SUMMARY THE MOVEMENT IN FAVOUR OF MIGRATION IN VALENCIA BEYOND DEVELOPMENT CARLOS ALBERTO SOLEDAD MARTÍNEZ The neoliberal globalization as a time of transition The restructuration of world capitalism or neoliberal globalization as a phenomenon has been researched by Beck (1999), Castells (1996), Featherstone (1990), Mc Grew (1992) and Rosenau (1990) according to Liliana Suárez (2008:913) as an evidence that the world economic system had begun to enter a new more profound capitalist phase. For Suárez: “This phase has been characterized by the internationalization of production, capital concentration, new forms of flexible accumulation, and a decline in importance in the political and economic management of the nation-state (Ibid). This process has also been theorized as a historical moment of crisis, of incertitude, of a bifurcation in the history of humanity (Jameson, 1991; Bauman, 1999; Zizek, 2005). The social historian scientist Immanuel Wallerstein has been convincingly describing this for the last four decades from the perspective or intellectual movement of the world-system analysis (2005). For this author, in communion with the other critical analysts of modernity such as Esteva (2009) and Dos Santos (2002), the capitalist world-system is reaching a point in which traditional reforms to get out of the crisis of the system has its structural limits that point towards an era of transition or systemic bifurcation. One of the factors pointed out by Wallerstein as indicators that the world-system is collapsing is the great de-ruralization of the world (op.cit: 111). According to this analysis, capitalism is reaching its peak because the finite limits of the world are starting to put restrictions on the delocalization of corporations and consequently to the phenomenon of delocalization itself. Other factors indicated by Wallerstein as tendencies that are reaching their limits are the capacity of the capitalists to exploit the wage-earning workers which are more and more knowledgeable of their own rights and the increasing prices of costs of raw materials and ecological costs. The system has reached its structural limits that imply fewer profits for the capitalists. Hence, what we are living is an era of incertitude that may lead to something more violent than the current neoliberal capitalism or to the conformation of another possible world. This situation compels us to be more responsible in the election of the individual and collective actions that will start a new system. In this conjuncture, one of the strategies that the markets are perfecting to increase their benefits –according to this thesis- is the imposition of more labour flexibility schemes (legal and illegal unemployment ) and human mobility (internal legal and illegal forced trans-border migration)under the umbrella of the main International Finance Institutions such as the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund, the Interamerican Bank for Development, the African Development Bank and the global organizations such as the United Nations, the World Trade Organization and the International Organization of the Migrations, as well as those of the neoliberal governments. This neoliberal process, directed in a top-down fashion, avoids that the actual politics respect to the “combat against poverty” or “the fight against climate change”, pose limits to the power of the markets. A consequence of the latter dynamic is that the system of exploitation is strengthened and the transnational forced migration is fostered, destroying the very fibres of communitarian counter power that historically have served to generate viable alternatives for millions of impoverished people from the bottom. This critical situation marginalizes millions of people to be forced to move within their own country, between peripheral countries (the so called South-South migrations), between central countries themselves and peripheral countries towards central countries (South-North), these last ones representing 3% of all cross-border displacements. The dominant vision of the migration-development nexus and the alternative approaches The dominant vision of migration and development is imposed from the arena of capitalist global corporations and the transnational financial system –also euphemistically defined as “markets”- . This vision according to Delgado, Márquez and Rodríguez (2009:29) is based on the suppositions that: 1. Migration is a source of development for the country that expels people, where migrants are the agent and the remittances, the engine or the lever; 2. Migration acquires an automatically self-generated dynamic, one that does not recognize structural causes; 3. Migration represents a load (or problem) and the remittances an outflow of resources for the receptor country; 4. Migrants are responsible for the deterioration of labour conditions and the quality of life of the receptor society; 5. Migration becomes a combat strategy against poverty that gives power to the poor. This dominant vision of the migration-development nexus does not consider between its strategies the need to limit the private power of the transnational banking system and the transnational corporations over public benefit. In this sense, the concept of Co-Development promoted by the European Union as the dominant vision of the migration and development nexus, does not promote any real criticism to the prevailing system. In its beginnings this concept of co-development was born as a way to potentiate the solidarity actions that the migrant associations in France performed with their communities in the ex-colonies. However, later the