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Contingent Conjunctures And Infrastructures Of Racial Capitalism: Activating And Confining Refugees After The 'Summer Of Migration', Mouna Maaroufi

Emancipations: A Journal of Critical Social Analysis

The article retraces the institutional, legal, and societal developments that have accompanied the increasing interlocking of asylum and workfare policies in Germany since the ‘summer of migration’ in 2015. By analyzing the infrastructures, narratives, but also conflicts and contingencies that underlie politics for labor market activation as they are experienced by refugees in Berlin and Brandenburg, ongoing social and institutional struggles around them are illustrated. The article argues that differential and contingent access to workfare measures corresponds to attempts to selectively and logistically activate potential workers for precarious segments and sectors. Infrastructures involved in such differential and confining activation are …