The Labor of Chartering a Deportation Journey

Abstract

The article explores the work routines of preparing for deportations, alongside the work-life situation of employees who handle the task of deporting people. Via an ethnographic account from Swedish detention centers, where immigrants' forced removal by way of chartered journeys is prepared for, the article elucidates how 'affective labor' goes into deportation. Through a close examination of the work dynamics among employees, discussed via the 'game' concept, the article reveals what is significant for realizing deportations and how this occurs in the interplay both of staff members and between those personnel and deportees. Thereby, it offers profound insight as to how employees cope with the task of detaining people and deporting them. The author concludes that the deportation work, in addition to being conditioned by legal frameworks, is characterized by work-life challenges tying in with general tendencies that have global counterparts. A significant contribution to deportation scholarship is visible in further knowledge of the affective labor that deportation entails, coupled with the argument that it constitutes a key dimension of Sweden's deportation regime.