concept was clearly manipulated and reoriented to the militarization of the borders, the conditionality of the aid for development and the generation of a myriad of welfare activities for the part of the NGOs and including migrant associations that do not question the statu quo and that are in their great majority designed from a top-down approach. In contrast with the dominant trend of the migration-development nexus, the alternative approaches of the Political Economy of Migration and the Empirical Transnational Perspective understand development or neoliberal globalization as the fundamentally responsible for the generation of the contemporary forced migrations at a global level. Hence, in practice the real development or the one that actually exists is neoliberalism (Márquez, 2008:18). This ‘market-based’ vision of structural global relations imposes a top-down approach. The focus of the Political Economy of Migration, which inherited the structuralism approach of the United Nations’ Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC) and the dependency theory, which according to its main exponents it asserts the point of view of the countries of the periphery of the capitalist system making an important criticism of actual development model, the neoliberalization of the world-system. Based on a neomarxist point of view of development the proponents of the Political Economy of Migration posit a reconceptualization of development that goes beyond the definition of freedom or its simple statistical measurement. Structural analysts demand a development that generates structural changes not for the benefit of the capitalist world class but rather for a more egalitarian world. Because of its important criticism of neoliberal development, the Political Economy of Migration has important points in common with the empirical version of the Transnational Perspective. Between the similarities it is important to highlight the idea that both approaches critically analyse development as an independent variable, as the context that provokes the forced migrations. This vision comes in sharp contrast with the classical or liberal migration theory that understands that the migrations as an independent variable is not subject to external forces and that for this reason is not capable itself to generate development. For the alternative approaches of the migration and development nexus, to understand development as the social and political structural context of the social transnational fields, implies the need to study power relations. Liliana Suárez (2008) in this sense claims the use of the tool of the transnational social field from a strong point of view. In this approach of transnationalism the analysis integrates not only the networks and social and political associations of the migrants, but all players taking part in the struggle. This is a point of view that goes beyond considering the social transnational spaces as mere containers of social networks. This weak conception, centred in symbolic and cultural elements of migrant transnationalism makes it difficult to analyse the power relations that really exist between the collective migrants and other relevant actors that fight for a position at the transnational level. Another similarity between the Political Economy of Migration with some authors of the Transnational Perspective is the one related to the practices and agents referring to the generation of alternatives. In these critical approaches, a dialogue and a side-by-side interrelation with the new anti-systemic social movements is proposed. The practices of these new social movements of alternative character, seek among many elements to prioritize the principle of inclusion in relation to the one of exclusion, mainly in the collective decision making process. For Márquez: “The need to transcend the unequal and exclusionist neoliberal development posits a need to research the theory and practice of an alternative development that is post-neoliberal and to articulate a critical and creative dialogue with alternative social movements.” (2008:19)1. Another common point with the alternative approaches is the criticism to some exaggerations of the postmodern approach of migrations with respect to the entry of a world without borders. Since the rise of the Transnational Perspective, the empirical authors such as Moctezuma (2008) and Suárez (2008) have been worried to avoid these types of overstatements. As an example, the idea of the disappearance of the nations-state, or the idea that we are reaching a cosmopolitan world citizenship, where the majorities move without problems from one side of the planet to the other, is far away from reality in a world that is subsumed to the neoliberal globalization processes. This criticism results in a rift with the empirical transnationalism with the postmodern perspectives of migration transnationalism, which do not question the instrumentalism of the world’s political borders in favour of capital. From the Political Economy of Migration a criticism is also made of this postmodern approach of empirical transnationalism and chooses to emphasize the asymmetric relations of domination between core, semi-periphery or periphery types of countries in the world capitalist system. Finally, it is important to indicate Moctezuma’s theoretical input to differentiate a transnationalism based on identity form that of one based on real practices. This difference is crucial for this Doctoral Thesis as this emphasis is identified in the migrants’ political practices and not really in the symbolic or identity-based belonging in the social transnational