1st Edition

Criminal Justice Research in an Era of Mass Mobility

Edited By Andriani Fili, Synnøve Jahnsen, Rebecca Powell Copyright 2018
    256 Pages
    by Routledge

    256 Pages
    by Routledge

    We live in an era of mass mobility where governments remain committed to closing borders, engaging with securitisation discourses and restrictive immigration policies, which in turn nurture xenophobia and racism. It is within this wider context of social and political unrest that the contributors of this collection reflect on their experiences of conducting criminological research. This collection focuses on the challenges of doing research on the intersections between criminal justice and immigration control, choosing and changing methodologies while juggling the disciplinary and interdisciplinary requirements of the work’s audience.

    From research design, to fieldwork to writing-up, this book captures every part of the research process, drawing on a range of topics such as migration control, immigrant detention and border policing. It also reflects on more neglected areas such as the interpersonal and institutional contexts of research and the ontological and epistemological assumptions embedded within data analysis methods. It makes a significant contribution to our understanding of the major developments in current research in this field, how and why they occur and with what consequences.

    This book seeks to shake off the phantom of undisturbed research settings by bringing to the fore the researchers' involvement in the research process and its products. An interdisciplinary collection, it can be used as a reference not just for those interested in the criminology of mobility but also as a learning tool for anyone conducting research on a highly charged topic in contemporary policy and politics.

    Criminal justice research in an era of mass mobility: A brief introduction (Mary Bosworth, Katja Franko and Sharon Pickering)

    Part 1: Producing and presenting knowledge in an era of mass mobility

    1. Taking the border for a walk: A reflection on the agonies and ecstasies of exploratory research (Leanne Weber)

    2. Manoeuvring in tricky waters: Challenges in being a useful and critical migration scholar (May-Len Skilbrei)

    3. ‘‘Crimmigration’ statistics: Numbers as evidence and problem (Synnøve Jahnsen and Kristin Slettvåg)

    4. Funnel politics: Framing an ‘irreal’ space (Nicolay B. Johansen)

    Part 2: Epistemological and methodological accounts in practice

    5. Expectations and realities of fieldwork by a nascent qualitative researcher (Brandy Cochrane)

    6. Spotting foreigners inside the courtroom: race, crime and the construction of foreignness (Ana Aliverti)

    7. Migrant voices in the Global South: Challenges of recruitment, participation and interpretation (Bodean Hedwards and Sirakul Suwinthawong)

    8. Life and death in immigration detention (Dominic Aitken)

    9. The challenges and opportunities of researching life after immigration detention (Sarah Turnbull)

    Part 3: The politics of positionality, ethics and emotions

    10. Researching vulnerable women: sharing distress and the risk of secondary and vicarious trauma (Alice Gerlach)

    11. In the absence of sympathy: Serious criminal offenders and the impact of border control measures (Rebecca Powell and Marie Segrave)

    12. Turning researcher position into theorizing: Conceptualizing the police role in migration control (Helene O. I. Gundhus)

    13. Race at the Border (Alpa Parmar)

    14. One of us or one of them? Researcher positionality, language, and belonging in an all-foreign prison (Dorina Damsa and Thomas Ugelvik)

    15. Voices in immigration detention centres in Greece: Different actors and possibilities for change (Andriani Fili)

    Criminal justice research in an era of mass migration: Concluding remarks (Synnøve Jahnsen, Rebecca Powell and Andriani Fili)

    Biography

    Andriani Fili is a Research Associate at the Centre for Criminology, University of Oxford, and a doctoral researcher at Lancaster University, UK

    Synnøve Jahnsen is a Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the Uni Research Rokkan Centre, Norway

    Rebecca Powell is the Managing-Director of the Border Crossing Observatory, Monash University, Australia