Open AccessMigrants, Irregular Migrants, or (Irregular) Migrants?
Author(s) -
Katharine T. Weatherhead
Publication year - 2018
Publication title -
anti trafficking review
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
eISSN - 2287-0113
pISSN - 2286-7511
DOI - 10.14197/atr.201218118
Subject(s) - proposition , articulation (sociology) , refugee , bracketing (phenomenology) , subject (documents) , reading (process) , sociology , gender studies , political science , epistemology , politics , law , philosophy , library science , computer science
Response to the ATR Debate Proposition: ‘It is important and necessary to make clear distinctions between (irregular) migrants, refugees and trafficked persons.’
Upon first reading this issue’s debate proposition, I was struck by its structure rather than its content. Its content is subject to lively discussions among scholars, practitioners, and policy-makers, as attested to by other contributions in this issue of the journal. Its curious structure, though, raises issues that merit articulation. In what follows, I briefly problematise the bracketing of the word ‘irregular’ in the debate proposition. What the brackets do is prompt an additional question: migrants, irregular migrants, or (irregular) migrants?