ABSTRACT
As an introduction to the whole book, this chapter draws elements from the various contributions to critique the bordering of the question of justice. It does so by focussing on the materiality of the issue of justice, which includes the way migrants negotiate and challenge borders and state policies, the violence and suffering produced by these policies, and the fact that migrants constitute an increasingly essential component of a global working population. It then widens the discussion on justice and migration beyond the clash of interests between national and international political actors and the realm of governance, to consider both justice and migration as globally contested fields, shaping what the author calls “the politics of justice”. The chapter then considers the European dimension in a global perspective and from the angle of two “crises”: the “summer of migration” of 2015 and the COVID-19 pandemic, analyzing the way in which the latter has impacted mobility and the role of migration within a fragmented European labour market. The chapter argues that far from being the result of exceptional circumstances, this can be seen as the outcome of the long process of forming a European approach to migration. The chapter then argues that the selective policies of mobility which emerged during the pandemic at different levels of governance reinforce the thesis of the increasing “logistification” of migration policies, with far-reaching impacts on the way these policies intervene in the structuring of power relations within society and in promoting narrow conceptions of justice.
