.54

Clearly, Kellou's account demonstratesthat immigration officials were inter-locutors in 'a determinedkind of speech situation', one in which they simul-taneously understood and did not understand what the other (the non-statusAlgerian) was saying.55From the outset the prior expectation of docility andpatience on the part of refugees (ie they should wait to be called upon) wasshattered.The officials were instead faced with a loud, assertive group of non-status people, who were unwilling to be separated as (speaking) 'leaders' and(silent) 'followers'. The audacityof such tactics threatens to subvertthe entireframeworkof 'authoritative itizen' versus 'passive refugee'. In this context thesignificanceof immigrationofficials moving asylumseekersand other non-statuspeople out of the ministry's waiting room is revealed: the dominant order ofspeaking beings cannot tolerate the sight or sounds of non-citizens acting aspolitical agents.Consequently, his activismmust be hiddenout of sight of othernon-statuspeople, lest theyfollow the exampleof the CASS.Taking paceBy October 2002 the Canadiangovernmenthad deported32 Algerians. At thesame time, the Stop the Deportationscampaignfounda rallying point in the caseof the Bourouisa family:Mourad,Yakout,and their two-year-oldCanadian-bornson, Ahmed.This 'good' immigrant amily captivated he media. The Bourouisafamily spoke excellent French, had never been on welfare and had workedthroughout their lengthy stay in Canada. To all appearances they were the'model' immigrantfamily employed by nation-statesto (re)foundtheir distinc-tiveness, their 'choiceworthiness'.And yet the family was facing a type of Catch-22 situation that is so typical of the non-statusexperience. Shortlyafter Mouradreceived his Canadianworkpermitin September2002-non-status refugees andimmigrantshave to makethe $150 applicationevery year-the Bourousiafamilyreceived a deportation order. Their hopes were raised, however, when theyreceived word that the Quebec government had scheduled an immigrationinterview for themin New YorkCity.But this appointmentwas set for two weeksafter their scheduleddeportation.To add to this absurdsituation,the Bourouisafamily could not attend their immigration interview because the Canadiangovernmentwas in possession of theirpassportsand,as Algeriannationals, t wasunlikely that the US governmentwould issue them travel visas. Faced with adeportation date for 20 October 2002, the family chose to accept the UnionUnited Church's offer of protection instead and began an 11-day period ofsanctuary here.56The takingof sanctuaryhas a long historyandis rootedin the idea of a 'sacredspace' of protection,free from governmentalpower. In North America, a welldeveloped sanctuarymovement emerged in the 1980s to provide asylum andprotectionto CentralAmericanrefugees. Informedby a theology which held to

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PETER NYERSa radical expansion of the definition of 'sin' to include social and economicinjustices-and not just individual transgressions-these faith activists under-stood the Gospel as one of earthlysalvation, as a kind of higher politics. Thisappeal to a non-territorialand universalistic 'higher politics' constitutes animportantchallenge to an orderthatalreadyclaims to have resolved the relation-ship between universality-particularityhroughthe principleof territorialstatesovereignty.57ndeed,the whole idea of sanctuaryas a kind of 'sacredspace'-or,if one secularises the concept, a 'liberatedzone'-presents a challenge to theprinciple of state sovereignty. In the context of deportations,Walterssuggeststhat the taking of sanctuary guarantees that deportation will no longer be aroutine administrative process. Rather, it ensures that the deportation act isrevealed as a site where sovereigntyis performed: 'either the state negotiatingwith the subjectsof deportation and therebyrecognizingthem as subjects),orthe state as armedbodies of men smashingdown churchdoors, seizing, arresting,pacifying, terrifying,removingbodies in full display of the public'.58 n autumn2002, afterseveral years of dealingwith the sans papiers' strategyof sanctuary,authorities n France chose the latteroption, forcibly evicting over 70 IraqiandKurdishasylum seekers from a Catholic churchin November2002.59 n Canadathe political pressure createdby the existence of a sanctuaryspace in Montrealwas still relatively novel. The visible and audible presence of non-citizenpolitical subjects was, therefore,successful in forcing the Canadianand Quebecgovernments o make some important oncessions, at least in the short term.

