The Irregular Migrant as Homo Sacer: Migration and Detention in Australia, Malaysia, and Thailand

Abstract

This paper looks at aspects of the detention of irregular migrants in Australia, Malaysia, and Thailand. The principle intention of the paper is to study detention of irregular migrants as a means of understanding politics and how notions of political participation and of sovereignty are affected by the detention of certain sorts of individual. What does the identification of certain "forms of life" to be detained say about the political norms of different societies? The conduit for this examination will be the Italian philosopher Giorgio Agamben's concept of homo sacer. Homo sacer is a term Agamben extrapolates from "ancient Roman law". It denotes a naked or bare life that is depoliticized. Homo sacer is the excess of processes of political constitution that create a governable form of life. Homo sacer is thus exempt or excluded from the normal limits of the state. At the same time, however, homo sacer is not simply cast out but is held in particular relation to the norm: it is through the exclusion of the depoliticized form of life that the politicized norm exists. This essay seeks to contextualize aspects of Agamben's argument by looking at detention as a form of exclusion in three different contexts.

Conceptualizing detention

“…Ironically, through detention, a process that disconnects migrants from environments where they could be identifiable, the migrant becomes what Rajaram and Grundy-Warr (2004) call a "knowable entity" (also see Browning, 2007). Making migrants legally knowable is a key logic behind detention, as demonstrated in cases of wrongful detention.…”

CrisisisGovernance: Sub-prime, the Traumatic Event, and Bare Life

“…Agamben's diagnoses of the politics of exceptionalism, the production of bare life, and the (Bigo, 2007;Dillon, 2007); trauma, the (re)production of sovereign community, and practices of memorialisation ; the politics of global space, surveillance, and borders and bordering practices in global politics (Amoore, 2007;Edkins and Walker, 2000;Rajaram and Grundy-Warr, 2007;VaughanWilliams, 2007VaughanWilliams, , 2009aVaughanWilliams, , 2009b, migration and patterns of global movement (Doty, 2007; Rajaram and Grundy-Warr, 2004); the politics of humanitarianism and human rights (Caldwell, 2004; and debates about the rule of law and sovereign exceptionalism (Connolly, 2004;Neal, 2006;Neocleous, 2006;Prozorov, 2005), to refer to only some of the literature.…”

Breaking Down Anonymity : Digital Surveillance of Irregular Migrants in Germany and the Netherlands

“…Agamben's metaphor of the camp, ultimately referring to the horror of the German death camps, is also often used (Walters 2002;Rajaram & Grundy-Warr 2004;Schinkel forthcoming). To Agamben, the camp is the most extreme materialisation of the 'state of exception', a place where there is no longer any distinction between law and violence (cf.…”