Crimmigration has its breeding ground in dystopian and securitarian narratives. The anti-hero of these narratives is the mass-foreigner, a stereotyped version of the foreigner usually depicted, alternatively or cumulatively, as an enemy or as a parasite of host societies. But not only does crimmigration presuppose such narratives (and the deviant identity of the mass-foreigner, which is connected with them) as a source of legitimation, it also fuels these same narratives by providing them with an official sanction: by merging criminalization and irregularization on a legal level, it heavily contributes to making the social identity of mass-foreigners into a doubly deviant one. The overarching aim of this strategy is that of facilitating the exclusion of unwanted foreigners: first of all, their territorial exclusion (expulsion), but also, as a means to expulsion, their social exclusion (dereliction). This, I argue, deprives crimmigration of authoritative force—authority being inclusive in nature—and reduces it to mere violence.
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Research Article|
August 01 2019
The Double-Deviant Identity of the Mass-Foreigner and the Lack of Authority of the Crimmigrationist State
Alessandro Spena
Alessandro Spena
Professor of Criminal Law, Department of Law (Di.Gi.), Università degli Studi di Palermo, via Maqueda 172, 90144, Palermo; e-mail: alessandro.spena@unipa.it.
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New Criminal Law Review (2019) 22 (3): 301–317.
Citation
Alessandro Spena; The Double-Deviant Identity of the Mass-Foreigner and the Lack of Authority of the Crimmigrationist State. New Criminal Law Review 1 August 2019; 22 (3): 301–317. doi: https://doi.org/10.1525/nclr.2019.22.3.301
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