The article examines the migration infrastructures and pathways through which
migrants move into, through and out of irregular status in Japan and the UK and
how these infrastructures uniquely shape their migrant experiences of irregularity at
key stages of their migration projects.
Our analysis brings together two bodies of migration scholarship, namely critical
work on the social and legal production of illegality and the impact of legal violence
on the lives of immigrants with precarious legal status, and on the role of migration
infrastructures in shaping mobility pathways.
Drawing upon in-depth qualitative interviews with irregular and precarious migrants
in Japan and the UK collected over a ten-year period, this article develops a threepronged analysis of the infrastructures of irregularity, focusing on infrastructures of
entry, settlement and exit, casting a comparative light on the mechanisms that
produce precarious and expendable migrant lives in relation to access to labour and
labour conditions, access and quality of housing and law enforcement, and how
migrants adapt, cope, resist or eventually are overpowered by them. Originally published: Comparative Migration Studies (2021) 9:31
https://doi.org/10.1186/s40878-021-00242-4
Authors
- Published in
- United Kingdom