Holiday newsletter

As this year draws to a close, we would like to share with you some of the achievements of Border Criminologies’ members and our plans for next year. 2022 has been a busy year for our network. The blog has, as ever, been very active, with more than 15,000 reads. We have established closer working relationships with our colleagues in Australia - the ANSZOC borders group. We have seen some changes in personnel, saying goodbye to Katja Franko and welcoming Marie Segrave into the Associate Director role for Research. We also welcome two new students, Ritu Noushreen and Diana Volpe, who will be assisting Andriani Fili in managing the blog and website.

2022 has also been a yet another busy year of border control. In the UK the passage of the UK Borders Act has formed a key plank in the Conservative government’s ever hardening and populist politics.

From their attempt to move people seeking asylum to Rwanda to have their cases heard there, to the creation of the Manston Short-Term Holding Facility, where overcrowding and poor conditions created a public health crisis that ended in a man dying of Diptheria, to government appears intent on rolling back legal protections. Elsewhere, as work from our research network members show, matters are no better. Such policies reveal the importance of Border Criminologies and similar networks across the globe that question existing border policies, expose border harms, and challenge the path set by policymakers.

Next year, 2023, is our tenth anniversary. In celebration, we will be organising a series of workshops and events throughout the year in Oxford and elsewhere, starting with an interdisciplinary workshop in Oxford on Dover on March 3. We will also be hosting a workshop in Oxford on September 11, with more details to follow soon. Please do get in touch if you are attending a conference and would like to organise a ‘border criminologies’ panel; over the last year we have supported similar panels at the Law & Society, and at the European Society of Criminology meetings, and we would love to do so again.

This term we organised and hosted three events, two book launches (here and here) and a workshop on the Greek-Turkish border crisis, bringing together practitioners and academics. We also co-hosted with Wolfson film society a film screening of Flee, the Grand Jury Prize winner at this year’s Sundance Festival. Big thanks to Samuel Singler and Vicky Taylor for the energy they put in organising these events every year. In November, our student chapter organised its first event on ‘Gender and Immigration Detention’ with Francesca Esposito. As you see, we have exciting plans for next year.

As part of our planning for the next 10 years (!), we recently commissioned a report on our communications strategy from the South-African-based group, SureFire. In their consultation with network members, Lotte and Olivia, from SureFire, have identified a series of strengths in the organisation, challenges, and future possibilities. A key part of their initial findings has been the strength of the network and the interest and willingness of our members to play a bigger role in the organisation. We are very pleased to hear this and will be reaching out to all of you over the next month or two to harness that enthusiasm. We would also like to hear from you if you have ideas how to support our work in the next year. Like many other networks and organisations of civil society, Border Criminologies is facing a funding crunch, as all the research grants which cover our activities are coming to an end in 2023. As ever, please do let us know if you have any suggestions for financial support that would ensure Border Criminologies continues with our important mission.

As we move into our tenth year of activity, it seems clear that there remains a strong need for the research of the Border Criminologies’ network to counter the growing populism and xenophobia. As we look ahead to the next ten years, we face three key challenges. First, we need to think about our audience and our communication.  Increasingly, the organisation has begun to issue statements against egregious state policies.  We also sign onto other calls for action.  While we are, predominantly an academic organisation, we need to think more actively about how to get our research evidence out into policy debate. 

Second, it is clear that we need to be mindful of and pay attention to emerging risks, as states and their private sector partners continue to innovate while also relying on familiar discourse and practices.  Issues here include the rise and rise of technological border control methods and their inherent dehumanisation of people on the move.

Finally, we need to remember to look for points of commonality and grounds for doing things differently.  In this activity, the global response to Ukrainian citizens offers a reminder that states and their populations are not always hostile to foreigners. While, to be sure, the disparity in the policy from the treatment of other groups demands critique, it is important also to reflect on the possibilities that this more welcoming response suggests for our work on challenging border control.

Another area of work, in this regard, that seems underdeveloped, is that on the labour force of those who actually implement border control policies. Here too, there have been some promising developments; in the UK for example, the civil service union joined forces with Detention Action in two legal challenges to the Home Office’s policy on the Rwanda Flights and on the conditions of detention at Manston Short-Term Holding facility. These promising developments give us hope, and open a possibility for future engagements.

As our recently-finished Communication strategy demonstrates, the unique value of Border Criminologies is not only in our contribution to the field, our robust research, and policy recommendations. We are so pleased to hear that Border Criminologies means so much to so many, and we thank each and every one of you for your ongoing support. The first ten years of our organisation has been devoted to building the field of study, working with allies and supporting early career academics and those with lived experience. It seems a good time to reflect on what else we can do; and how we might support in more detail those who are trying not only to expose and critique, but to challenge and build alternatives.

Mary and Sanja

You can read our full report here.