ABSTRACT
This chapter critically engages with categories, such as ‘refugee’, ‘illegal migrant’, ‘economic migrant’, ‘asylum-seeker’, used to classify the heterogeneity of people on the move. A historical perspective is applied for an in-depth understanding of the social processes related to the construction of such categories, and the consequent production of cultural imaginaries, public discourses, and laws. A genealogy of asylum in Europe is here presented, by shedding light on the changes over the centuries in how these categories have been deployed to govern migrant mobilities. A particular focus is given to the development of different regimes at the global level that deal with the management and control of migrant mobilities. The intertwining of security measures with humanitarian ones emerges as the main characteristic of the contemporary European border regime. The Dublin Regulation is exposed as being the pillar of the European asylum system. This historical excursus highlights how the government of mobility of migrants has progressively been set at the centre of European and national asylum laws. Finally, this chapter draw attention to how these socially constructed categories are the product of a dialectical relationship between national and supranational policies and the subjective drive of migrants.
