The Crime, Justice & Societey Seminar Series presents
The role of covid-19 and Brexit in changing dynamics in the selection of migrants in detention in Northern Ireland - a call for an abolitionist politics
Dr Teresa Degenhardt, Queen’s University Belfast
About the seminar
The Covid-19 syndemic led the UK government to introduce changes in immigration detention that greatly affected and impacted those in detention by entrenching pre-existing inequalities among migrants who are detained or subjected to deportation order. This study looks are the critical juncture between Covid-19 and Brexit in the selection of migrants who are still in detention in Northern Ireland, showing who are the populations most likely to be detained before and after the referendum, and before and after the first lockdown. Analysing the statistical data produced by the UK Government, it will be showed how different genders highlight concerns for different racialised populations. Overall, this study shows the ways in which local events, like the emergence of a new border with the European Union, and in particular in Northern Ireland, have an impact on the selection of migrants. The paper is also a call to challenge this kind of politics by the state, through abolitionist practices.
About the speaker
Teresa Degenhardt is a Lecturer in Criminology at Queen’s University Belfast. Immigration detention in Northern Ireland is the focus of a new project. She has previously worked on the intersection between criminology and international relations, in particular on the intersection between military violence and crime, and criminal justice, and on European border technologies from a critical perspective. Teresa has published in peer reviewed academic journals such as Criminology and Criminal Justice, Punishment and Society, and Theoretical and Philosophical Criminology, as well as various chapters in edited collections on war in criminology.