6533b7d4fe1ef96bd1263231
RESEARCH PRODUCT
Resisting Immigration Detention
Alessandro Spenasubject
Human rightsInterpretation (philosophy)media_common.quotation_subject05 social sciencesImmigrationaspirational citizenship – conventional vs. deviant resistance – effectiveness – immigration detention – resistance – self-defence against the stateSpellResistance (psychoanalysis)Criminology0506 political scienceLaw050602 political science & public administration050501 criminologyNormativeSociologyMeaning (existential)Settore IUS/17 - Diritto PenaleLaw0505 lawDemographyImmigration detentionmedia_commondescription
The aim of this article is to provide a normative analysis of the ways in which immigrants resist immigration detention. After having outlined (in Section 2) some general features that make immigration detention a rather abnormal condition for human beings to be kept in, I distinguish three main forms of resistance to it: institutionalized, non-institutionalized, and anti-institutional. I first spell out, in Section 3, some individual characteristics of these forms of resistance. Then (in Sections 4 and 5), using Italy as my test case, I suggest, for each of these forms, an interpretation of their normative meaning (that is, their meaning according to both the relevant legal rules and their underlying social values): under this perspective, I argue that they represent one of the few ways irregular immigrants have to try to assert their existence and to negotiate some space within our societies. I conclude the article by presenting some comments on the effectiveness of the immigrants’ resistance to detention (Section 6).
| year | journal | country | edition | language |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2016-06-17 | European Journal of Migration and Law |