Thomas Swerts
Thomas Swerts is an Assistant Professor in Urban Sociology at the Department of Public Administration and Sociology of the Faculty of Social Sciences of the Erasmus University Rotterdam. Before joining EUR in 2018, he was a post-doctoral researcher and visiting professor at the Universiteit Antwerpen, the Université de Liège and the KU Leuven. He holds a PhD in Sociology from the University of Chicago.
At the Erasmus University Rotterdam, he is a member of the Team Policy, Politics and Society led by Prof. dr. Peter Scholten and he serves as the coordinator of the Sociology Master Track Urban Issues and Policy (Grootstedelijke Vraagstukken en Beleid; https://www.eur.nl/master/grootstedelijke-vraagstukken-en-beleid).
He is an affiliated researcher at the LDE Center of Governance of Migration and Diversity and the LDE Center for BOLD Cities, where he currently co-coordinates a Team Science Project on Urban Digital Twins (TWIRL; https://www.centre-for-bold-cities.nl/projects/urban-digital-twins). He is a member of the Educational Committee Sociology and also teaches courses in the Bachelor in Sociology and the Master in Governance of Migration and Diversity (GMD).
His research focuses on the nexus between urban studies and migration studies. His book project, 'Citizen X: Becoming Undocumented Activists On Both Sides Of The Atlantic’, is a transatlantic ethnographic study that compares the processes and practices through which undocumented youth in Chicago and the sans-papiers in Brussels became political activists. As a researcher, he is primarily specialized in ethnographic methods, participatory action research and in-depth interviewing.
For his recently awarded NWO Vidi Project URBIMM (URBan migration infrastructures for Irregular Migrant Mobility, 2024-2029), he and his research team will investigate how migration infrastructures locally facilitate the arrival, transit, settlement and exit of undocumented migrants in European cities (see https://www.nwo.nl/onderzoeksprogrammas/nwo-talentprogramma/projecten-vidi/vidi-2022).
He has previously been awarded grants by the SSRC, NSF and the Mellon Foundation. He has published in academic journals like Global Networks, Mobilization, the International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, Antipode, Social Inclusion and the Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies (https://eur.academia.edu/ThomasSwerts). He has also contributed to edited volumes on citizenship studies, immigrant rights mobilization, research ethics and relational poverty politics.
Address: Department of Public Administration and Sociology
Erasmus School of Social and Behavourial Sciences
Burgemeester Oudlaan 50
Mandeville Building, T15-34
Erasmus University Rotterdam
PB 1738, 3000 DR Rotterdam NL
At the Erasmus University Rotterdam, he is a member of the Team Policy, Politics and Society led by Prof. dr. Peter Scholten and he serves as the coordinator of the Sociology Master Track Urban Issues and Policy (Grootstedelijke Vraagstukken en Beleid; https://www.eur.nl/master/grootstedelijke-vraagstukken-en-beleid).
He is an affiliated researcher at the LDE Center of Governance of Migration and Diversity and the LDE Center for BOLD Cities, where he currently co-coordinates a Team Science Project on Urban Digital Twins (TWIRL; https://www.centre-for-bold-cities.nl/projects/urban-digital-twins). He is a member of the Educational Committee Sociology and also teaches courses in the Bachelor in Sociology and the Master in Governance of Migration and Diversity (GMD).
His research focuses on the nexus between urban studies and migration studies. His book project, 'Citizen X: Becoming Undocumented Activists On Both Sides Of The Atlantic’, is a transatlantic ethnographic study that compares the processes and practices through which undocumented youth in Chicago and the sans-papiers in Brussels became political activists. As a researcher, he is primarily specialized in ethnographic methods, participatory action research and in-depth interviewing.
For his recently awarded NWO Vidi Project URBIMM (URBan migration infrastructures for Irregular Migrant Mobility, 2024-2029), he and his research team will investigate how migration infrastructures locally facilitate the arrival, transit, settlement and exit of undocumented migrants in European cities (see https://www.nwo.nl/onderzoeksprogrammas/nwo-talentprogramma/projecten-vidi/vidi-2022).
He has previously been awarded grants by the SSRC, NSF and the Mellon Foundation. He has published in academic journals like Global Networks, Mobilization, the International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, Antipode, Social Inclusion and the Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies (https://eur.academia.edu/ThomasSwerts). He has also contributed to edited volumes on citizenship studies, immigrant rights mobilization, research ethics and relational poverty politics.