Sovereign (re)takingsOn 30 October2002 the federal andQuebecimmigrationministersrespondedtowhat they called 'an extraordinary ituation'-ie the appearanceof a sanctuaryspacein Montreal,but moregenerallythepolitical activismof non-citizens-andannouncedthe Joint Procedures or theprocessingof the applications of certainAlgerian nationals. 'For humanitarianreasons, you no longer have to leaveCanada',said the federalMinister,conveniently choosing to ignore the politicalpressurecreated by the non-statusactivists and their allies. The major govern-mentconcession was to allow non-statusAlgeriansto make in-landapplicationsfor permanent esidence in Canada.Since the length of the applicationprocedurewas threemonths,in the shorttermthis amounted o a victory: a 90-day reprieveon deportationswould apply to all non-statusAlgerians who made the applica-tion.While taking this as an importantachievement, the CASS nonetheless recog-nised the limitationsand, indeed, the trapsin this concession. In the first place,the Joint Procedures re-affirmed the sovereign's capacity to decide upon theexceptionby excludinga numberof categoriesof non-statuspeople of Algerianorigin: eg those who live outside Quebec; those with a criminalrecord,howeverminor;those who have alreadyreceiveddeportationorders or been deported;andthose who cannot affordto pay the expensive application fees ($550 per adult,$150 per child). For the 174 non-statusAlgerianswho went underground r leftCanada-and who soon had warrants issued for their arrest-the JointProcedureswere obviously an inadequate esponse.Indeed,the JointProcedures1086



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PETER NYERSfrom an outside.62 t also involves the employmentof complicatedtechnologiesthat are designed to absorb, control andmanageflows and movements as muchas repel them.Consequently, ike all borders, he Canadianone is 'polysemic' inthe sense that it does not have the samemeaningfor everyoneand the experienceof the border varies quite dramatically according to race, gender, class andnational origin.63According to Barry Hindess, one of the constitutive effects ofcitizenship is to divide and allocate the global human populationinto smallersub-populations of territorial states.64It is a normal and acceptable-notto mention quite legal-practice for states to discriminateon the basis of non-citizenship. National (re)foundings, therefore, do not exist as an abstraction,separate from the overall system of nation-states. Consequently,while Honigemphasises how foreignness plays an important ole in national (re)founding,byignoringsovereignty'sre-takingsshe misses the important ole the deportationofforeignersplays in international re)foundings.To engagewith deportations notonly to engage with practices that are constitutive of citizenship,but also withpracticesthat are constitutiveof a state-centricworld order.The Canadiangovernment's position with respect to Algeria is an excellentexample of how the external dimension of sovereignty gets reproduced hroughdeportations.The lifting of the moratoriumqualifies as a (re)foundingmomentfor the international system of states in two respects. First, it reconfirms asuncontroversial the idea that every designated national (eg Algerian) can beallocatedto a designated erritoryeg Algeria).Froman international erspective,as Waltersexplains, 'deportation epresents he compulsoryallocation of subjectsof their propersovereigns'.65 The ImmigrationMinisterconfirms this when hesays, 'The people we deport, therewill be no problem for them', addingthat thesuspension of elections and the declarationof a state of emergency n 1992 savedAlgeria fromturning nto anotherAfghanistan.66heImmigrationMinister'seasyeffacement of the extremely anti-democraticand violent practices of Algerianstatecraft would seem to be a contradictory stance for a representative of ademocraticpolity committed to the idea of universalhuman rights,as Canada s.But according to some of the prevailing conceptions of cosmopolitanism,deportation n and of itself does not negate the viability of a world order where,say, constitutionalstates anduniversalhumanrights reign. For example, Hindessnotes how Kant's famous vision of cosmopolitanism recognised that acosmopolitanworld orderwouldprobablybe forceduponstates, as both an effectand a reasonable solution to the problemof interstateconflict and competition.Hindess reminds us of this dimension of cosmopolitanism in order to suggestthat:

