In recent years, the United States and England and Wales have witnessed growing re-incarceration rates. This growth is not only due to the courts sending more people to prison (‘front-end sentencing’), but also due to an increasing number of revocations of early release measures, mainly following technical violations of licence conditions (so called ‘back-end sentencing’). However, it is unclear whether the same phenomenon exists in other (European) countries. Therefore, we empirically studied prison recall decision-making processes in Belgium by file analysis, complemented with focus groups with the decision makers involved in the recall process of prisoners with a sentence of more than three years. We found that the recall process in Belgium is embedded in a strong narrative of ‘giving chances’ and that all decision makers deploy a large amount of discretion, which they use to make deliberate decisions in an attempt to facilitate parolees’ reintegration process. Non-compliance with imposed conditions does not automatically lead to recall and even when a parolee is sent back to prison, recall is framed by the decision makers as a step in the reintegration process, not the end of it.

This article considers the legitimacy deficits of immigration control in the eyes of unwanted migrants. We explore the consequences of globalisation-related changes in the institution of citizenship for the perceived legitimacy and operation of immigration control. The study is based on ethnographic research and in-depth interviews in 2018 with 35 migrants in the Detention Centre Rotterdam, the Netherlands. We find that immigration detainees use both denationalised and transnational/cosmopolitan definitions of citizenship and belonging to contest the legitimacy of restrictive admission requirements and, to a lesser extent, the authority of states to stipulate and implement admission requirements. Based on these narratives, immigration detainees engage in forms of resistance that are meant to diminish the likelihood of deportation (‘instrumental resistance’) and in forms of resistance that are unlikely to change the outcome of the deportation procedure yet do make immigration control more costly for states (‘expressive resistance’). The narratives and strategies of resistance seem correlated with length of stay: settled migrants seem more inclined to use denationalised repertoires and instrumental resistance. Our analysis confirms the need for migration scholars to pay more attention to changing social norms regarding the perceived legitimacy of immigration control for the operation and outcomes of immigration control. The results are therefore relevant for our thinking about the future of migration governance in the context of globalisation-related changes in the institution of citizenship.

Purpose A reflexive ethnographic account of the practical and emotional challenges encountered by the researcher during fieldwork is too often separated from the analytical research results, which, as argued by this paper, downplays or even ignores the analytical value of the encountered challenges. Drawing on personal examples from ethnographic research in immigration detention, the purpose of this paper is to show that these challenges have an intrinsic analytical value. Design/methodology/approach Ethnographic research was carried out in two immigration detention centres in Belgium and one in the Netherlands. Observations, informal conversations with detainees and staff, and semi-structured interviews with detainees were triangulated. Extracts from fieldnotes are presented and discussed to demonstrate the analytical value of the challenges experienced during fieldwork. Findings Three important challenges are presented: distrust from organisational gatekeepers and research participants, disruptions of the organisational routines, and witnessing and experiencing feelings of powerlessness. The analytical value of these challenges is strongly connected to theoretical and analytical themes that emerged during the research. Originality/value Ethnographic researchers are encouraged to explicitly treat the reflexive accounts of practical and emotional challenges as “data in itself” and as such nested within their analytical results.

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