TY - JOUR
T1 - Migration and pastoral power through life course
T2 - Evidence from Georgia
AU - Bailey, Adrian J.
AU - Drbohlav, Dusan
AU - Salukvadze, Joseph
N1 - Funding Information:
This research is based on fieldwork conducted in Georgia partially funded by Hong Kong Baptist University Faculty Research Grant FRG1/13-14/052 . Mari Geletashvili, Natalia Davlianidze and Zdenek Cermak provided invaluable field assistance. The cooperation of our informants is gratefully acknowledged. Veronika Stepkova provided insightful commentary which greatly benefitted the paper. We thank the anonymous reviewers and editor for their very constructive comments. Errors and omissions remain our responsibility.
PY - 2018/5
Y1 - 2018/5
N2 - This article advances critical migration theory by exploring how pastoral power works through relational life courses. Extending governmentality accounts, we posit and trace the circulation of use, exchange, and surplus values across the life courses of migrants from the former Soviet republic of Georgia. Field evidence shows how practices of migration, remitting, and familyhood are associated with dependent social relations and concealment, and negotiated through tests of truth of prayer, biographical management, and family remitting. This conduct of everyday life simultaneously invokes life courses as registers of resources and possibilities and subjects of the multiple governmentalities associated with recent discourse and European and Georgian migration policy initiatives, including “Safe Migration” and migration management systems. We conclude that studying how pastoral power works through relational life courses expands understanding of migration and, in the case of Georgia, highlights the importance of gender, family, and religious organisations for contemporary migration issues.
AB - This article advances critical migration theory by exploring how pastoral power works through relational life courses. Extending governmentality accounts, we posit and trace the circulation of use, exchange, and surplus values across the life courses of migrants from the former Soviet republic of Georgia. Field evidence shows how practices of migration, remitting, and familyhood are associated with dependent social relations and concealment, and negotiated through tests of truth of prayer, biographical management, and family remitting. This conduct of everyday life simultaneously invokes life courses as registers of resources and possibilities and subjects of the multiple governmentalities associated with recent discourse and European and Georgian migration policy initiatives, including “Safe Migration” and migration management systems. We conclude that studying how pastoral power works through relational life courses expands understanding of migration and, in the case of Georgia, highlights the importance of gender, family, and religious organisations for contemporary migration issues.
KW - Foucault
KW - Georgia
KW - Governmentality
KW - Life course
KW - Migration
KW - Religion
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85042775908&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1016/j.geoforum.2018.02.023
DO - 10.1016/j.geoforum.2018.02.023
M3 - Journal article
AN - SCOPUS:85042775908
SN - 0016-7185
VL - 91
SP - 97
EP - 107
JO - Geoforum
JF - Geoforum
ER -
