Exploring Everyday Practice and Resistance in Immigration Detention

Detention is a pressing empirical, conceptual, and political issue. Detained populations, detention facilities, and industries have expanded globally. We argue that developments in detention practices have not been given the academic attention they deserve and that a multi-disciplinary approach can shed light on some of the most salient issues that detention expansion raises. These include the everyday experience of detention which is still only poorly understood, the complex relationship between detention and borders, the flows of material and policies between detention and mainstream incarceration, the ways in which detention might be resisted, the ethical/methodological challenges of studying detention, and the meaning and methods of 'supporting' detainees. Operating through these issues are contradictory sets of logics such as the containment of immigrants in order to secure their exclusion, the extra-territorial detention of immigrants in order to secure territory, the indefinite and lengthy detention of immigrants in order to expedite their removal, and the shrouding of detention and removal in a language of voluntarism and co-operation. The first principle of this seminar series is that a multi-disciplinary approach to detention practices that combines both academics and non-academics will allow us to unpack these numerous and powerful contradictions in contemporary detention practice.

The UK has experienced a range of changes to its own detention regime in recent years, including the fast-tracking of many immigration detainees (resulting in a pared down legal process), the privatisation of detention facilities (which has implications for the comprehensiveness of care offered to detainees, see Flynn and Cannon, 2009), and the expansion of the detention estate, albeit through the construction of privately run, secure facilities for immigrants that the British government does not recognise as detention. This said, a number of features of detention in the UK have also remained remarkably resilient to change, including the continued use of indefinite detention despite the overwhelming majority of European countries implementing a time limit (Detention Action, 2010; Schinkel 2009), the prohibition on paid work whilst in detention and the detention of children (Crawley, 2011; BID, 2011). The UK is also among the most active countries in terms of interdiction and detention of would-be immigrants during their journeys (Mountz, 2010).

By bringing together a range of established academics, early-career academics, postgraduates, practitioners, artists, activists, asylum seekers and former detainees this seminar series will investigate the ways in which the UK experience of detention reflects and re-produces the contradictory logics inherent in modern global detention practices. Through five one-day workshop events the seminar series will span the academic disciplines of criminology, geography, politics and sociology in order to examine the phenomenon of detention as it relates to supporting detainees, penology and prisons, everyday experiences of detention and the politics of, and resistance to, detention practices. Additional themes that will overlay these various workshops, to be held in London, York, Birmingham, Oxford and Lancaster include the ethical/methodological challenges that the study of detention produces and the tension, running throughout work in this area, between outright resistance to detention practices or a reformist approach based on working with the state on behalf of immigration detainees (Gill, 2010).

The series will produce 5 outputs. First, a submitted letter to a broadsheet newspaper (e.g. The Guardian), indicating common concerns of participants. Second, an academic special issue will be sought - e.g. in Citizenship Studies or Journal of Refugee Studies. Third, the seminar series will lead to a research proposal to the ESRC that will reflect the concerns and research needs of the detention sector community. Fourth, the seminars will be recorded as Podcasts on a webpage which will constitute an academic and policy resource in the future. And Fifth, regular blogposts will describe the seminars as they unfold.

Who will benefit?

Bearing these in mind, there are 4 group beneficiaries: 1) detention sector practitioners, 2) detainee support organisations, 3) detainees themselves and 4) the general public. Detention sector practitioners consist of detention policy makers, detention centre managers and a range of service staff that provide 'security', as well as food, education, IT and health-related support to detainees. Prominent organisations included in this group are the private companies that provide detention related support, the Ministry of Justice, the United Kingdom Border Agency and the Chief Inspectorate of Prisons. Second, detainee support organisations will benefit. This group includes international (e.g. International Detention Coalition; Global Detention Project), legally-focussed (e.g. Asylum Aid and Bail for Immgiration Detainees), health related (e.g. Medical Foundation for the Care of Victims of Torture and the Red Cross), and general detainee support groups (e.g. Association of Visitors to Immigration Detainees, Refugee Action and Refugee Council). Third, the seminars will benefit former, existing and future detainees. Fourth, they will raise general public awareness of issues around detention.

How will they benefit?

Gill and Bosworth have contact with detention sector practitioners in UKBA and MoJ that will be invited to participate (the chief inspectorate of prisons has already confirmed). Detention practitioners will also be invited to view and comment on the Podcasts via emails that list the key points in each seminar, based on the blog post of the event (see Pathways to Impact). The seminars will also increase the networking and lobbying powers of organisations that have regular interaction with ministers and officials overseeing detention e.g. Refugee Council (participation confirmed).

Detainee support groups will benefit from the opportunity to share their concerns, develop strategic responses to developments in the sector, meet like-minded organisations and think about their practice in new ways. The seminars will also be a key opportunity to alert participants to the ways in which academic research can support their work. Academics are in a superb position to alleviate pressure on organisations as a result of their specialism in research (much research in the sector is currently in-house) and their access to research funding sources that non-academic organisations cannot access. A principle benefit of the seminars will therefore be to link non-academic migrant support groups with academics through capacity building work, with the particular objective of forming a research proposal to the ESRC as a result of the seminars.

The seminars will involve the participation of former detainees, giving them the opportunity to share their experiences with a range of interest groups (their participation in Oxford's seminar is confirmed and their partipication at the other seminars will be invaluable). The seminars will also improve the network capacity of the detainee support community.

The general public will be reached through making the seminars available online to a general audience and writing to a broadsheet newspaper to submit a statement about UK detention. The letter to a broadsheet newspaper letter will contain a reference to the website at which the seminars are available.