From Bare Life to Bureaucratic Capitalism: Analyzing the Growth of the Immigration Detention Industry as a Complex Organization

The work of post-structuralist political philosopher Giorgio Agamben (1998, 2005) has had a major influence on the study of immigration detention in Europe and elsewhere. In particular, his concepts homo sacer (“bare life”) and “zones of exemption” depict the growth of immigration detention regimes as an expression of sovereign power through inclusive exclusion. In other words, states demonstrate their power to confer rights upon their citizens by denying those rights to others. This paper argues that post-structuralist approaches to the study of immigration detention present a number of theoretical and conceptual problems. Available here.