fields. This distinction allows us to propose a research about the migration movement in Valencia which seeks with its practices (not only with its identity) to locally pressure for its rights, fighting for important local conquests with possible transnational effects, for the communities of origin and destiny. The practices done by the collective migrant, so it is argued in this thesis, may be essentially of two types: developmentalists or anti-systemic. The developmentalist migrant vs. the struggle for the migrants without papers The concept of the transnational collective migrant proposed by Miguel Moctezuma (2005, 2007, 2009 and 2010), is centred in the organized and transnational practices of migrants that are oriented towards social change. On the basis of this concept two different emergent conceptions are proposed: the collective developmentalist migrant of neoliberal orientation and the transformative collective migrant of anti-systemic approach, which is represented mainly by migrants “without papers” considered the fundamental actor to express the contradiction between the migration and development nexus. This distinction is done in order to avoid essentialist problems in which one would naively suppose that all communitarian organizations and all paperless migrants operate in the same manner (Bakker 2007). Matt Bakker (2007) indicates the deep problem of thinking about the transnational migrant collective as an essential actor. For this author it is risky to generate the idea that migrant collective has the same political project and that because of this it is a transformation agent. In reality, according to Bakker there haven’t been any substantial evidences that point towards the migrant collective as an alternative to neoliberalism. Instead, the author suggests identifying the different social constructions that lie internally in the migrant collective, as a means to be able to construct new counterhegemonic coalitions. To question the essentialism of the migrant collective is important in order to not be deceived by the neoliberal practices and discourse imposed from the top. In fact, an essential characteristic of the neoliberal conception of the community is to try and hide the antagonism between the community life and unequal and private benefits of theprocapitalist organizations. In this sense, the International Finance Organizations and the governments that play at their service make an instrumental use of the migrant organizations and the NGO’s to promote neoliberal agendas that do not question the established order. Liliana Suárez warns in this line of thinking, how a romanticized notion of migrations “adopted by paternalist postures and in principle solidarity-based, obscures the power dimensions existing internally in these collectives that are in this way aided” (2008:926). This reductionism: “is an effective and in occasions perverted instrument in the hands of those that have the power to manage budgets and to design tools to aid the migrant in its development origin.” (Ibíd.). Recognizing then the analytical problem of essentialism of the migrant collective, but without renouncing to its transformative character, different researchers see the “paperless” migrant sector as a novel social movement. The struggles of the migrants form part of this ensemble of global resistance and alternatives to the neoliberal world-system (Varela, 2007). The City of Valencia and the anti-immigration war Valencia City, Spain, is a receptor city of forced migration. In this city subsists a hierarchical society, were paperless migrants occupy the lowest position of the ladder. This migrant society, together with the immigrant solidarity platforms and other linked organizations is what we have called here –only for research purposes — the Movement in Favour of Migration in Valencia (MFMV). As a consequence of the evictions, raids and massive repatriations of migrants in the city of Valencia, for the author of this research it became evident the existence of the Movement in Favour of Migration in Valencia (MFMV). This movement was constituted mainly by scattered civil society groups and by different organizations grouped around the migration related solidarity platforms: Bureau of Entities in Solidarity with Immigration, the Alternative Forum for Immigration, the State Network for the Rights of the Immigrants and the Sahel Network. Research Methodology From the operational perspective the research methodology consisted in five phases developed in the following order: (1) Participation in actions of protest and organization in favour of the migrants without papers with the support platforms in Valencia city. This phase was developed in parallel with the extensive revision of literature about the migration and development nexus, globalization and anti-systemic movements; (2) Elaboration of a theoretical framework over the distinct theories defining the migration and development nexus; (3) Field work leading to in-depth interviews to key people in associations and organizations in favour of migration; (4) Analysis and discussion of the interviews in the light of the critical focus and contemporary trends in global and social politics and lastly; (5) Intensive participant action and observation that is materialized on the one hand, in the approach to the community of migrants without papers, joining it mainly in pacific resistance actions and on the other, in the analysis of participation platforms in these resistances. This methodology has permitted us to analyse and give an answer to the hypothesis. Points of departure * A starting point for this research was