Deportation, Anxiety, Justice: New Ethnographic Perspectives

Abstract

This paper introduces a collection of articles that share ethnographic perspectives on the intersections between deportation, anxiety and justice. As a form of expulsion regulating human mobility, deportation policies may be justified by public authorities as measures responding to anxieties over (unregulated) migration. At the same time, they also bring out uncertainty and unrest to deportable/deported migrants and their families. Providing new and complementary insights into what ‘deportation’ as a legal and policy measure actually embraces in social reality, this special issue argues for an understanding of deportation as a process that begins long before, and carries on long after, the removal from one country to another takes place. It provides a transnational perspective over the ‘deportation corridor’, covering different places, sites, actors and institutions. Furthermore, it reasserts the emotional and normative elements inherent to deportation policies and practices emphasising the interplay between deportation, perceptions of justice and national, institutional and personal anxieties. The papers cover a broad spectrum of geographical sites, deportation practices and perspectives and are a significant and long overdue contribution to the current state of the art in deportation studies.

Keywords:

• Deportation
• Justice
• Anxiety
• Ethnography

Acknowledgements

We are thankful to all delegates of the initial EASA workshop who shared their thoughts and contributed to the discussion that gave rise to this publication—special thanks go to Christin Achermann who convened the workshop with us, and on whose input and contributions we heavily draw upon here. We also thank all the anonymous peer-reviewers who commented on the different papers and contributed to the enhancement of this issue. We are very grateful to Susan Bibler Coutin, not only for her contribution to the special issue but also for the support and encouragement she provided with regards to this venture. Finally, many thanks go to the editorial team of the Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies that contributed with important support and advice that was vital for the successful production of this publication.

Notes

[1] Although the increasing development of legal powers to revoke citizenship in some countries, as the UK, is likely to expand ‘deportability’ to citizens too (see e.g. Rooney (2014)).

[2] For the full programme of the workshop, please see http://www.nomadit.co.uk/easa/easa2012/panels.php5?PanelID=1120

[3] Although the advantages of multi-sited fieldwork have long been recognised, research methodologies which follow the ‘dynamics of people, things, or thoughts’ (Marcus 1995; Falzon 2009) still struggle with the limits of research funding politics. In the specific case of deportation, researchers often struggle too with access to certain research locations (see, e.g. Meissner and Hasselberg 2012).

[4] We need to be aware of the fact that the opposition between country of origin and country of destination, normally a crucial principle of order in the field of international migration, is reversed through the process of deportation. This reversal does not only refer to space and direction, but likewise to the experience of the (un)expected outcome of migration (see Drotbohm 2014).