Tracing Imprints of the Border in the Territorial, Justice and Welfare Domains: A Multi‐Site Ethnography
| Author | ANA ALIVERTI,LEANNE WEBER,SANJA MILIVOJEVIC |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1111/hojo.12317 |
| Published date | 01 June 2019 |
| Date | 01 June 2019 |
The Howard Journal Vol58 No 2. June 2019 DOI: 10.1111/hojo.12317
ISSN 2059-1098, pp. 240–259
Tracing Imprints of the Border in the
Territorial, Justice and Welfare
Domains: A Multi-Site Ethnography
ANA ALIVERTI , SANJA MILIVOJEVIC
and LEANNE WEBER
Ana Aliverti is Reader, Warwick Law School, University of Warwick; Sanja
Milivojevic is Senior Lecturer in Criminology, La Trobe University, Australia;
Leanne Weber is Associate Professor and Australian Research Council Future
Fellow, School of Social Sciences, Monash University, Australia
Abstract: Starting from the border as an ‘epistemic viewpoint’ (Mezzadra and Neilson
2013), we seek to achieve conceptual depth about the nature of contemporary border-
ing practices by combining and re-evaluating empirical data collected within different
bordering domains. We build on Mezzadra and Neilson’s concept of the ‘proliferation
of borders’ by extending our focus to the impact of borders on individuals, arguing that
border crossers experience an ‘accumulation of borders’ as borders are‘imprinted’ on their
bodies through multiple and diverse encounters with various state agencies. By tracing
the imprint of the border and its impact on the lives of border crossers in a range of
contexts (the territorial, justice, and welfare domain), we bring to light continuities in
the governance of global mobility and the cumulative effects of borders that could not be
captured by researching isolated, local sites within the nation-state.
Keywords: Border as Method; bordering practices; differential inclusion;
global mobility; hierarchies of citizenship; imprinting; multi-sited ethnogra-
phy
As mobility and migration stand high in political agendas and priorities
and are conflated with concerns about crime and insecurity, border con-
trols are increasingly embedded in structures and practices at and beyond
the physical border (Aliverti 2015; Brandariz-Garc´
ıa and Fern´
andez-Bessa
2017; Pickering and Weber 2013). From schools, hospitals and welfare
agencies to the justice system, the workplace and the housing sector, both
private and public actors are required to systematically check entitlements
to public support and services, to access work or accommodation, or re-
habilitation programmes. In short, border controls have been outsourced
to a range of institutions and actors, and their reach has been significantly
expanded. While not every element of this emerging control system is
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2019 The Howard League and John Wiley & Sons Ltd
Published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd, 9600 Garsington Road, Oxford OX4 2DQ, UK
The Howard Journal Vol58 No 2. June 2019
ISSN 2059-1098, pp. 240–259
directly linked to criminal justice as traditionally understood, Bowling and
Westenra (2018a, 2018b) note that the ‘crimmigration control system’ –
where ‘crimmigration’ (Stumpf 2006) refers to the convergence of criminal
and immigration law and practice – works in tandem with criminal justice
systems to delineate and define ‘suspect communities’. It is, therefore, a
subject of increasing concern to criminological researchers.
As political philosopher, ´
Etienne Balibar (2004) explains, borders are
forms of defining and identifying people; as such they are ‘dispersed a lit-
tle everywhere, wherever the movement of information, people, and things
is happening and is controlled’ (p.1). Mezzadra and Neilson (2013) refer
to this dispersal of bordering functions as the ‘proliferation of borders’ and
emphasise their productive function. Borders play a crucial role in the ‘fab-
rication of the world’: ‘far from serving simply to block or obstruct global
flows, [they] have become essential devices for their articulation’ (p.3). Bor-
ders in their multiplicity therefore create systems of differential inclusion
(Mezzadra and Neilson 2011) produced by processes of illegalisation and
differential entitlement.
In this article we conceptualise bordering practices as expressions of
sovereignty and mediators of relations between individuals and the state.
We emphasise the productive nature of these practices, from a state per-
spective, to differentiate, stratify,and govern populations, and consider the
implications for border crossers. We argue that border control processes
and practices not only ‘make people illegal’ (Dauvergne 2008), they create
differential inclusion and have a cumulative effect. Drawing on Mezzadra
and Neilson’s (2013) Border as Method, we adopt and expand the conceptu-
alisation of borders as ‘epistemological viewpoints’. ‘Border as Method’ is
a technique of knowledge production that involves translation of research
data across diverse bordering contexts in order to identify deeper theoreti-
cal connections, in contrast with ethnographic approaches that are typically
embedded in a particular locale. Border as Method, therefore, directs bor-
der control researchers to focus on ‘new relations of connectivity across dis-
crete spaces and organizations of data’ (Mezzadra and Neilson 2013, p.59)
in order to achieve ‘depth through breadth’. By considering the border in
this way, we hope to better understand and critique the processes through
which bordering discourses and categories (exterior/interior; us/them; cen-
tre/periphery) contribute to reproducing marginality, subordination, ex-
ploitation and dispossession. Moreover, this conceptualisation reveals the
underlying connections of borders to other forms of surveillance, regula-
tion and governance, and facilitates the broadening of the criminological
focus to the continuities in these forms of governance and exercise of
power.
We seek to make two key contributions to the existing border criminol-
ogy literature (Aas and Bosworth 2013; Bosworth, Franco and Pickering
2018). At the conceptual level, we explore the notion of ‘imprinting’ as
a form of governance of global mobility. Focusing on the dispersed, hy-
brid and transnational nature of migration control, and the traces they
leave on the individuals subject to them, we chart the continuities and the
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2019 The Howard League and John Wiley & Sons Ltd
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