Manufacturing Obedience: Coercion and Authority in Border Controls

Abstract

This article reassesses the relationship between state authority and violence in the context of border controls. Drawing on empirical research conducted with immigration and police officers in the UK, I show that the use of force in this context give rise to distinctively complex ethical questions which shape institutional and individual practices, and is entangled with the legally and politically fragile authority wielded by frontline staff. Faced with a morally, socially and politically controversial mandate, these officers devise a range of strategies to either minimize or conceal the use of violence. In doing so, they sometimes fall into oxymorons and euphemisms that at once evidence the shady line between coercion and consent, and shed light on the some of the profound moral dilemmas they encounter in doing border work. These dilemmas, I conclude, speak of broader challenges to the exercise of state coercive power, and the negotiated, contingent and provisional nature of state authority in a globalized, postcolonial and profoundly unequal world. I also argue for the social and intellectual urge to integrate the study of immigration enforcement in contemporary debates of state penality.