the oftenbrutal nd nhumaneracticesf contemporaryemocratictates how,notthattheKantian isionitself is misleading, ut how far we still have to go beforethatvision can be realized.Onthis view, lackof elementary ospitality owardsmigrantswould be seen as a featureof the modernworldthatwill be overcomeas poor, weak, or undemocratic tates become wealthier, strongerand moredemocratic-thats, as theirowncitizenshave less reason o flee and otherstateshavemorereason o treat hesecitizenswithrespect.67Following this logic, an important ondition for Algeria becoming recognised as1088



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POLITICSOF PROTECTIONNTHEANTI-DEPORTATION OVEMENTa full partner n the international ommunityof states is that deportationsof non-statusAlgeriansmusttake place.We can readsuch rationales n Coderre'sassess-ment of Algeria: 'There is a future for Algeria. There is an improvement inhuman rights. There is an improvement with the reforms they want to bringforward'*68This, surely, s anabject cosmopolitanismof the worstsort.The return o deportingAlgeriannationalsback to Algeria counts as a momentof international (re)founding in a second sense. Canadian border policiesreference, among other things, a neoliberaleconomic world order and so counttowards he (re)foundingof the internationalpolitical economy. Since 1992, mostWesternmedia attentionon Algeria has focused on the violence and the humanrights abusesresulting from the civil war. However,duringthattime the countryhas also adopted a more globalised neoliberal state structure in the course ofimplementing IMF structural adjustment policies. Algeria is now Canada'sprimary economic partner in Africa and the Middle East, with an annualcommercial trade valued at $2 billion. The privatisationof public services inAlgeria has resulted in a Canadian company, sNc-Lavallin, being awarded a$141-million water contract in April 2002.69In January 2003, the companyreceivedanotherwatercontract n Algeria, this one valued at $96 million. Thesedevelopmentshave not been lost on the non-statusAlgerians in Canada: We aresacrificed for money', says one.70The timing of the lifting of the moratoriumcoincided within days with the Canadian Prime Minister's trade mission toAlgeria, suggesting that, when countries successfully enter the internationaleconomic order,the deportationof nationals from that country will be part ofrecognising and normalising relations. In short, an important condition forAlgeria becoming recognisedas a full partner n the international ommunityofstates-or, more to the point in this case, in the international conomic order-isthatdeportationsof non-statusAlgerianstakeplace.

Conclusion: cosmopolitanisms nowCosmopolitanismencouragesus to look up, towardsa future,beyondthe horizonof possible existence.7"But horizons recede as quickly as they are approached,andmanyrefugeesand abjectmigrantshave run out of time andpatience.Abjectcosmopolitanismdoes not aim for a higher groundso much as burrow nto theapparatusesand technologies of exclusion in orderto disruptthe administrativeroutines,the day-to-dayperceptionsand constructionsof normality.The abjectput the questionof the speakingsubjectfront and centre,underthe limelight ofcritical scrutiny,and as an objectof radicalre-taking.They provokefundamentalquestions about politics: Who speaks? Who counts? Who belongs? Who canexpress themselves politically?In short,who can be political?When speechlessvictims begin to speak about the politics of protection, this has the effect ofputtingthe political into question.This is what makes 'no one is illegal' such aradical proclamation.Our received traditionsof the political require that somehuman beings be illegal. To say thatno human is illegal is to call into questionthe entire architectureof sovereignty,all its borders,locks and doors, internalhierarchies,etc.The purposeof this articlehas been to assess anti-deportation ampaigns for

