The Politics of Pain in Immigration Detention

In this paper I draw on qualitative material from the first complete data set of ‘ Measure Quality Life in Detention’ (MQLD) survey UK to reflect its implication for understanding and challenging these sites. While similarities between immigration detention centres prisons make it tempting place testimonies people within framework ‘pains imprisonment’, propose an alternative reading first-hand accounts. Rather than approaching them as sociological statements suffering, caused by loss liberty, interpret political which, turn, demand a response. Immigration removal (IRCs), assert, are fundamentally at odds with key values liberal democracy. Those detained not considered be equal members shared community value; rather, their incarceration marks out symbolically and, quite practically, outsiders ideas. The pain describe illuminates need new politics detention.