Beschreibung
Over the last few years, the worldwide significance of immigration detention has increased substantially. Yet, immigration removal detention centres remain under-researched places, even though their role is highly controversial and deeply debated. In this talk, I report on our study on Austrian immigration removal detention centres, where asylum seekers with a negative asylum decision are detained prior to their deportation. I focus on one specific participatory method used, the so-called vignette-based focus groups. By referring to Judith Butler’s linked concepts of performativity and vulnerability, I analyse the relationship between the two main groups within the centres: the detainees and the police. I show how the method of vignette-based focus groups can be understood to be performative in the sense that the research process itself changed the empirical situation. For doing so, I combine Butler´s aforementioned concepts with the interpretive subjectivation analysis. In the research project that preceded the vignette-based discussions, we conducted research on the subjectivation processes of both police officers and detainees. We analysed how they act towards the subject position of the so-called "illegal resident" (“unrechtmäßig Aufhältige”). The mutual exchange of perspectives between the police officers and the detainees that took place in the focus groups altered the attitudes of both groups to one another, by highlighting their mutual reliance on one another. In this respect, our study is an example of the potential for performative research – not merely for investigating power asymmetries – but also for altering relationships on an interactive level, in spite of structural power asymmetries. Thereby the data showed the situational and relational character of subjectivation processes, which can vary fundamentally, when the context of a certain situation is changing.| Zeitraum | 2022 |
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| Ereignistitel | Seminar „Subjects of violence“ : Netzwerk Subjektivierungsforschung |
| Veranstaltungstyp | Konferenz |
| Ort | Luxembourg, LuxemburgAuf Karte anzeigen |
| Bekanntheitsgrad | International |