Annual Report 2022-2023

As we approach the end of the academic year in the UK, we are pleased once again, to share news and achievements from the Border Criminologies’ research Network.

This has been a year of transition for the organisation, as we approach our tenth anniversary later this year. We have said goodbye to Andriani Fili, who has played such a crucial role in Border Criminologies for so long. We are so grateful for Andriani’s hard work and contribution to the team.  Luckily, she has not gone far. She is still an Associate Director, but is now carving out more time to concentrate on her postdoctoral research. We also say thank you and goodbye to Ana Aliverti and Rimple Mehta, both of whom have done brilliant work developing ties with scholars and activities in the global south working on border criminologies, and in pushing the field of study to be more inclusive. Examples of their work can be found in the 2023 special issue on ‘Southern Perspectives on Border Criminology’ in the International Journal for Crime, Justice, and Social Democracy.

Stepping into the breach, Diana Volpe is now supporting the organisation, running the blog and updating the website.  We hope that she will soon be joined by a new communications officer, who will be funded through a British Academy ARP grant and with additional partner support from the Universities of Oxford, Leiden and Warwick.  We continue to look for more funding for these roles, so please do get in touch if you have any ideas or suggestions on this matter.

This year, as this report will detail, our members have been as active as ever. This is an amazing feat, given that many of us have struggled with levels of burn out and political despair.  Across the migrations studies sector it is clear that people are finding things ever more difficult. We watch in disbelief and anger as punitive anti-migration policies multiply and grow around the world. For those subject to the ever-harshening border control regimes matters are, of course, worst of all.

Yet, there remain causes for optimism.  People continue to work collaboratively, creatively and energetically across a range of areas, to hold states and their private sector partners to account.  In the UK, the treatment of people who cross the channel on small boats in search of asylum is a signal case of the kinds of things we are up against. On the one hand, the government has passed new laws to criminalise people on the move and those who assist them. On the other side, public outcry over their housing conditions in Manston in the autumn of 2022 was such that they had to intervene.  Since then, a small group of dedicated people on the South coast have been offering their help to those caught up in the criminal justice system. Humanity, it seems, grows stronger in times of despair.

Similar cases are replicated across the world, many of which have been covered on the Border Criminologies Blog.  While local and community actions have not (yet) managed to overturn the worst of the laws, they do provide important bulwarks against their worst excesses. They also stand as important reminders that there are other ways to act and resist these inhumane and harmful policies.

It is hard to believe that ten years have passed since we established this network.  Back then, in 2013, academic research, particularly within criminology, on the intersections between border control and criminal justice was in its infancy.  Despite the existence of key texts, not least of which was former Border Crim director, Juliet Stumpf’s 2006 article on ‘crimmigration’, there was still a sense that immigration belonged to other disciplines and fields of study.

Fast forward to the summer of 2023, it is sadly clear that such views no longer apply. The criminalisation of migration has not just become totally normalised, but so too has the criminalisation of asylum.  Alison Mountz’s (our advisory board member) declaration of its ‘death’ is, every day, proven to have been prescient.

Under these conditions, celebrating our tenth anniversary in September will be a little bitter sweet. It would have been far preferable to have been able to close down the organisation, due to its irrelevance.  Yet, here we are. Our mission is, it seems, more important than ever. We will, therefore, celebrate our achievements in September, and regroup and develop new strategies we need to address the challenges ahead.

We hope you will join us in Oxford, either online or in person on September 11 – 12. Coming together is important to recharge our ideas and also our activism and ourselves. You can sign up for the event here. We hope to see you all soon!

Mary and Sanja

Read the 2022/2023 Report Here