the recognition of the need to theorize the observations that came from the previous empirical experience of the author of this research. In it a contradiction was observed: The autonomous government of Valencia, in communion with the central government of Spain and the European Union were all promoters of a discourse of co-development. In it, the migrants were depicted as contributing to the human development of their countries of origin and destiny, but at the same time repressing the migrants without papers, prosecuting and humiliating them, locking them behind bars and repatriating them. * As a response to this contradiction two theoretical visions opposed to the migration and development nexus are analysed in the Theoretical Framework. First that of the dominant vision, promoted by the main International Finance Organizations and the governments at their service. This relation of the migration and development nexus is understood by these actors as positive and unidirectional. In contrast, the alternative vision understands forced migration as a result of capitalist development (or vertical socialism), highlighted mainly by the Political Economy of Migration. * Grounded on the evidence gathered from the field work on the relation of domination and power of the Spanish State over the migrants without papers and those that do have them, the need to incorporate the transnational perspective of migration studies was confirmed as it is a variant of empirical nature. Furthermore, it is centred on the investigation of struggles that arise from the internal flows of people and through borders in transnational social spaces. * The act of joining the resistance actions of the migrants without papers is considered the best way to demystify the migration and development nexus. The points of departure generated through this act of joining the migrants without papers, in fact, was the entry point for the hypothesis to be raised. A dense work on in-depth interviews was done here in order to accomplish more meaningful results that go beyond the statistical data. Verification of the hypothesis and conclusions The visible part of the Movement in Favour of Migration in Valencia is integrated by the solidarity platforms: Bureau of Entities in Solidarity with Immigration, the Alternative Forum for Immigration, and the State Network for the Rights of the Immigrants, the Sahel Network and some independent organizations of the platforms that were considered relevant for the research. These platforms are constituted by migrant associations and local or native solidarity organizations, from which 23 organizations agreed to form part of the sample for the research (10 migrant organizations and 13 local solidarity organizations or NGOs, including 3 organizations that are not organized in these platforms). These organizations endured a process of in-depth interviews, with an additional process of participant-observation and the contrast with the theoretical framework. Based on the above, the main objective of this research methodology consisted in putting to the test the general hypothesis of the Doctoral Thesis. It is formulated like this: The Movement in Favour of Migration in Valencia, integrated by platforms conformed by migrant associations and solidarity-based non-governmental organizations, mainly exercise Statist and Mercantilist practices that reinforce the political and neoliberal social order in transnational social spaces. Among the most important reasons that have contributed to finally consider this hypothesis is that which tells us that the most important way to resist and to deploy alternatives for subaltern groups, does not imply in the majority of cases, direct struggle, but rather an invisible movement that seeks to diminish the important differences in power between the dominant and the dominated through all sorts of hidden and anonymous strategies (Scott, 2004). In this sense, the MFMV would really just be the tip of the iceberg, the visible face of a hidden movement of resistance to the principles of market and the state, were the protagonists are not the migrants without papers but the migration solidarity systemic organizations. The presented research had the objective of making visible the organizations inside the MFMV that bet for a transformative migrant collective that does not exclude the agency of the migrants without papers and that goes beyond those development practices favour the capitalist system. The transformative migrant collective is chosen instead of the developmentalist migrant anchored in the neoliberal practice which chooses a type of change that in reality is only cosmetic and does not change anything. To make these situation visible in-depth interviews were designed to key person’s members of the different protagonist organizations of the MFMV to learn their principles, history, practices, power relations and political positioning. The general hypothesis was evaluated based on the methodology of the proposed research (chapter 1). It was then contrasted together with the theoretical framework (chapters 2, 3 and 4), the evidences of interviews (chapter 5) and the critical discussion (chapter 6). In relation to the hypothesis, it is observed nowadays that the MFMV is strongly torn by debates between the need to deepen the autonomous and horizontal practice in favour of human rights and the co-optation and manipulation from those on the top. The fate of this internal struggle will determine the possible contributions of this Movement and an alternative exit for the actual systemic crisis. Notwithstanding, the present reality of the MFMV is that it