Address: Department of Public Administration and Sociology
Erasmus School of Social and Behavourial Sciences
Burgemeester Oudlaan 50
Mandeville Building, T15-34
Erasmus University Rotterdam
PB 1738, 3000 DR Rotterdam NL
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Academic publications by Thomas Swerts
constructed form of privilege constitutes the main boundary that separates allies from non- allies in IYJL. In line with objectives of this volume, I adopt a broader use of relational poverty as the generalized condition of economic, cultural, social, and political precariousness that results from being excluded from citizenship as privilege. In this chapter, I draw on two and a half years of ethnographic fieldwork
in Chicago, in- depth interviews with IYJL members, and content analysis of speeches, organizational publications, and blog posts to study how power differentials become negotiated between citizen allies and DREAMers.
The chapter is structured as follows. First, I outline a relational perspective on the micropolitics of cross- status alliances. Second, I sketch a historical overview of the representational struggles within the DREAM movement. Third, I compare and contrast documented and undocumented perspectives on what being an ally means. Throughout, I argue that building cross- status alliances implies boundary bridging, or the process whereby power di(erentials are negotiated through the mechanisms of equalization and differentiation. Both mechanisms contribute to the social construction of the ally by making citizen supporters structural equals who remain symbolically unequal. It is precisely this mixed status of being “unequal equals” that turns potentially overpowering and privileged citizens into productive allies for DREAMers. These findings underscore the importance of adopting a relational approach to the study of political subject formation among precarious actors.
Working papers by Thomas Swerts
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Public sociology by Thomas Swerts
constructed form of privilege constitutes the main boundary that separates allies from non- allies in IYJL. In line with objectives of this volume, I adopt a broader use of relational poverty as the generalized condition of economic, cultural, social, and political precariousness that results from being excluded from citizenship as privilege. In this chapter, I draw on two and a half years of ethnographic fieldwork
in Chicago, in- depth interviews with IYJL members, and content analysis of speeches, organizational publications, and blog posts to study how power differentials become negotiated between citizen allies and DREAMers.
The chapter is structured as follows. First, I outline a relational perspective on the micropolitics of cross- status alliances. Second, I sketch a historical overview of the representational struggles within the DREAM movement. Third, I compare and contrast documented and undocumented perspectives on what being an ally means. Throughout, I argue that building cross- status alliances implies boundary bridging, or the process whereby power di(erentials are negotiated through the mechanisms of equalization and differentiation. Both mechanisms contribute to the social construction of the ally by making citizen supporters structural equals who remain symbolically unequal. It is precisely this mixed status of being “unequal equals” that turns potentially overpowering and privileged citizens into productive allies for DREAMers. These findings underscore the importance of adopting a relational approach to the study of political subject formation among precarious actors.
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De strijd voor erkenning van mensen zonder papieren in België en de interne conflicten rond representatie die de afgelopen jaren binnen de beweging woedden zijn een perfecte casus om deze stelling verder te onderzoeken. Ik put hierbij uit vier jaar sociologisch onderzoek verricht bij activisten zonder papieren in het kader van mijn doctoraatsthesis.
Review by: Thomas Swerts
American Journal of Sociology, Vol. 120, No. 5 (March 2015), pp. 1552-1555
The cases of undocumented activism in Chicago and Brussels provide the ethnographic lenses through which my dissertation explores the conundrum of non-citizen citizenship. I immersed myself as a citizen ‘ally’ in the Immigrant Youth Justice League (IYJL) in Chicago and a ‘soutien’ in the Collectif Sans-Papiers Belgique (SP-Belgique) in Brussels for two and one and a half years respectively. Drawing on extensive participant observation, the dissertation offers an unprecedented inside look into the world of undocumented activism. It reveals how non-citizens, for whom there is no assigned place in the democratic system, carve out a place for themselves by publicly revealing their identity, occupying spaces, sharing stories and marching through the streets. Undocumented activists carefully design such stagings and enactments of citizenship to highlight the gap between their societal inclusion and their political exclusion. By tracing the individual and collective stories of undocumented activists, this comparative ethnography shows how citizenship is being re- invented from below.
* Full electronic version of dissertation available online via Pro Quest:
http://www.lib.uchicago.edu/e/phd/access.html