Arendt in the refugee camp: The political agency of world-building

Refugee camps are frequently conceived as spaces in which social and political life is reduced to biological concerns of survival or ‘bare’ life. Yet, for researchers who focus on life in the camp as it is lived, through material adaption, social negotiation and resistance, this Agambenian perspective is unsatisfactory. Instead, a relation is made apparent between practises of everyday life and the manifestation of a politics. This paper argues for the importance of Hannah Arendt's writings for a new understanding of how refugee camp inhabitants can develop and sustain political agency. First, it will highlight the relation by observations and analysis of ‘the jungle’ in Calais, France. This unofficial camp, although short-lived, has influenced a broad spectrum of research including examination of spatial political practice. Second, applying a phenomenological reading of Arendt's work, I argue that political agency emerges through the concept of world-building. World-building results from the conjunction of human activities – from the quotidian, like labour and work, to the exceptional cases of action – and their orientation towards a specific type of visibility. World-building manifests as camp inhabitants erect spaces of meaning that engage a plurality of persons, transforming them into political agents.     

Edward III’s siege of Calais: A reappraisal

In September 1346, Edward III brought his victorious army to the gates of Calais to begin a siege that over 12 months developed into the largest military operation conducted by the English on French soil during the fourteenth century. It is also perhaps the least understood campaign of Edward III’s reign, because of the loss of the army pay records. We know from chronicles that the men of Calais conducted a heroic defence of their town, and we know too that the English created and maintained an enormous logistical operation first to besiege and then to capture the port. What is little understood, however, is the scale, scope and chronology of the siege. The role played by English naval forces has received little attention, yet there is a series of pay records relating to their service which can compensate for the loss of the vadia guerre accounts and which can enrich understanding of the campaign. Using this evidence, this article reappraises the whole expedition, highlights the numbers of ships and mariners involved in the siege, and draws attention to periods of intensive military activity. Edward III’s ultimate objective was to capture, hold and use the town as a safe port of disembarkation for future invasions.     

Geography,migration and abandonment in the Calais refugee camp

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Violent Inaction: The Necropolitical Experience of Refugees in Europe

A significant outcome of the global crisis for refugees has been the abandonment of forced migrants to live in makeshift camps inside the EU. This paper details how state authorities have prevented refugees from surviving with formal provision, leading directly to thousands having to live in hazardous spaces such as the informal camp in Calais, the site of this study. We then explore the violent consequences of this abandonment. By bringing together thus far poorly integrated literatures on bio/necropolitics (Michel Foucault; Achille Mbembe) and structural violence (Johan Galtung), we retheorize the connections between deliberate political indifference towards refugees and the physiological violence they suffer. In framing the management of refugees as a series of violent inactions, we demonstrate how the biopolitics of migrant control has given way to necropolitical brutality. Advancing geographies of violence and migration, the paper argues that political inaction, as well as action, can be used as a means of control.