The political mobilities of reporting: tethering, slickness and asylum control

Daniel X.O Fisher,Andrew Burridge,Nick Gill

doi:10.1080/17450101.2019.1607049

Daniel X.O Fisher, Andrew Burridge + Show 1 more

Open Access

https://doi.org/10.1080/17450101.2019.1607049

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Journal: Mobilities	Publication Date: Jun 10, 2019
Citations: 5	License type: open-access

Affiliation: University of Exeter, Macquarie University

Abstract

ABSTRACTThis paper focuses on the coerced mobilities associated with reporting, meaning the mandatory requirement to regularly check-in with authorities for the purpose of control. Drawing on recent calls for a politics of mobility and advances in carceral geographies, we attend to the forces, movements, speeds and affective materialities of reporting with a focus on deportable migrants and the UK Home Office. In doing so we develop two conceptual lenses through which to further understand the politics of mobility. First, we develop the concept of ‘slickness’ in the context of the process of becoming detained at a reporting event. We understand slickness as a property of bodies and objects that makes them easier to move. Second, we argue that reporting functions to ‘tether’ deportable migrants; thereby not only fixing them in place, but also forcing the expenditure of energy and the experience of punishment. The result is that reporting blurs the distinction between detention and ‘freedom’ by enacting the carceral in everyday spaces.

Highlights

As part of the security aparatus that is applied to them in the UK, asylum seekers and foreign national offenders (FNOs) must ‘sign on’ either at police stations or reporting centres operated by the UK Visas and Immigration Agency (UKVI; a branch of the UK Home Office)
A central aim of this article is to demonstrate how the regular enforced movements of reporting serve to enact the carceral in the daily lives and everyday spaces that asylum seekers inhabit outside of detention centres
We argue that reporting centres and the practice of ‘signing on’ function to enact the carceral in asylum seekers’ everyday lives and spaces

Summary

Introduction

As part of the security aparatus that is applied to them in the UK, asylum seekers and foreign national offenders (FNOs) must ‘sign on’ either at police stations or reporting centres operated by the UK Visas and Immigration Agency (UKVI; a branch of the UK Home Office). A central aim of this article is to demonstrate how the regular enforced movements of reporting serve to enact the carceral in the daily lives and everyday spaces that asylum seekers inhabit outside of detention centres (see Coddington 2017).

Results

Conclusion