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PETER NYERShow they intervene in the politics of protection.While noting the limitationsofsuch actions, the way the non-status activists of the CASS took political speechthrough delegation visits and (re)politicised public space through sanctuarymakes them excellent candidates for the status of democratic cosmopolitans.Recalling Honig's criteria, he CASS have 'widened the resources and energies' ofactivism within Montreal and beyond. They have struggled to be democratic.Their politics favours the 'de-nationalisationof the state', both in the sense oforganisingto stop theirown deportations,but also in the sense of regularising hestatusof all non-statuspersonsin Canada.In theirpublic campaignto stop theirdeportationsthe CASS has brokenthroughthe nervous subjectivitiesof citizensanxious about supposed correlations between abject migration and insecurepolities. The CASS convinced large partsof the populationof the city of Montreal,theprovinceof Quebec and the rest of Canada and elsewhere) that they were notthreats,and thatthey were refugeesin need of protection,despitewhatimmigra-tion officials said. Further,the public acts of citizenship of these abject non-citizens came to representa troubling anomaly to the sovereign order,one thatultimatelyforced a responsefrom the CanadianandQuebec governments.The activismof non-status mmigrantsandrefugeesis recreatingcitizenshipinways that demandrecognitionand support,not criminalisationand securitisation.In this regard, the CASS is among a growing population of the displaced that isreinvigorating democratic politics today. But the challenge to do both simul-taneously-to be a refugee,to be political-is considerable.The CASS found that,while they received recognition by the Canadianand Quebec governments,theywere unsuccessful in defining the conditions of this recognition. The radicaltakings of foreignersare always at risk of being deflected and absorbed by thenon-democraticre-takings of sovereign power for the purposes of national andinternational re)foundings.NotesThe research for this article was undertaken while the author held a Social Sciences and HumanitiesResearch Council of Canada Post-Doctoral Fellowship at the Departmentof Political Science, Universityof Toronto. Earlier versions of this article were presented at the Symposium in Citizenship Studies atYork University, Toronto in January 2003 and at the International Studies Association annual conventionin Portland, OR in March 2003. The author acknowledges, with thanks, the helpful feedback receivedfrom the participants and audience members at those sessions. Special thanks also go to Ron Deibert,Engin Isin, Michelle Lowry and Cynthia Wright.It is important to emphasise that the trend toward framing refugee policies within a security frame-work predated the attacks of 11 September 2001. For a discussion of the Canadian context, see RWhitaker, 'Refugee policy after September 11: not much new', Refuge: Canada's Periodical onRefugees, 20 (4), 2002, pp 29-33. See also J Huysmans, 'Migrants as a security problem: dangers of"securitizing" societal issues', in R Miles & D Thranhardt (eds), Migration and EuropeanIntegration: The Dynamics of Inclusion and Exclusion, London: Pinter, 1995, pp 53-72; L Wacquant,'Suitable enemies: foreigners and immigrants in the prisons of Europe', Punishment & Society, 1 (2),1999, pp 215-222; and P Andreas & T J Biersteker (eds), The Rebordering of North America:Integration and Exclusion in a new Security Context, New York: Routledge, 2003.2 D Bigo, 'Security and immigration: toward a critique of the govemmentality of unease', Alternatives,27 (supplement), 2002, p 82.3 S Bell, 'Abject class', unpublished conference paper presented at 'The Party's Not Over: Marxism2000', University of Massachusetts, 21-24 September 2000.4 S Mezzadra & B Neilson, 'Ne qui, ne altrove: migration, detention, desertion. A dialogue',Borderlands e-journal, 2 (1), 2003, ?8.1090



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POLITICSOFPROTECTIONNTHEANTI-DEPORTATIONOVEMENTIbid.

6 P Nyers & M Lowry (eds), 'GlobalMovements or Refugee and MigrantRights', special issue ofRefuge: Canada's Periodical on Refugees, 21 (3), 2003.P Cheah& B Bobbins(eds), Cosmopolitics: Thinking and Feeling Beyond the Nation, Minneapolis,MN: Universityof MinnesotaPress, 1998; U Beck, 'The cosmopolitanmanifesto', n Beck, WorldRisk Society, Cambridge:Polity, 1999; WE Connolly, 'Speed, concentric cultures,and cosmo-politanism', Political Theory, 28 (5), 2000, pp 596-618; K Hutchings & R Dannreuther eds),CosmopolitanCitizenship,London:Macmillan,1999;D Archibugi,D Held & M Kohler(eds), Re-imagining Political Community: Studies in Cosmopolitan Democracy, Stanford, CA: StanfordUniversityPress, 1998; and special issues of Public Culture,12 (3), 2000 and Theory,Culture&Society, 19 (1-2), 2002.

