Book Review: Fully Human
Chapter Four completes the part on migration related categories of personhood.
It focuses on ‘irregular human movements’, noting that
these forms of illicit movement also create liminal spaces where migrants and
trafficking victims exist outside the law, beyond the reach of functioning
citizenship where they are dangerously vulnerable to rights abuses. 12
Kingston convincingly illustrates that the creation of categories of regular and
irregular migrants form degrees of worthiness that constrain migrants’ rights to
place and purpose. 13 Even though the boundaries between irregular migration and
forced migration are often overlapping, the conflation of different groups and
situations under the notion of ‘irregularity’ in this Chapter could be problematic
from a legal perspective. Unaccompanied migrant children, for example, are
entitled to special protection and assistance from the state. 14 Therefore, arguably,
they should never be framed as irregular migrants, but should be treated first and
foremost as children. 15 Considering that much of the Chapter deals with border
crossing — through trafficking or smuggling, without valid identity documents or
without a legal right to enter — as well as sanctions for these border crossings or
other acts deemed to constitute a threat to national security — from detention to
deportation — the thematic focus could have been the securitisation or the
bordering of global mobility rather than irregular migration. Ultimately, declaring
people to be ‘irregular’ or even ‘illegal’ is but one of different strategies of
migration control that ‘serve[s] to limit or deny functioning citizenship, physically
separating migrants from legal citizens and effectively criminalizing human
movement’. 16
Part III of the book then opens the discussion beyond migration. Chapter Five
starts by exploring the ways in which, within the hierarchy of personhood, the
rights to place and purpose of nomadic populations are devalued and questioned.
The three case studies Kingston analyses — the Roma and Travellers in Europe,
the Maasai in Tanzania and Kenya, and the Bedouin in the Middle East — show
how similar the mechanisms are through which nomadic peoples are perceived as
threats to the majority society. In consequence, despite formally having
citizenship, they are relegated to inferior positions on the hierarchy of personhood
and are unworthy of protection and denied functioning citizenship. 17
The following Chapter (Six) looks at indigenous nations — and discusses the
situation of individuals like the man wanting to apply for statelessness
determination in Switzerland. Kingston shows how the case of indigenous nations
provides a model for an alternative form of political membership that exists
separate from or even alongside state citizenship and offers alternative accounts
on how to conceptualise identity, legal status and political membership. 18 She
argues that the increasing protection of indigenous rights has improved the
position of indigenous communities on the hierarchy of personhood. 19 In order to
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ibid 103.
ibid 102–14.
Convention on the Rights of the Child (adopted 20 November 1989, entered into force 2
September 1990) 1577 UNTS 3, art 20.
See also General Comment No 6: Treatment of Unaccompanied and Separated Children
outside Their Country of Origin, UN Doc CRC/GC/2005/6 (1 September 2005) 66.
Kingston (n 3) 111.
ibid 149.
ibid 150–52.
ibid 154.
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