Paperwork performances

Legitimating state violence in the Swedish deportation regime

in Journal of Legal Anthropology
Author:
Lisa Marie Borrelli HES-SO Valais-Wallis lisa.borrelli@hevs.ch

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Annika Lindberg University of Copenhagen annika.lindberg@soz.unibe.ch

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DOI:
https://doi.org/10.3167/jla.2019.030204
Keywords:
administrative power; immigration detention; legitimacy; migration control; paperwork; policing; bureaucracy
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Abstract

Deportation regimes mobilise coercive state powers, but also entail extensive paperwork, the latter of which remains underexplored in deportation studies. Building on ethnographic fieldwork in border police units and a migration-related detention centre in Sweden, this article explores how bureaucratic practices of detecting, detaining and ultimately deporting people whose presence has been illegalised are enforced and legitimated through the use of paperwork. Paperwork, we argue, becomes the ‘signature of the state’ that enables state agencies to assert themselves as ‘rational’ actors, even when their own practices are ridden by dilemmas, inconsistency and sometimes arbitrariness. We show how the same documents that are meant to ensure fairness and accountability in bureaucratic processes may render state actions even more unreadable, and further serve to rationalise and legitimise intrusive, violent and discriminatory state actions. The article thus highlights the importance of considering the often-tedious paperwork as essential to the operation of coercive state powers, such as the detainment and deportation of illegalised persons.

Contributor Notes

Lisa Marie Borrelli works as a postdoctoral researcher at the HES-SO Valais-Wallis and the University of Neuchâtel within the National Centres of Competence in Research (nccr) – on the move project ‘Governing Migration and Social Cohesion through Integration Requirements’, led by Christin Achermann and Stefanie Kurt. Email: lisa.borrelli@hevs.ch

Annika Lindberg is a visiting postdoctoral fellow at the Centre for Advanced Migration Studies, University of Copenhagen. Her research project is supported by the Swiss National Science Foundation and focuses on the deportation turn in Danish and Swedish asylum policy and practice. Email: annika.lindberg@soz.unibe.ch

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Cover Journal of Legal Anthropology
Article Category:
Research Article
Page Count:
20
Keywords:
administrative power; immigration detention; legitimacy; migration control; paperwork; policing; bureaucracy
Print Publication Date:
01 Dec 2019
Online Publication Date:
01 Dec 2019
Copyright:
© Journal of Legal Anthropology 2019

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