8 JClifford, Mixed eelings', in Cheah& Bobbins,Cosmopolitics, p 362, 365.S Pollock,HKBhabha& CA Breckenridge,Cosmopolitanisms',n CA Breckenridge, Pollock,HKBhabha&D Chakrabartyeds), Cosmopolitanism,urham,NC: DukeUniversityPress,2002, p 6.'? Ibid,p 4, emphasisadded.CompareM Hardt& A Negri, Empire,Cambridge,MA: HarvardUniversityPress, 2000; and PLinebaugh & M Rediker, The Many Headed Hydra: Sailors, Slaves, Commoners, and the HiddenHistory of the Revolutionary Atlantic, Boston, MA: Beacon Press, 2000.

12 J Butler, Bodies that Matter: On the Discursive Limits of 'Sex', New York: Routledge, 1993, p 3. The'abject',Butlercontinues,are 'those"unlivable" nd "uninhabitable"ones of social life which arenevertheless enselypopulated y thosewho do not enjoy the statusof the subject,but whose livingunderthe sign of the "unlivable" s required o circumscribe he defining limit of the subject'sdomain'.13 J Kristeva,Powers of Horror: An Essay on Abjection, New York:ColumbiaUniversityPress, 1982,p 13.4 The phrase s from MJ Shapiro, Theethics of encounter: nreading, nmappinghe imperium', nD Campbell & MJ Shapiro (eds), Moral Spaces: Rethinking Ethics and WorldPolitics, Minneapolis,MN: University f MinnesotaPress,1999, p 57.'5 L McDowell, Gender, Identity & Place: Understanding Feminist Geographies, Minneapolis,MN:University f MinnesotaPress, 1999, p 205.16 EF Isin, Being Political: Genealogies of Citizenship, Minneapolis, MN: University of MinnesotaPress,2002, p 3.17 Cf LH Malkki, 'Speechlessemissaries:refugees,humanitarianismnddehistoricization',CulturalAnthropology, 1 (3), 1996, pp 377-404; P Nyers, 'Emergency r emerging dentities: efugees andtransformationsin world order', Millennium: Journal of International Studies, 28 (1), 1999, pp 1-27;PK Rajaram, Humanitarianismndrepresentationsf the refugee',Journalof RefugeeStudies,15(3), 2002, pp 247-264; and N Soguk, States and Strangers: Refugees and Displacements of Statecraft,Minneapolis,MN:University f MinnesotaPress, 1999.18 N Rose,Powers of Freedom, Cambridge: ambridgeUniversityPress, 1999, p 253.19 Ibid.20 Butler, Bodies that Matter, p 3.21 Office of the Ministerof Citizenshipand Immigration, Census release confirms immigration'simportantoleinCanada's uture',NewsRelease,21 January 003.22 R Mickleburgh,Woman'sescape an embarrassmentor immigration',Globe & Mail, 23 January

2003, p A9.23 B Honig, Democracyand the Foreigner,Princeton,NJ: PrincetonUniversityPress, 2001, pp 103,104-105, 103, 67, 104, emphasisntheoriginal.24 Ibid, p 74.25 Ibid, p 76.26 Ibid,p 97. This focusonconsent/non-consentecomesmoreproblematic ncewe note theambiguousposition he state akeson this issue. As Honignotes on p 97: 'Illegalmigrations notonly combatedbythestate; t is alsosimultaneouslynabled, overtlycourted, ftenmanaged, ndcertainlyoleratedby it. Established itizensprofitfrom the subsidies hatcheap migrantaborprovides o theirchild-carecosts and oodprices'.I discussHonig' ambivalenceegardinghe statebelow.27 JDerrida,Politicsof Friendship,London:Verso,1997.28 Honig, Democracy and the Foreigner, pp 79, 99, 101.29 J Ranciere,Dis-agreement:Politics and Philosophy, Minneapolis,MN: Universityof MinnesotaPress, 1999, pp ix, 33, 12-13.30 Isin,Being Political, pp 275, 276.3' Ranciere,Dis-agreement, 30, quoted n Honig,Democracy ndtheForeigner,p 101.32 Honig, Democracy and the Foreigner, p 75.33 Ibid, p 122.

