Introduction: Refugee camps as carceral junctions

Abstract

Carceral junctions are confining structures, where people wait in situations of pressure and possibility before they move or are moved elsewhere. They are sites of interface and contestation. Conceptualizing camps as carceral junctions means examining the double sense of ‘moving camps’: On the one hand, camps shape, detain and enable particular forms of movement for residents as they move between camps and cultivate networks in hopes of viable futures. On the other hand, camps themselves are also mobile in the sense that models of encampment travel and shift within and between states, just as individual camp staff careers may span multiple camps. Bringing these senses together, the contributions in the special issue develop the concept of the carceral junction as a way of grasping the paradoxical work and consequences of camps. By proposing the concept of carceral junctions we intend to draw on but also critique conceptualizations and theories that either reify the confining nature of camps as places of exception or overly celebrate the agency of migrant mobility. The term is coined to grasp the mobilities of knowledge, power and bodies that characterize asylum camps, as well as their interfaces and connectedness in a context where states adopt increasingly restrictive refugee policies.