In the this episode of Mobility, Work, and Rights, hosts Nando Sigona and Ilse van Liempt look at how a migrant can become irregularised and with what consequences.

In conversation with Sabrina Marchetti (University of Venice) and Lena Nare (University of Helsinki) they consider the governance of irregular migration in Europe and compare and contrast how European states address the phenomenon.

On the eve of Donald Trump's second term as US president, Nando and Ilse speak to Walter Nicholls (UC Irvine) about what we can expect from Trump and if and how Europe is moving in a similar direction.

Our podcast picks …

- Näre, L., Palumbo, L., Merikoski, P., & Marchetti, S. (2024). The Legal and Policy Infrastructure of Migrant Irregularity. Comparative Report. I-CLAIM. DOI: https://zenodo.org/records/12564073 - Colombi, D. Näre, L., Palumbo, L., Merikoski, P., & Marchetti, S. (2024). Irregularised migration in Europe. Policy Brief. I-CLAIM.

- ⁠‘SANCTUARY FOR ALL’ OR ‘SANCTUARY FOR THE DESERVING’: How Municipal Bureaucracies Mediate and Decide Contentious Struggles over Urban Citizenship⁠ by Walter Nicholls, International Journal of Urban and Regional Research - The politics of status, ICMPD podcast - "Exploitable by design: Nando Sigona in conversation with Luke Piper", Conversations with Iris, 2024

- Social Scientists Against the Hostile Environment (SSAHE) A new chapter or more of the same? Migration policy under Labour, 2024

How to cite this episode:

Van Liempt, I , Sigona, N, Marchetti, S, Nare, L, Nicholls, W (2024) “Policy and politics of irregularity in Europe and US", Mobility, work and rights: the I-CLAIM podcast, S1 E2, 28 November 2024.

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Welcome to Mobility, Work and Rights: the I-CLAIM podcast, where we challenge common misunderstandings about irregular migration in Europe today. Your hosts are Nando Sigona, a sociologist based at the University of Birmingham in the UK specialising in migration and citizenship, and Ilse van Liempt, a human geographer based at the University of Utrecht in the Netherlands focus on belonging, citizenship and the spaces of everyday life in Europe. In this series, we consider some of the key questions surrounding irregular migration, starting from perhaps the most fundamental ones: what is irregular migration? Who counts as an irregular migrant?

Our series draws on research from the I-CLAIM project, which aims to improve the living and labour conditions of irregularized migrant families across Europe. The project is funded by the European Commission’s Horizon Europe programme and UKRI.

In the first episode of Mobility, Work, and Rights, hosts Nando Sigona and Ilse van Liempt kick off the series by unpacking a key question: What exactly is irregular migration? Misunderstandings around this issue shape how it’s talked about in politics and the media, and how policies are made. Nando and Ilse explore what irregular migration really means and why it has become such a hot topic across Europe. They look at how different countries respond to migration and why cities seem to be more progressive than national governments in handling the presence of migrants with precarious legal status.

To help them in this task, Nando and Ilse are joined by two special guests: Dr Blanca Garcés Mascareñas, Senior Research Fellow at the Barcelona Centre for International Affairs, and Dr Myriam Cherti, Senior Researcher at the University of Oxford’s COMPAS.

Together, they break down why definitions matter and how they shape the way we think about irregular migration.

Our podcast picks …

• De Verbranders, a podcast all about Europe’s borders and resistance to them https://soundcloud.com/de-verbranders
• This episode of Al Jazeera’s Inside Story with Nando Sigona: https://youtu.be/xPQR4t33tW4
• This episode of Who do we think we are? with Ida Danewid talking about racial capitalism and immigration enforcement https://migzen.net/podcasts/who-do-we-think-we-are/s3-e10-migration-and-the-making-of-global-britain/

How to cite this episode:

Van Liempt, I , Sigona, N, Garcés Mascareñas, B and Cherti, M (2024) “What is Irregular Migration? Definitions and Why They Matter”, Mobility, work and rights: the I-CLAIM podcast, S1 E1, 28 October 2024.

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Get all the latest updates from the I-CLAIM on Twitter and Instagram