Governing Through Ignorance : Swedish Authorities’ Treatment of Detained and Non-deported Migrants during the COVID-19 Pandemic

Summary, in English

Tensions between migration enforcement and migrants’ health and rights have gained renewed urgency during the COVID-19 pandemic. This article critically analyses how the pandemic has affected detained and deportable people in Sweden. Building on an activist methodological approach and collaboration, based on a survey conducted inside Swedish detention centres during the pandemic and the authors’ research and activist engagement with migrants who are detained or legally stranded in Sweden, we argue that migration authorities’ inadequate measures to protect detained and deportable people during the pandemic is a case of governance through ignorance enabled by structural racism. The article traces how this ignorance operates on a structural, institutional and micro-level, enabling public disregard and political irresponsibility for the harmful effects of migration enforcement. A broader aim of the article is to challenge the structural, societal and epistemic ignorance of the conditions for detained and deportable persons and to contribute to political change.

• Author: Annika Lindberg; Anna Lundberg; Elisabet Rundqvist; Sofia Häythiö
• Department/s: Department of Sociology of Law
• Publishing year: 2022-11-01
• Language: English
• Pages: 309-329
• Publication/Series: Feminist Legal Studies
• Volume: 30
• Issue: 3
• Links: http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s10691-022-09495-5
• Document type: Journal article
• Publisher: Springer
• Topic: International Migration and Ethnic Relations
• Keywords: COVID-19; Deportation; Ignorance; Migration-related detention; Sweden
• Status: Published
• ISBN/ISSN/Other: ISSN: 0966-3622