The Functions and Legitimization of Suffering in Calais, France

Abstract

The instrumentalisation of disasterlong considered a feature of wars and famines in Africa, for examplehas now been brought right into the heart of Europe. Suffering in Calais has been manipulated for the purpose of deterrence and for domestic political purposes, and forms part of a wider system of outsourcing violence and suffering that has been legitimised through Arendt's "action as propaganda" and through perverse distributions of shame.As someone long prepared for the occasion;In full command of every plan you wrecked -Do not choose a coward's explanation That hides behind the cause and the effect.

Does democracy protect? The United Kingdom, the United States, and Covid‐19

“…With humanitarian disasters unfolding among migrants arriving in Europe and North America, their suffering to a large extent reconceptualised as a good thing —appealing at the polls and ostensibly useful in deterring further migration ( cf . Andersson, 2014; Keen, 2020). Meanwhile, the migrants’ lack of representation adds to their vulnerability, as do controls on information flows.…”

If ‘it all breaks down’: The Norwegian refugee crisis as a geography of chaos

“…Other European countries have exercised migration control through deterrence, using military approaches of containment and violence, or providing reduced and sometimes very limited basic assistance, in the belief that assistance attracts more migrants (see, e.g. extensive literature on reception conditions in Calais or Lesvos, such as Keen (2021), Tyerman (2021), Gordon and Larsen (2021)). Norway, however, has been an exception.…”