Border Criminologies | nccr – on the move

What’s in a Name? Holot, an “Open Detention Facility” for “Infiltrators” in Israel

Maayan Ravid — Fri, 16 Feb 2018 12:33:54 +0000

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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Encounters with the Spanish Guardia Civil at a Border Crossing in Melilla

Barak Kalir — Thu, 14 Dec 2017 13:47:25 +0000

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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Let the Right One in – on Migration Authorities’ Resistance to Research

Annika Lindberg — Tue, 12 Dec 2017 13:52:10 +0000

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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Access to a Hot Field: A Self-Reflexive Account of Research in the Moria Camp, Lesvos

Katerina Rozakou — Fri, 08 Dec 2017 11:29:39 +0000

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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Doing Research in Securitized Spaces

Laura Rezzonico — Tue, 05 Dec 2017 12:40:12 +0000

Immigration detention centers are among those “obscured places” where migration is regulated and hidden from view. They are spaces of exclusion and suffering for those detained, and source of uncertainty and frustration for both detainees and staff working there. Access to those sites, as well as to data and information about them, is very restricted. It is precisely for this reason that research inside them – whenever possible and allowed – is worth the pains and difficulties it involves.

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How Does Access Affect Knowledge Production? Entering the Migration Apparatus as Researchers

Damian Rosset — Fri, 01 Dec 2017 08:29:02 +0000

While institutions of migration control and management are increasingly sought-after research sites, they are and will remain particularly sensitive ones as they evolve in a highly politicized field. Consequently, researchers encounter many challenges associated with gaining and maintaining access to these sites. The posts of this new series of blog posts – originally published on the Border Criminologies Blog – shed light on the way access shapes scientific knowledge.

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