EES Publishes: Prof. Monica Varsanyi’s new book chapter in “Paper Trails:Migrants, Documents, and Legal Insecurity”

Prof. Monica Varsanyi (GC/John Jay) has just published a book chapter with her co-author, Dr. Marie Provine (Arizona State):

“Documenting membership: The divergent politics of migrant driver’s licenses in New Mexico and Arizona,” in a book volume edited by Joe Heyman and Sarah Horton, Paper Trails: Migrants, Documents, and Legal Insecurity (Duke University Press, 2020).


Across the globe, states have long aimed to control the movement of people, identify their citizens, and restrict non-citizens’ rights through official identification documents. Although states are now less likely to grant permanent legal status, they are increasingly issuing new temporary and provisional legal statuses to migrants. Meanwhile, the need for migrants to apply for frequent renewals subjects them to more intensive state surveillance. The contributors to /Paper Trails/ examine how these new developments change migrants’ relationship to state, local, and foreign bureaucracies. The contributors analyze, among other topics, immigration policies in the United Kingdom, the issuing of driver’s licenses in Arizona and New Mexico, the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, and community know-your-rights campaigns. By demonstrating how migrants are inscribed into official bureaucratic systems through the issuance of identification documents, the contributors open up new ways to understand how states exert their power and how migrants must navigate new systems of governance.


Find more information here.