is a movement of the “in between”, were the protagonists are not the migrants without papers, the real actors of the transformation. The present repression of the migrant collective maintains their resistance and their struggle in an indirect manner, invisible, and is for this reason that the solidarity-based organizations and migrant associations committed to the search for a more egalitarian world have to change their practices and join the political organization of this collective. According to the information compiled from the interviews, the key lies in the capacity to show that the MFMV creates complicities with other anti-systemic forces of Valencia City, the Spanish State and at a global level. This condition is because if the neoliberal offensive is global, it follows that the resistances should be so likewise. The first group of applied questions asked in the in-depth interviews are those in relation to the characteristics of the migrant associations and solidarity organizations of the MFMV. The basis to evaluate the H1 hypothesis comes from these set of questions. They constitute its primary resource together with the accompanying and joining-in process. H1: The MFMV is mainly constituted by organizations linked to State subventions which make it difficult to generate alternative protests to the neoliberal system. The information gathered in the questionnaire for the in-depth interviews went far beyond the necessary to accept or reject the hypothesis. Among other relevant elements emphasized which functional to put to the test the hypothesis 1 we can mention that more than half of the people interviewed participated in before joining the MFMV in experiences linked to the political conception of radical or structural change. This means that the majority of the people interviewed understood the processes of change from its origins as a result of political contradictions. Nevertheless, only 4 organizations of the 23 interviewed being a minority of the consulted organizations, started up with the specific objective of reclaiming the struggle for papers, their rights and against discrimination. This situation has strongly determined the MFMV as a great majority of the organizations are anchored on the assistencialist rationale. On the basis of this reality one can affirm that the MFMV is torn in debates between the 13 organizations with objectives more centred towards the defence of the migrants rights pressuring to radicalize the methods of action and 10 organizations with objectives more assistencialist that instead of pressuring for transformation participate in the maintenance of the statu quo. Another element that makes it difficult to make a proposal to face the neoliberal local system corresponds to the real empowerment of the migrants. Currently, the MFMV is not a movement of the ‘without papers’, nor is it of ‘popular masses’ or horizontal. Rather differently it is a movement directed by a hard block of activists and people with labour contracts that make visible the constant struggle of the migrants, including those without papers. In this sense, the migrants without papers play a role that corresponds more to ‘users’ of the resources of the organizations, that is, they are not protagonists of the political battle in the transnational social space. In a general manner, the systemic character or verticality of the organizations stands out. The MFMV does not have any mature organizational forms that promote alternative forces from below. The majority of the organizations are too vertical and dependent on their own organizational structure, making it difficult to achieve wide and sustained participation of migrants in the decision-making processes. The second group of questions in relation to the characteristic of the actions, together with the action of joining the migrant’s space allowed the verification of the second hypothesis. H2: The co-development strategy is an imposed strategy from the top that does not question structural and domination relations in the social transnational spaces. The responses obtained went far beyond the necessary information to give a response to this hypothesis. The main actions (in general) of the associations of migrants and the solidarity organizations interviewed follow mainly the systemic rationale of a top-down approach without questioning the power relations between migrants and political and economic groups. These actions have been classified in 5 groups: Legal advice; folkloric actions; insertion and labour advice; awareness and assistencialist processes. For the sample studied, that is, the set of more critical organizations in Valencia city in relation to the migration phenomenon and co-development, even though they are the dominant conception in Europe to relate migration and development; it is not the main strategy for the majority of the organizations and associations of the MFMV. However, the organizations interviewed that do apply co-development; these do follow a systemic approach that mainly strengthens the neoliberal policies in the transnational spaces. The economic dependency is a facto that has demonstrated to influence the decision-making processes of organizations and the type of actions developed. The associations of migrants and local organizations in practices perform an important role of support for the migrant, but also maintain the illusion that the cooperation system, or more generally, the institutional finance path as a strategy of political and social change in favour of the majorities of the migrants is the most adequate. The real change and force that is evidenced in the interviews has