Call for Papers! The politics of emotion in migration law! Vrije University! Amsterdam!

In the dominant positivist legal paradigm, law is considered to be rational as opposed to emotional – the law should be applied objectively and dispassionately (Grossi, 2015; Baillot, Cowan, and Munro, 2013). Instead, this writing workshop contends that emotion is inherent to rationality and decision-making in migration law rather than opposed to it (Sieben & Wettergren, 2010). We argue that emotions increasingly pervade present-day migration law in order to protect the national sovereignty of states in controlling migration. Decision-makers involved in migration procedures (immigration officers, judges) face difficulties and ethical dilemmas in assessing human emotions (e.g. affective relationships of family migrants, fear of prosecution of asylum seekers). In contrast, the claim-makers in this process (lawyers, NGOs and migrants) respond to migration law’s assumptions about how humans experience and express emotions (Bandes, 2000; Bandes et al., 2021; Maroney, 2021) by presenting their moral(istic) positions via affects and emotions.

We welcome papers that look at the traditional legal actors of judges and lawyers, as well as immigration officers, NGOs supporting migrants and their family members, and migrants themselves. Suspected marriages of convenience in family migration and asylum applications based on sexual orientation and religious conversion are prominent examples. However, we also invite papers on other topics of migration law where the assessment of emotions is an explicit part of the decision-making process.

Possible topics are:

➢ Family relationships (couples, parents and children, love or kinship).

➢ Fear of political prosecution for asylum seekers (e.g. sexual orientation, faith or political opinions).

➢ Public order, nationality security, expulsion and nationality revocation

➢ Labour migration (contracts and dependency, relationship between employers and employees)

➢ Return migration between law and practice (forced return, incentives for return, legal provisions for return)

➢ State practices of migration deterrence in countries of origin (e.g., withdrawing passports)

The workshop consists of two meetings, in October 2024 and spring 2025, with a fixed group of participants. Authors are expected to participate in both meetings.

The aim is to work towards a special issue or edited book coordinated by Betty de Hart, Irma Lammers, Nina Fokkink, and Ioana Vrabiescu.

Deadline abstract submission (400 words, 100 words bio): June 1, 2024.

Please send your application to [email protected].