Reference : Warehousing asylum seekers: The logistification of reception
Scientific journals : Article
Social & behavioral sciences, psychology : Sociology & social sciences Social & behavioral sciences, psychology : Human geography & demography
Migration and Inclusive Societies
http://hdl.handle.net/10993/48589
Warehousing asylum seekers: The logistification of reception
English
Vianelli, Lorenzo[University of Luxembourg > Faculty of Humanities, Education and Social Sciences (FHSE) > Department of Geography and Spatial Planning (DGEO) >]
[en] This article employs the analytical perspective of logistics to explore a key, yet quite overlooked, aspect of the functioning of the EU border regime: the reception and associated territorial distribution of newly arrived asylum seekers. Drawing on qualitative data collected at the height of ‘refugee reception crisis’ in multiple contexts in Italy and Sweden, the article shows how reception is undergoing a process of ‘logistification’. In this process, organisational and logistical concerns prevail over the care for those who are assisted, and reception is turned into a logistical matter of moving and accommodating asylum seekers. Crucial to this process of ‘logistification’ is the warehousing of asylum seekers – an art of government that seeks to objectify asylum seekers through their depersonalisation, victimisation and (im)mobilisation. The article argues that the ‘logistification’ of reception not only has dehumanising effects on asylum seekers, but also exposes the attempt to make profit out their management and transfer. This creates the conditions for the development of a reception industry in which the very presence of asylum seekers is valorised for the profit of a whole range of actors who ensure the reproduction, transfer, knowledge and control of those hosted in reception facilities.
European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under the Marie Skłodowska-Curie grant agreement No 838722 ; Chancellor’s Scholarship of the Graduate School of the University of Warwick
Contain, Distribute, Obstruct. Governing the Mobility of Asylum Seekers in the European Union (CONDISOBS)