Guest Speaker: Professor Mary Bosworth, University of Oxford

Title: 'Supply chain justice: the logistics of British border control'

Abstract: In this talk, Mary Bosworth will introduce her forthcoming book, the first study of immigration detainee escorting in the UK. This wholly outsourced form of border control includes sites of short-term immigration detention at the border and in country, a fleet of custodial vans, and scheduled and charter deportation flights. Drawing on a four-year mixed-method project, which spanned the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, Mary will discuss how this system is arranged and run like a supply chain. While the outcome may feel punitive for those subject to it, unlike the more familiar sites of long-term immigration detention, this system is not obviously penal it in its design or execution. And yet staff are trained in and entitled to use force and people’s liberty is taken away. Exploring the tensions between these elements Marywill turn to studies of infrastructure and logistics, to consider how they might further our understanding and critique of this system.