Challenges to medical ethics in the context of detention and deportation: Insights from a French postcolonial department in the Indian Ocean

Sahraoui, Nina

doi:10.1016/j.socscimed.2020.113073

Cited by 2 publications

(1 citation statement)

References 37 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…Th e stories of the sea crossings recounted by Comorian women uncover the gendered manifestations of necropolitics. Women's bodies are exposed to both state and non-state violence: on the one hand the deportation machine removes women, even in a state of advanced pregnancy (Sahraoui 2020), and on the other hand the undocumented crossings involve a reliance on men whose power within the local informal economy of the crossings produces threats for women's safety. Asmata, a 21-year-old woman and mother of two who had been living in Mayotte for 12 years at the point of the interview, made a solemn promise not to return to the Comoros as her fi rst attempt to cross was marked by beating, an attempted rape, and the loss of all the money she carried with her.…”

Section: Daily Arrests and Dangerous Sea Crossings: Th E Gendered Con...mentioning

confidence: 99%

The Gendered Necropolitics of Migration Control in a French Postcolonial Periphery

Sahraoui

2023

Migration and Society

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

This article examines the postcolonial politics of migration control in Mayotte, an overseas French department, and argues that these bear necropolitical consequences. It sheds light on the gendered dimension of this necropolitical power by focusing on the life and border-crossing experiences of undocumented Comorian women. Entrenched barriers to the regularization of their administrative status endanger their access to healthcare and degrade the conditions for life long-term. The constant risk of arrest and massive forced removals furthermore engender dangerous border crossings, each instance exposing the passengers to the risk of death. The article also foregrounds that these necropolitics are exacerbated as a result of the postcolonial conundrum in which Mahoran elites find themselves, with the increasing support of Black and Muslim elites for the French far-right political party.

show abstract

Section: Daily Arrests and Dangerous Sea Crossings: Th E Gendered Con...mentioning

confidence: 99%

The Gendered Necropolitics of Migration Control in a French Postcolonial Periphery

Sahraoui

2023

Migration and Society

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

Midwives and Humanitarian Bureaucracy: Managing Migration at a Postcolonial Border

Sahraoui

2021

International Political Sociology

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Drawing on Foucauldian biopolitics, Max Weber's and Hannah Arendt's understandings of bureaucracy, and Achille Mbembe's theoretical insights into necropolitical power, I propose the notion of humanitarian bureaucracy to account for the involvement of medical personnel in the summary deportations of pregnant Comorian women in Mayotte, a French overseas department in the Indian Ocean. In addition to their usual consultations, hospital midwives are asked to assess the health of pregnant women arrested at sea in order to state whether they can be lawfully detained, while deportations happen within hours owing to the specificities of this postcolonial migration regime. The notion of humanitarian bureaucracy traces how a series of bureaucratic acts, duly sanctioned by qualified professionals, performs a minimal and fragmented biopolitical surveillance that neutralizes the question of responsibility and rejects the racialized Other into a liminal space between failing to “make live” and avoiding to “let die.” The article argues that humanitarian bureaucracy represents an ambivalent power, stemming from biopolitics yet producing necropolitics through processes of racialization. The article draws on three months of fieldwork conducted in Mayotte in 2017 and analyzes midwives’ discourses and bureaucratic practices as materialized by the medical certificates they deliver in the context of these assessments.

show abstract

Challenges to medical ethics in the context of detention and deportation: Insights from a French postcolonial department in the Indian Ocean

Cited by 2 publications

References 37 publications

The Gendered Necropolitics of Migration Control in a French Postcolonial Periphery

The Gendered Necropolitics of Migration Control in a French Postcolonial Periphery

Midwives and Humanitarian Bureaucracy: Managing Migration at a Postcolonial Border

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About