A Visits Venue as a Transformative Space for Asylum Seekers in a Detention Facility

This article explores the function of a visitation area of a detention facility and the ways this visitation space affected the detainees’ well-being. This visiting area had a transformative socio-spatial impact through the relationships that developed and the experiences that occurred there. The place of visits provided hope for future permanency for asylum seekers during the liminality of detention and the spatial unsettling of seeking asylum. The focus of this research is on a geography of spaces within the field of carceral geography and the effect of these spaces on people in detention. Of interest is the ways asylum seekers have shown a level of resistance to some of the adverse effects of detention through utilising a visits venue to build a level of resilience.