The tactics of asylum and irregular migrant support groups: Disrupting bodily, technological, and neoliberal strategies of control

Abstract

States are exercising an increasing array of spatial strategies of migration control, including in the area of asylum migration. Drawing on interview data with thirty-five British and American irregular migrant and asylum support groups (MASGs), this article explores the spatial “tactics” (De Certeau 1984) employed by MASGs in response to strategies of migration control. We consider their infiltration of highly securitized physical spaces like detention centers and courts. We analyze their appropriation of control technologies and discuss their exploitation of inconsistencies within the neoliberalization of controls. These tactics highlight the importance of resistive actions that are carried out “within enemy territory” (De Certeau 1984, 37). As such, they represent a complementary set of actions to more radical forms of protest and consequently enrich our understanding of the diversity of forms of resistance.