<abstract xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">

<p>Based on ethnographic research undertaken between 2012—2014, this article focuses on the experiences and narratives of four refused, male asylum seekers living in a network of emergency night shelters located in churches across Greater Manchester, UK. Without the right to work and under No Recourse to Public Funds, many refused asylum seekers are pushed into dependency on charitable support and live under threat of arrest, detention and deportation. This enforced destitution interlocks with other mechanisms of deterrence within the UK’s asylum system to produce a weaponised time in which the state uses time to marginalise, destabilise and exert control over asylum seekers and refused asylum seekers. This paper argues that this weaponised time should be considered as a technology of state power alongside dispersal, detention, destitution and deportation. In making this assertion, it also takes stock of the UK’s asylum system and its built-in forms of marginalisation. It also places both the ethnographic content and policy discussion within the controversy surrounding the UK government’s ‘hostile environment’ towards so-called ‘illegal immigrants’ that was unfolding as the ethnographic research took place. This opens towards wider discussions on the mutually reinforcing relationship between asylum policy and political discourse.</p>
</abstract>

Based on ethnographic research undertaken between 2012—2014, this article focuses on the experiences and narratives of four refused, male asylum seekers living in a network of emergency night shelters located in churches across Greater Manchester, UK. Without the right to work and under No Recourse to Public Funds, many refused asylum seekers are pushed into dependency on charitable support and live under threat of arrest, detention and deportation. This enforced destitution interlocks with other mechanisms of deterrence within the UK’s asylum system to produce a weaponised time in which the state uses time to marginalise, destabilise and exert control over asylum seekers and refused asylum seekers. This paper argues that this weaponised time should be considered as a technology of state power alongside dispersal, detention, destitution and deportation. In making this assertion, it also takes stock of the UK’s asylum system and its built-in forms of marginalisation. It also places both the ethnographic content and policy discussion within the controversy surrounding the UK government’s ‘hostile environment’ towards so-called ‘illegal immigrants’ that was unfolding as the ethnographic research took place. This opens towards wider discussions on the mutually reinforcing relationship between asylum policy and political discourse.

Time in the shelter: Asylum, destitution and legal uncertainty

Borderlands Journal

This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.

{"article-title":"Time in the shelter: Asylum, destitution and legal uncertainty"}

Based on ethnographic research undertaken between 2012—2014, this article focuses on the experiences and narratives of four refused, male asylum seekers living...

Time in the shelter: Asylum, destitution and legal uncertainty

Publié en ligne: 17 avr. 2020

Pages: 138 - 164

DOI: https://doi.org/10.21307/borderlands-2019-014

Mots clés
Asylum Seekers, Hostile Environment, Temporality, Migration, Deterrence

© 2019 Mark Rainey published by Sciendo

This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.

Time in the shelter: Asylum, destitution and legal uncertainty

Publié en ligne: 17 avr. 2020

Pages: 138 - 164

DOI: https://doi.org/10.21307/borderlands-2019-014

Mots clésAsylum Seekers, Hostile Environment, Temporality, Migration, Deterrence

© 2019 Mark Rainey published by Sciendo

This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.

Mots clés
Asylum Seekers, Hostile Environment, Temporality, Migration, Deterrence