Continuities and Ruptures in Forced Migration

In 2024, several events, conferences, and activities marked the anniversary of labor migration in/to (Western) Europe, including Austria, where the first “recruitment agreement” with Turkey was reached in 1964, followed by the one with then Yugoslavia in 1965. In the context of these anniversaries, different border and bordering regimes, forms of regular and irregular migration, and representation of “migrants,” as well as different forms of exclusion and racism, come to the fore. Given the fact that migration, especially labor migration, has always been substantial in the making and remaking of host countries, these anniversaries provide us with an opportunity to not only situate migrant labor, borders, and representations within a longue durée of labor migration regimes, but to also think about the continuities and ruptures of the narratives of migrants and migration, their representation in media and policy papers, and the systems of racialized discrimination they were and are entangled with. No matter how bordering regimes have been transformed, externalized, or become embedded into everyday bordering, a historical perspective enables us to situate the continuities, ruptures, and mutations of the governance of borders, migrants, and their representation. This workshop aimed to scrutinize the politics of labor, borders, and their representations from within such a longue durée perspective.