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Citation |
Bhatia M, Lentin R. State Crime J. 2022; 11(1): 5-11. |
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Copyright |
(Copyright © 2022, International State Crime Initiative, Publisher Pluto Journals) |
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DOI |
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PMID |
unavailable |
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Abstract |
The twenty-first century has witnessed a rampant expansion of migration control practices. External and physical borders have dramatically proliferated, and so have internal and everyday borders. Western states have deployed a virulent and divisive rhetoric, and have consistently othered people deemed as unwanted surplus populations. By focusing on the illegality of entry and the means by which people seek to enter the country, governments are able to dehumanize and criminalize migrants, rendering them non-existent and expendable, and the use of terms such as "illegal" and "bogus" form the official vocabulary. Pickering (2005: 52-81) calls this a "spectacle of refugee deviancy" whereby language rules amplify refugee deviance and obfuscate state illegality, deviance and violence directed against the group. She argues that language rules ensure that the violent intent of the state against undocumented migrants and people seeking asylum is brutally clear. At the same time governments are launching instructions on how to disguise the reality of immigration control with lies, concealment and euphemisms. Similarly, Grewcock (2009:17) argues that utilizing such deviance in relation to the state's treatment of refugees and undocumented migrants is both "apposite and confronting given the deviant character bestowed by the state." Discourses of deviancy have become discourses of legitimation and are constantly repeated so as to justify repressive and aggressive state responses couched in the language of common-sense and allegedly justified solutions to what is construed as the "problem of immigration."... Language: en |