Migrant Surveillance and State Power: Electronic Tagging of Asylum-Seekers in the UK

While the electronic tagging of asylum-seekers is often considered a humane alternative to detention, it is actually a tactic of Theresa May’s ‘hostile environment’ that deeply constricts an individual’s physical, psychological, and social freedom. This study focuses on the experiences of asylum-seekers who have been electronically tagged— their struggles and their methods of resistance. The electronic tag administers a mandatory curfew on asylum-seekers, administered by a ‘crimmigration apparatus’ that is made up of the Home Office and its (in)security contractors. The apparatus neglects asylum-seekers and their cases through bureaucratic loopholes, lack of accountability, enforced paranoia, and dehumanization. Within the community, asylum-seekers are unable to work, volunteer, or participate in civil society because of the tag. Yet despite the psychological trauma and physical restrictions, electronically tagged asylum-seekers fight against this socio-political oppression through everyday and extraordinary acts. As the Home Office continues to expand the detention estate and issue new contracts to corporations, asylum-seekers are increasingly endangered by the propensity of further surveillance, privatized abuse, and restricted civil liberties.

Name dc:type.qualificationname

Master of Philosophy (MPhil)

Level dc:type.qualificationlevel

Masters

Grantor dc:publisher.institution

University of Cambridge

Year dc:date.issued

2018

Author dc:creator

• Ranjan, Devika

Advisor dc:contributor.advisor

• Desai, Manali

• asylum-seekers
• refugees
• Home Office
• UK
• G4S
• security
• surveillance
• technology
• state power
• biopolitics
• criminology
• electronic tag
• ankle bracelet
• immigration
• criminalization
• crimmigration
• hostile environment
• security contractors
• (in)security
• bureaucracy

Licence

• https://www.repository.cam.ac.uk/bitstreams/0a647f22-913e-43b2-8758-7ce0f50ea417/download
• https://www.rioxx.net/licenses/all-rights-reserved/

Language dc:language

en

DOI dc:identifier.doi

https://doi.org/10.17863/CAM.26002

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:www.repository.cam.ac.uk:1810/278654