CFP – RGS-IBG, Annual International Conference, London, August 31 – September 03, 2021.
Interrogating the dynamic relationship between trafficking, anti-trafficking, borders, and borderings, and their implications.
Conveners: Ayushman Bhagat (Tel Aviv University, Israel); Sallie Yea (La Trobe University, Australia).
Discussant: Nina Laurie (University of St Andrews, UK).
Format: Paper Session (in-person/virtual/hybrid – a decision about whether these in-person elements can proceed will be taken by early April 2021).
Sponsorship: Development Geography Research Group (DevGRG).
Deadline for submissions: Saturday, February 20, 2021.
Critical (anti-) trafficking studies highlight that while most of the anti-traffickers (activists, politicians, CSR and NGO members, celebrities, consultants, and even some academics) position ‘Human Trafficking’ as a threat to the state borders, they seldom question the consequences of the strict enforcement of border control measures (Andrijasevic, 2003; Anderson, Sharma and Wright, 2011; Ham, Segrave and Pickering, 2013; O’Connell Davidson, 2015). They demand stringent border controls, restrictive immigration practices, greater migrant policing and surveillance to (a) pre-emptively protect people from human trafficking, (b) make it difficult for traffickers to move people across borders, (c) protect the state from ‘illegal immigrants’. The current pandemic lends further support to this bordering logic through the extension of discourses of security and threat.
Despite strict enforcement of border control measures, anti-traffickers still claim that ‘Human Trafficking’ is on the rise. Rather than critically scrutinising the state’s labour and immigration policies towards addressing exploitation in a variety of labour relations, they argue that traffickers are adjusting their business models to adapt to these new bordering practices and are recruiting their victims through diverse communication technologies. Whilst these concerns over the rise in trafficking during large scale events are not new (see: Montgomery, 2011; Finkel and Finkel, 2015), the rhetoric often diverts the attention from state policies that often legitimise the precarious situation of migrant workers (Sharma, 2018; Pattanaik, 2020). Hence, incorporating borders and bordering practices as an analytic to critically interrogate (anti-) trafficking could offer new insights on the (re)production of contingent forms, sites, agents and practices of exploitation, oppression and rightlessness.
While critical engagements with borders and borderings are central to the geography, ‘human trafficking’ related concerns are increasingly reflected in the discussions over unfreedom/exploitation (Strauss and McGrath, 2017), stigma (Richardson and Laurie, 2019; Yea, 2020a), citizenship (Richardson, Poudel and Laurie, 2009), technology (Mendel and Sharapov, 2016), agency (Esson, 2020), development (McGrath and Watson, 2018) and immigration (Aradau, 2008; FitzGerald, 2016). Hence, following a call to study “Geographies of trafficking” (Laurie et al., 2015), and “Critical geographies of anti-trafficking” (Yea, 2020b) this session aims to bring together scholars to further interrogate the dynamic relationship between borders, borderings, trafficking, and anti-trafficking, and their implications. Through this, we aim to explore some of these questions:
- How to conceptualise the dynamic relationship between trafficking, anti-trafficking, borders, and borderings in ways that advance the interest of precarious workers?
- How do people on the move navigate their international mobility and labour projects amidst the borders and borderings produced by (anti-) trafficking discourse?
- What insights from critical border/labour/migration/security studies are helpful to analyze the geographies of trafficking and critical geographies of anti-trafficking?
- How do anti-trafficking, anti-migration and anti-labour policies divert attention from the state’s responsibility and employer’s accountability towards the protection of migrant workers from exploitation, and legitimise their exploitation, oppression and rightlessness?
- Pathways to avoid ‘methodological nationalism’ and ‘methodological individualism’ in the research of (anti-) trafficking and borders.
The aim here is to advance the call of studying “Geographies of trafficking” and “Critical geographies of anti-trafficking” through the lenses of borders and borderings. Hence, we invite contributions seeking to advance geographical perspectives on Human Trafficking; identify new conceptual, methodological, theoretical, and empirical arenas within this multi-disciplinary field of study. Please send your title, abstract (of approx. 250 words) and expressions of interest to Ayushman Bhagat <ayushmanb@mail.tau.ac.il>; and Sallie Yea <S.Yea@latrobe.edu.au> by February 20, 2021.