Border Criminologies
At the furthest corners of Europe, two isolated territories, Ceuta and Melilla are more than just borders. They are legacies of colonialism and places where migration has been framed as a threat. Still, beyond the official narratives, local organizations tell another story, a story made of people. They foster an ...
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Political discourse and public debate are sites where exclusionary and criminalizing rhetoric about migrants emerges in visible and often explicit forms. A more “mundane” site of analysis is the everyday language of state bureaucracy: Administrative detention, “infiltrators”, and “open detention facility”. Officially, these terms are chosen based on technical or bureaucratic considerations. However, the way these choices are experienced, and their symbolic significance, cannot be ignored: They construct a punitive, criminal aura.
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State officials in securitized migratory fields – such as: border controls, detention and deportation units, combatting trafficking, etc. – operate regularly with a strong conviction that no outsider knows better than they how to perform their job. As state-securitized operations often tread thin ethical lines, involve “sensitive” maneuvers, and are based on guarded know-how, it is preferable and easy for officials to fence off attempts at studying their work.
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Dear (Swedish Migration Agency), we fully understand that your organization is under immense pressure at the moment. However, we would highly appreciate if you would consider our request. From our perspective, the experiences and practices of migration officials are of vital importance for understanding the preconditions of migration control […]. We thank you for considering our request and look forward to hearing back from you.
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Researchers face many obstacles in gaining permission to study migration governance sites as governments seek to avoid accountability. In this post, I reflect on my experience of gaining access to the Moria camp in Lesvos – its denial, its negotiation and its achievement. The importance of the Moria camp and the entire Lesvos island in the emergent geography of the EU border regime as a site of bureaucracy, control and humanitarianism has turned it into a popular field for researchers.
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