Border Watch , livre ebook

Border Watch
Anthropology, Culture and Society
Series Editors: Professor Vered Amit, Concordia University and Dr Jon P. Mitchell, University of Sussex
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Contents



Series Preface
Acknowledgements

1 Introduction: Going Inside
2 Visual Practice and the Secure Regime
3 Being There: Social Life in the Centre
4 Compliance and Defiance: Contesting the Regime
5 Drawing the Line: Discretion and Power
6 Ethics and Encounters
7 Conclusion
Notes
References
Index
Series Preface

Anthropology is a discipline based upon in-depth ethnographic works that deal with wider theoretical issues in the context of particular, local conditions – to paraphrase an important volume from the series: large issues explored in small places. This series has a particular mission: to publish work that moves away from an old-style descriptive ethnography that is strongly area-studies oriented, and offer genuine theoretical arguments that are of interest to a much wider readership, but which are nevertheless located and grounded in solid ethnographic research. If anthropology is to argue itself a place in the contemporary intellectual world, then it must surely be through such research.
We start from the question: ‘What can this ethnographic material tell us about the bigger theoretical issues that concern the social sciences?’ rather than ‘What can these theoretical ideas tell us about the ethnographic context?’ Put this way round, such work becomes about large issues, set in a (relatively) small place, rather than detailed description of a small place for its own sake. As Clifford Geertz once said, ‘Anthropologists don’t study villages; they study in villages.’
By place, we mean not only geographical locale, but also other types of ‘place’ – within political, economic, religious or other social systems. We therefore publish work based on ethnography within political and religious movements, occupational or class groups, among youth, development agencies, and nationalist movements; but also work that is more thematically based – on kinship, landscape, the state, violence, corruption, the self. The series publishes four kinds of volume: ethnographic monographs; comparative texts; edited collections; and shorter, polemical essays.
We publish work from all traditions of anthropology, and all parts of the world, which combines theoretical debate with empirical evidence to demonstrate anthropology’s unique position in contemporary scholarship and the contemporary world.

Professor Vered Amit
Dr Jon P. Mitchell
Acknowledgements

First of all, my sincere thanks go to all the officers, staff and management at ‘Locksdon’ immigration removal centre.
The fieldwork and writing of this book were aided by the encouragement and support of many people along the way. I am extremely grateful to Lisette Josephides at Queen’s University Belfast for years of guidance, help and friendship. I would also like to thank Louise Amoore at Durham University, who has been a real inspiration and support. At Queen’s, thanks go to Paloma Gay y Blasco for her help during fieldwork, and Hastings Donnan. Thanks also to Thomas Hylland Eriksen and to Kay Milton. At Sheffield Sociology I would like to thank Jenny Hockey and Victoria Robinson. At Durham Geography particular thanks go to (past and present) members of Room 414. Thanks also to Marieke de Goede and Mara Wesseling at the University of Amsterdam. I am extremely grateful to Anne Beech and Will Viney at Pluto Press for their endless patience and support.
An extra special big thanks to Divya Tolia Kelly.
I would also like to thank my family: my father and stepmother for help during fieldwork and my mother for all her early encouragement.
Most of all, I would like to thank Mark Powell for his friendship, for his constant love and support, and for our life together. This book is dedicated to him, and to our daughter, Connie.
1
Introduction: Going Inside

Locksdon immigration removal centre accommodates men who have been detained under UK immigration law. The centre is a cluster of buildings set behind an imposing perimeter wall topped with razor wire. For Locksdon officers, staff and visitors, entry to the establishment is through a small door in the wall that leads into the gate area. For people who find themselves detained at Locksdon, entry is in the back of an escort contractor’s van, often at the end of a long and exhausting journey. Inside the centre walls, detainees getting out of the escort van, like staff coming through the gate to start their shift, find themselves in an open quadrangle, with an administration building to the left and the main centre straight ahead. Detainees will spend only a few moments in the fresh air, stretching their arms and legs, before being taken by the private security contractors into the reception area, where they will undergo a series of checks before being admitted to the establishment. Locksdon officers and staff, on the other hand, will use keys attached to a key pouch to pass through a series of time delay gates and doors to gain access to the main centre.
Once inside the centre, new detainees and staff members alike confront a long corridor with doors leading off to various offices and departments – the visits centre, the multifaith centre, dormitories, gymnasium, dining hall and kitchen, education department, health department and offices used by immigration officers. Depending on the time of day, the main corridor is either silent and deserted, or busy with detainees moving and talking in groups and staff bustling in and out of offices. The smell is always the same – disinfectant, bleach, institution. As an officer walks towards the centre office to discover his or her detail for the shift, he or she might encounter a ne