Everyday Bordering, Belonging and the Reorientation of British Immigration Legislation

Abstract

The article argues that everyday bordering has become a major technology of control of both social diversity and discourses on diversity, in a way that threatens the convivial co-existence of pluralist societies, especially in metropolitan cities, as well as reconstructs everyday citizenship. The article begins with an outline of a theoretical and methodological framework, which explores bordering, the politics of belonging and a situated intersectional perspective for the study of the everyday. It then analyses the shift in focus of recent UK immigration legislation from the external, territorial border to the internal border, incorporating technologies of everyday bordering in which ordinary citizens are demanded to become either border-guards and/or suspected illegitimate border crossers. We illustrate our argument in the area of employment examining the impact of the requirements of the immigration legislation from the situated gazes of professional border officers, employers and employees in their bordering encounters.