Humanitarianism and the ‘Migration Fix’: On the Implication of NGOs in Racial Capitalism and the Management of Relative Surplus Populations

Abstract

The existing critical literature on NGOs operating in the context of European migration has interrogated their involvement in systems of state surveillance and neoliberal governmentality. We supplement this with a critical political economy perspective which reveals the implication of the humanitarian sector in broader systems of capital accumulation. We draw on two related critical literatures, on Racial Capitalism and Relative Surplus Populations (RSPs), to explore the complex role that NGOs, both large and grassroots, serve in managing displaced populations at the borders of Europe. By introducing the concepts of the ‘migration fix’, secondary exploitation and racialisation, we show how NGOs are implicated, often unwittingly, in the production and management of displaced people as surplus populations, through their dequalification, categorisation and containment. We conclude by exploring the political dilemmas generated by this situation with regard to the practice of NGOs, as well as the possibility for alternative forms of solidarity.