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PETERNYERS34 For example, C Lee, 'FromBrooklynto LA, Muslim detaineesprotestmass arrests mmigrantroundup',VillageVoice,25-31 December 002.35 Isin, Being Political, p 45.36 An impressivestart s W Walters, Deportation,xpulsion,and the international olice of aliens',CitizenshipStudies, 6 (3), 2002, pp 265-292.37 N Sharma, No bordersmovementsandthe rejectionof left nationalism',CanadianDimension,37(3), 2003,pp37-40.T Hayter, Open Borders: The Case against Immigration Controls, London: Pluto, 2000; J Stevens,'Barringhe doors',NewLeftReview,12,2001,pp 152-159.Foranti-deportationctivism hat argetsprivateairlinesnEurope, ee thewebsitewww.deportation-class.com.3 Kein Menschist Illegal (eds), Without Papers in Europe: Making Migration Illegal, Berlin:KeinMensch st Illegal,2000;andMazzadra&Neilson,'Ngqui,nealtrove'.40 H Adelman,'Refugeesand bordersecuritypost-September11', Refuge:Canada'sPeriodicalonRefugees, 20 (4), 2002, pp 5-14.41 CanadianCouncil or Refugees, Refugeeclaimants entbackto detentionn US', MediaRelease,31January 003; andK Martin, Preventivedetentionof immigrants nd non-citizens n the UnitedStates since September 11h', Refuge: Canada's Periodical on Refugees, 20 (4), 2002, pp 23-28.42 SouthernOntarioSanctuaryCoalition, A declaration: civil initiative o protect efugees',mimeo nauthor's ossession,7 October 002.4 See www.opentheborders.org.C Wright,'Momentsof emergence:organizingby and with undocumented on-citizenpeople inCanadaafterSeptember I1', Refuge: Canada's Periodical on Refugees, 21 (3), 2003, pp 5-15.4- 'Thehorrors f wararen'toveryet', TheEconomist, 64, 13 July2002,p 39.4 Quotedn S Virk, Algerian efugees acingmasspersecution pondeportation', heLink,July2002.47 AmnestyInternational,Algeria:10 yearsof state of emergency,10 yearsof gravehumanrightsabuses',8 February 002. This assessments reconfirmedn a December2002 briefing o Europeandecision makers, published as Algeria: Asylum-Seekers Fleeing a Continuing Human Rights Crisis,Al Index:MDE28/007/2003.48 Significantly, his last demandwas changed n autumn2002 to the muchmoreradicalcall for theregularisationf all non-statusesidentsnCanada.49 L Sevunts, 'Algerians denounce deportations.Rally outside Complexe Guy Favreau.End ofmoratoriumy federalgovernmentmeans 1000 face return o home country',MontrealGazette,8October2002. Forpresscoverageon the support romthe Federation es Femmesdu Qu6bec,see'Stopdeportationso Algeria,womensay. Quebecgroupoffers its support',MontrealGazette,14October2002. A full list of the over 60 organisations ndgroupswho endorseCASS's demands savailable thttp://www.tao.ca/-sans-statut.For example,at theendof 2002 theImmigrationndRefugeeBoardhada record52 761 casesin thepipeline,despitea significantdrop n the numberof refugeeclaims.A Thompson, Refugeeboardbacklogclimbsdespite argedrop n claims',Toronto tar,27 January 003.Quoted n S Papadopoulos,Whenyou can't go home. Demonstratorsupportplightof Algeriansfacedwithdeportation', heConcordian, 6October 002.32 S Montgomery, Algeriansstage talk-in.Visit to minister'sRidingheadquarters.Womenfacingdeportationefuge o leaveofficeuntilofficialhears heircase',MontrealGazette,12October 002.Oneparticularoncernwithin heCASSwas theopportunitiesorwomen o becomeactively nvolved.

