Reconceptualising immigration: from exceptionality to normality

This research project challenges the mainstream view of migration as an essentially exogenous and pathological feature of the political, social and economic setup of liberal democratic societies. It aims to build a new way to conceptualize migration, based on an account of reality that is both truer to fact and more apt to inform normative and policy theorizing. The main working hypothesis is that migration can be redescribed as a form of social cooperation between groups of different geographical origin, who through repeated interaction come to form reciprocal expectations and obligations. The research aims at exploring the theoretical viability, the normative underpinnings, and the policy implications of a narrative of migration centred on cooperation and on the idea that migration constitutes a normal and stable feature of the economic and political order of liberal democratic societies. The project has 3 distinct objectives: (1) To develop a view of migration as cooperation (a “cooperation view of migration” or CVM), which challenges mainstream narratives on migration. In building this alternative narrative, the project will refer to a neo-Humean model of cooperation, which frames cooperation as not necessarily equal and fair. This Humean account, on the one hand, explains why cooperation can be misrecognized by the parties involved, and, on the other, opens up the possibility of criticism of the forms of unfairness and exploitation that taint current arrangements of cooperation; (2) To explore the normative foundations and implications of CVM with reference to the notions of equality, fairness, toleration, and voluntariness, with the purpose of critically assessing the fair terms of cooperation between migrants and sedentary members of the destination society; (3) To analyze the implications of CVM for political institutions and democratic legitimacy, by challenging the assumption that the justice and democratic legitimacy of political institutions are a function of their relation to an essentially sedentary citizenry. The project will be implemented by three research units, working in close collaboration with one another via regular joint seminars. Dissemination of the results will be both academic and non-academic, involving not only workshops, conferences, a website, and international academic publications, but also lectures in secondary schools and workshops with policymakers, representatives of national and international organizations for the advocacy of migrants’ rights, and other relevant stakeholders.