Idomeni, on the Greek-Macedonian border, on 14 April 2016. Fotomovimiento/Flickr. (CC 2.0 by-nc-nd)
Rarely a day goes by when migration is not in the news. All around us, the topic of migration surfaces. The language of migration abounds. At the same time, the problem of migration, of how to apprehend this mounting issue, is rapidly mounting too. Are migrants illegal, irregular, undocumented or simply without papers? How do we determine who is a migrant and who is a refugee? Are these discrete categories of the displaced or do they, at times, bleed into one another? And how do these categories and terms relate to questions of rights, recognition and citizenship? Finally, through what conceptual tools and language can the normative structures of nations and borders apprehend the fluidity and the contingencies of human mobility?
As migration climbs ever higher on the global agenda the language we use – how we describe human movement – becomes ever more important. More to the point, it is vital that we reflect upon language if we are to reposition migration, not as an exceptional event, not as a crisis, but as a central phenomenon of the contemporary age. This understanding is vital if the question of human rights is to be accorded its due place as an absolute priority in the treatment of migration.