In September 000 the Women'sCommittee f the CASS was organised o address his concern.Todate, t hasorganised omeof the most successfuldemonstrationsnddelegationvisits.MadjigueneCisse,a prominent ctivistwithinthesans papiersmovement n France, peaksof thechallengesofsexism withinnon-statusmovements n a way thathas a powerfulresonancewith the situation nMontreal.J Freedman& C Tarr, 'The Sans-papiers:an interview with MadjigueneCisse', inFreedman& Tarr(eds), Women,Immigrationand Identities in France, Oxford: Berg, 2000, pp 29-38.54 Quoted n M Lowry& P Nyers, 'Roundtable:NoOne is Illegal": hefightforrefugeeandmigrantrights in Canada', Refuge: Canada's Periodical on Refugees, 21 (3), 2003, pp 69-70.55 Ranciere,Disagreement, x.56 M Abley, 'Algerians: lergyman tands irm.Providing anctuaryor family.Missiondirector aysprocessof refugeedeterminationmakes ourbloodboil"',MontrealGazette, 2 October 002.57 RBJ Walker, Inside/Outside: International Relations as Political Theory, Cambridge: CambridgeUniversityPress,1993.58 Walters, Deportation', 257,emphasisn theoriginal.59 KB Richburg, Frenchpolice evict asylum-seekersromchurch',Washington ost, 14 November2002, p A24.60 J Podur, Interviewwiththe Action Committee f Non-StatusAlgerians',at rabbleca, 18 December2002.1092



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POLITICSOFPROTECTIONN THEANTI-DEPORTATION OVEMENT61 S Zizek, The TicklishSubject:The Absent Centreof Political Ontology,New York:Verso, 1999,p 235 (emphasisn theoriginal). sinoffers animportantaveat o Zizek'sassessment,ndicatinghatZilek himselfmightbe contributingo the depoliticisation f becomingpolitical:'While -izek is

right o recognize hatbecomingpolitical s thatmomentof questioninghepart hata being occupiesin social spaceand is not simplyan interruption y thosebeingswho have no part,he depoliticizesthose acts of becomingpoliticalby restrictinghepolitical o those"revolutionary"ctions hat seekuniversal estructuring.his restriction f theproperly olitical o acts of a "revolutionary"haracteris itself apolitical trategy.' sin,Being Political,p 277.62 'Coderre ejectsAlgerians'ultimatum',CanadianPressService,27 January003.63 E Balibar,Politics and the OtherScene,London:Verso,2002, pp75-86.4 B Hindess, Divide andrule: he internationalharacter f modern itizenship',European ournalofSocialTheory,1 (1),pp57-70.65 Walters, Deportation', 282.66 E Thompson, Algeriasafe, Coderre ays. Immigrationministerdefendsdeportations espitetraveladvisory,warnings f violence',MontrealGazette, 8 January 003.67 Hindess, Divideandrule',p 62.68 Thompson, Algeria afe'.69 S Montgomery,Tears inked o waterdeal?Deportation eems to makeno sense. Big watercontractwasannounced bout he timeCanada ecidedAlgerians hould eave', MontrealGazette,19 October2002, p A7.70 Quoted n Papadopoulos,Whenyou can'tgo home'.For a critiqueof thevertical rajectories f post-sovereign olitics,see RBJWalker, After he future:enclosures, connections, politics', in R Falk, LEJ Ruiz & RBJ Walker (eds), ReframingtheInternational: aw,Culture,Politics,NewYork:Routledge, 002,pp 18-21.

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Abject Cosmopolitanism

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