Paper short abstract:

Drawing on research carried out in Britain, Italy and Spain, the paper explores a number of migrants' collective responses to policy regimes that adversely affect their lives. The paper also addresses when, why and how such responses occur and what their consequences are.

Paper long abstract:

This paper will address issues of policy and change by focusing on migrants' collective responses to the policy regimes they encounter in European societies. Migrants are a distinct sector of the population not only in terms of 'culture' but also in terms of the gamut of policy-produced restrictions to which they are often subjected (including the absence of voting entitlements and sometimes even residence). Breaking with prevailing state-centric trends in academic and policy-making circles that consider migrants as 'objects of policy', this paper places migrants and their practices of citizenship at the centre of the analysis. Drawing on participant and participatory research carried out in Britain, Italy and Spain, the paper will explore a number of migrants' collective responses to policy regimes that adversely affect their lives (e.g. in the fields of housing, residence, and participation). The paper will also address when, why and how such responses occur and what their consequences are. The insights gained on the policy response of migrants will provide material for more nuanced theorisations on the role of the governed in processes of governance and on the possibilities of policy change.