The End of Summer: Finished Projects and New Beginnings

To start with, Border Criminologies is pleased to announce the publication of Inside Immigration Detention by Mary Bosworth. The first national study of life in UK immigration removal centres (IRCs), this book draws on 20 months of fieldwork across six different institutions. In outlining the words and experiences of staff and detainees, it reflects on the paradox of exclusion and recognition in these hidden sites, revealing considerable levels of ambivalence about this practice from all parts of the immigration system. Details about the book and an interview with Mary about the wider frame of British immigration detention can be found in the two clips below. A recent review in the Times Higher Education can be found here.

Congratulations to Dr Blerina Kellezi, the former Leverhulme International Network Facilitator, on her new lectureship at Staffordshire University. We wish her well in her new job and look forward to continuing to work together on developing and analyzing the Measure of the Quality of Life in Detention (MQLD). The current tranche of surveys, gathered by Dr Sarah Turnbull at Campsfield House, Yarl’s Wood, Colnbrook and Dover are currently being entered into SPSS for subsequent analysis. Watch this space for future reports. Previous accounts can be found here.

We welcome Andriani Fili as Blerina’s replacement. Andriani has considerable experience supporting detainees and asylum seekers in Greece, and has worked alongside Mary Bosworth and Sharon Pickering on an international comparative project into immigration detention. Andriani has taken over from Blerina in coordinating the activities between Oxford, Monash and Oslo on the Leverhulme network, including the new SSRN Criminal Justice Borders & Citizenship Paper Series. She may be contacted here

Dr Ines Hasselberg is about to start the second phase of her field research among foreign-national prisoners as part of the project The Postcolonial Prison: Citizenship, Punishment and Mobility. Last year Ines spent three months at HMP Huntercombe in the UK, and now she will commence interviewing foreign-nationals serving time in two Portuguese prisons.

Finally, don’t forget, Border Criminologies is building an Immigration Detention Archive. If you would like to contribute objects, letters, photographs, creative writing or other forms of material culture, please contact us at bordercrim@law.ox.ac.uk.