Banal bordering: Everyday encounters between migrants and security officers

Alexandria J Innes

doi:10.1093/migration/mnab002

Abstract

Abstract The encounter between a migrant and the state is almost always fraught. The power of the state to approve or deny immigration status produces a power imbalance whereby the migrant is subject to the whim of the state. This research extracts encounters between migrants, police, immigration officers, and interpreters in the UK to conceptualise how the minutia of these encounters, and the standardised practices they involve, might impact the ability of migrants to express themselves and exercise their own voice in interactions. Adopting a reflexive ethnographic methodology, and using data gathered with police workers as a pilot case, I consider how the varied objectives of agencies and actors in the migration sector intersect with migrant experiences in practice. Ultimately, implications for migrant security lie in the recognition that migrant voice can be obscured as a result of mundane and everyday procedures. Banal bordering processes can go unnoticed and unaddressed by policy makers, but are often loaded with meaning for migrants subject to them. The vulnerability of migrants and the unbalanced nature of encounters between migrants and the state highlights how state power manifests at an everyday level, suggesting that insecurity is not unique to migrants without documents, but is present in all encounters between migrants and the state. Nevertheless, the professionals who are interacting with migrants are often in a position whereby they have the experiential expertise to offer workable, though limited, solutions, although they do not always have access to the channels or the resources necessary to implement them.

Highlights

The encounter between a migrant and the state is one that is almost always fraught
This research extracts encounters between migrants, police, immigration officers, and interpreters in the UK to get an understanding of how the minutia of these encounters between the migrant and the state, and the ways in which they are subject to systematic standardised practices, might impact migrant voice
There is an extant and unavoidable power imbalance in migrant encounters with the state, whereby the state holds the ultimate authority over immigration status, and this is an authority that can be exercised in ways that are unclear or murky to migrants themselves

Summary

Introduction

The encounter between a migrant and the state is one that is almost always fraught. The power of the state to approve or deny an immigration status produces an unavoidable power imbalance in which the migrant is subject to the whim of the state. This research extracts encounters between migrants, police, immigration officers, and interpreters in the UK to get an understanding of how the minutia of these encounters between the migrant and the state, and the ways in which they are subject to systematic standardised practices, might impact migrant voice. By focusing on the frontline worker as the intermediary between the migrant and the state, adopting the approach that frontline workers are whole people rather than agents of the state, we can uncover a location where the competing interests of migrants and the state—or of humanitarian concerns and security—come head to head in an embodied experience This can help to address the obstruction of migrant voice that is apparent in collaborative practices of care and control

Security aspects of migration: threat and vulnerability

Methodology: accessing the everyday of migration

Case study

Conclusion