In this piece I offer an overview of the theme section and reflect on the relationship between academic studies and social justice. By comparing anthropology with my home discipline of criminology, I point to some shared and distinct contributions practitioners in these fields can make to our understanding about border control. Without being too pessimistic, I warn about the limits of ‘humanizing’ research subjects as a means to bring about progressive change, and suggest instead, drawing on the work of the theme section, that more needs to be done alongside and with individuals and local communities.
Mary Bosworth is Professor of Criminology and Fellow of St Cross College at the University of Oxford, where she is Director of the Centre for Criminology and Director of Border Criminologies, an interdisciplinary research group focusing on the intersections between criminal justice and border control. Concurrently, she is Professor of Criminology at Monash University. She has published widely on race, gender, and citizenship with a particular focus on prisons and immigration detention. She is currently working on several projects on detention and deportation in the United Kingdom, Greece, and Italy. Email: mary.bosworth@crim.ox.ac.uk