TY - JOUR
T1 - Trapped in (In)visibility
T2 - Contested Intercorporeality in Undocumented migrants’ Lives
AU - Kallio, Kirsi Pauliina
AU - Häkli, Jouni
N1 - Funding Information:
We wish to thank the special issue editors and especially Banu Gökarıksel who invited us to take part, and the Geopolitics editor Polly Pallister-Wilkins. We are also grateful to the peer reviewers who provided constructive critique that helped us improve the paper. The research has been funded by the Academy of Finland (grants SA339833, SA347374).
Publisher Copyright:
© 2023 Taylor & Francis Group, LLC.
PY - 2023/3/16
Y1 - 2023/3/16
N2 - The paper draws attention to contexts in which livelihood and residence opportunities to migrants without formal status are meagre, specifically Nordic countries where policies towards undocumented persons have notably tightened. In such conditions, invisibility becomes a key characteristic of life. The paper introduces a broad conception of visibility that identifies different ways of seeing and being (un)seen, as part of embodied agency that turns intercorporeal at the presence of other people. Drawing from existing Nordic scholarship that we read through Helmuth Plessner’s philosophical anthropology, we argue that in situations where personhood becomes challenged by forced (in)visibility, undocumented migrants are compelled to build and maintain a façade between their experienced self and social self. This allows them to manage to be seen yet not exposed, but often with dire consequences to their well-being and agency as persons.
AB - The paper draws attention to contexts in which livelihood and residence opportunities to migrants without formal status are meagre, specifically Nordic countries where policies towards undocumented persons have notably tightened. In such conditions, invisibility becomes a key characteristic of life. The paper introduces a broad conception of visibility that identifies different ways of seeing and being (un)seen, as part of embodied agency that turns intercorporeal at the presence of other people. Drawing from existing Nordic scholarship that we read through Helmuth Plessner’s philosophical anthropology, we argue that in situations where personhood becomes challenged by forced (in)visibility, undocumented migrants are compelled to build and maintain a façade between their experienced self and social self. This allows them to manage to be seen yet not exposed, but often with dire consequences to their well-being and agency as persons.
U2 - 10.1080/14650045.2023.2189105
DO - 10.1080/14650045.2023.2189105
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:85150789827
SN - 1465-0045
JO - GEOPOLITICS
JF - GEOPOLITICS
ER -