Shades Of Carcerality? Reflections On Asylum Accommodation In Italy, France And The UK

In recent years, Europe has witnessed a proliferation of types of accommodation for asylum seekers and refugees, including army barracks, schools, hotels, ships, rural houses, public housing apartments, containers, tents and purpose-built centres. These facilities accommodate but also confine people in ways that break down neat distinctions between carceral and non-carceral spaces. This blog post explores the shades of carcerality that emerge. Foucault identified how the logic of confinement and discipline, seen in prisons in ‘compact’ form, diffuses out through other institutions in society in a ‘carceral archipelago’. To understand this wider terrain, as emphasised by Moran and colleagues, requires an appreciation of ‘the subjectivity and relativity inherent in the experience of carcerality’. Here we draw together insights on experiences of accommodation sites in Italy, France and the UK.