to start up from the organized migrants in an autonomous and pacific form. Only this method has been the one able to grab rights historically from governments principally through voluntary confinement. To analyse the social transnational spaces and the struggle for power and interests that is developing in Valencia City, a third group of questions were designed for the in-depth interviews. The information obtained together with the participant-observation experience allowed us to accept the third hypothesis. H3: The MFMV is located in a structural situation of subordination that requires the fraternity and solidarity with other local movements capable to pressure the reorientation of the migration policy. Indeed, it has been proven that the everyday battle of the migrants without papers of Valencia City is mainly an invisible struggle. The majority of them are not organized around the platforms to reclaim rights for the migrants. Thus, the social networks of migrants based on social links or family bonds are evidenced as the real community sustaining factors of the migrant society. Even though the associations and organizations interviewed determined as fundamental the strategy of conformation of social platforms as mechanisms of empowerment of the migrant collective; the actions of the platforms are only the tip of the iceberg of movement in continuous resistance. In fact, the majority of the time the migrants without papers make the effort to become unnoticeable –not disorganized or de-mobilized — until the moment in which they come to be a considerable fore to perform a direct pacific demonstration that may allow them to improve their legal situation and defend their rights (voluntary confinements, labour protests, hunger strikes, etc.). Furthermore, even many of the migrants that have acquired their documentation thanks to obtaining a work placement still continue to perform an invisible battle due to the continuous process of deterioration of foreigner’s rights imposed by the Laws of Alien Status. Their capacity to defend themselves is weak and they have to face power in an indirect way. It has also been proven that a relation of total exclusion exists between the political leaders of the three levels of government and the MFMV. This does not allow the possibility to exercise a direct democracy procedure for the migrants. The association of migrants and solidarity organizations are not considered social and politically relevant actors for the political establishment, which makes it impossible to participate in the design of the migration and cooperation for development policy. The current Laws of Alien Status respond only to state and market principles that deepen a mercantilist conception of life. The national European governments follow without critically questioning the precepts of the neoliberal policy imposed by the European Union. The overwhelming opinion of the 23 organizations, real representatives of the migrant collective of Valencia City, is without exception that the migration policies expressed through the Laws of Alien Status are clearly inacceptable. These laws of Alien Status promote xenophobia, racism and class divisions. According to the organizations interviewed the anti-immigrant policies are sustained by political parties because they are effective mechanisms to achieve and maintain themselves in power. The laws of Alien Status are especial laws designed to erode the rights of the migrant collective. Actions performed in the name of co-development, of immigration and inter-cultural grounds are applied with the intention of hiding the true objective of the migrant policy that consists in reinforcing the exploitative structural nature of the capitalist system. These groups of questions allowed us to reach as well the conclusion that the majority of the organizations have had contacts with the media, but with the passage of time, the relation is defined, leaving short to almost nothing of space to the associations that are most active in claiming rights. In this sense, the group work with the alternative media, local radios and mainly Internet, appear to be the most effective means to support the movement and create complicities among other actors. Lastly, the dominant opinion of the interviewed organizations is that no especial laws have to exist for the migrant collective, especially laws that strengthen the neoliberal system through the violation of basic rights of the immigrants. The migration policies in order to be progressive from the point of view of the defence and expansion of human rights have to be based on principles of global solidarity. Otherwise, the capital dictatorship is strengthened by people. The politics in relation to the migrant collective must move away completely from the current practice based on the differentiation of rights, in police repression and in the battle against clandestine migration. To incorporate the proposals of these social platforms in Valencia is fundamental to defend the rights of the migrants. However, it is necessary that another global system based on the radicalization of democracy comes into place. It should be one that where decision-making processes are taken from the bottom-up, without exclusions. A ‘democracy’ without papers is a situation of slavery and not democracy as such. 1 In these types of mottos, centred in the importance of the anti-systemic social movements and the need to close the development phase or at least to fight for “another development” that perceives similarities with the concept of post-development that tries overcome in theory and practice the developmentalist vision.