SciPost Submission Page
Punitive subjectivities and emotions in immigration detention
by Alethia Fernández de la Reguera
Submission summary
| Authors (as registered SciPost users): | Alethia Fernandez de la Reguera |
| Submission information | |
|---|---|
| Preprint Link: | scipost_202401_00016v2 (pdf) |
| Date submitted: | 2024-08-19 16:14 |
| Submitted by: | Fernandez de la Reguera, Alethia |
| Submitted to: | Migration Politics |
| Ontological classification | |
|---|---|
| Academic field: | Political Science |
| Specialties: |
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| Approach: | Observational |
Abstract
In immigration detention centres, emotions run high; tensions, conflicts, anxiety, and affection occur amid bureaucratic procedures, paperwork, files, lists of people, systematisation of cases, buses that come and go with detainees, and people who will be deported. Although immigration detention belongs to administrative law, in practice, detention centres operate closer to penal detention. Little is known about the operation of these places in Mexico, including how punishment takes place in daily practice. Even less is known about the people who work there, especially the rationale and emotions behind their daily decisions and the different ways in which they collaborate with a system that promotes punishment as a central element of immigration detention. In this article, I study how fear and disgust are emotions embedded in institutional practices that reinforce punishment in immigration detention, while empathy can challenge it. I analyse working conditions and daily interactions in detention centres, immigration control facilities and their surroundings. I argue that immigration agents can develop punitive subjectivities to channel emotions derived from anxieties and frustrations of daily work, as well as to embrace a sense of institutional belonging and the illusion of order and control. However, border officers also show empathy towards migrants to cope with emotional distress and humanise their daily work. I intend to answer the questions in this paper: Under what institutional conditions do emotions become power in immigration detention settings? What do emotions reveal about the functioning of punishment in immigration detention centres? How do emotions expressed by INM agents (such as fear, disgust and empathy) enhance or challenge punitive subjectivities?
Author comments upon resubmission
List of changes
1. I restructured the document to make the text clearer. The article now has 5 sections, as I integrated the methodological section at the beginning and modified the order so that the section on punitive subjectivities comes after the section on the analysis of fear, disgust and empathy.
2. I engaged with the literature on Bordering as a practice and Border bureaucracies, specifically the work of Karine Côté-Boucher, Christin Acherman, and Lisa Borrelli.
3. I also integrated two recently published texts on borderwork, emotions and institutions. (Marina Ariza 2024 y Billy Holzberg 2024).
4. I strengthened the literature review about the case study. I added significant contributions of four papers based on detention centres in Mexico and specifically in Tapachula: (1) Abnormal bordering: control, punishment and deterrence in Mexico’s migrant detention centres; (2) Torturing environments and multiple injuries in Mexican migration detention; (3) Mexican bureaucrats and the everyday restriction of transnational migration in a context of scarcity; (4) Tactics of Empathy: The Intimate Geopolitics of Mexican Migrant Detention.
5. I clarified some of the main findings of the paper which are: “There are people within the INM who do not forge a punitive subjectivity” ; and “ They can exhibit contradictions by being indifferent at certain times and empathetic at others”.
6. I expanded a reflection on ethical considerations related to the differences between interviews with migrants in the frame of psycho-legal accompaniment and interviews for this research.
7. I strengthened the conclusions.
8. I edited style and structure.
9. I removed the nationality of the cited authors to avoid misunderstandings on methodological nationalisms.