Public defence of doctoral thesis with Miriana Cascone, Media and Communication Studies

Miriana Cascone defends her thesis ”Detain(ed): Media Technologies and Migrants in Swedish Detention Centres”.

Subject: Media and Communication Studies
Research area: Critical and Cultural Theory
External reviewer: Karina Horsti, Senior Lecturer, Department of Social Sciences and Philosophy, University of Jyväskylä, Finland
Language: English

Abstract:
This thesis explores how detained migrants, media technologies and techniques of enclosure are entangled in detention centres. Transnational lives are sustained by everyday digital media practices, which play an essential role in migratory mobility. Migration, in terms of experience and governance, is already highly digitised, and is now moving even further in this direction. This thesis, however, takes as its starting point a context within which mobility is hindered and blocked: rejected migrants are detained while awaiting deportation, and, within this context, digitization is, in fact, being scaled back. I argue that the detention system immobilises, at least temporarily, migrants not only physically and geographically but also digitally.

In Swedish detention centres, access to multimedia technologies is limited and controlled, and, in some cases, it is even prohibited, as is the case with smartphones. This translates into a regime of counter-digitalisation, of non-connection, perceived as a moment of forced interruption and deprivation, which affects not only detained migrants but also their transnational relationships. The question that guides this study is, “What happens when the connected migrant (Diminescu, 2008) is no longer connected?”. Using a grounded theory approach and relying on ethnographic interviews with migrants who are currently detained or have been detained, this research explores the experience of indefinite detention and the roles and meanings of media technologies, both in terms of their presence but also their absence.

This thesis describes waiting by exploring three dimensions of it: the first is through the technologies present (and absent) in detention centres; the second is waiting as a practice, highlighting its effects on daily life and the perception of time; and third is its relational aspect, to understand its effects on transnationalism and emotional relationships. Influenced by Goffman’s concept of "Total Institution" (1961), I propose the concept of "Waiting Institution" as a framework for understanding detention, because waiting is also the means through which the system functions and acts. It is the fundamental dimension within which all relationships within detention are played out and situated, and it stands in a triangular relationship with power and control. This institutionalisation of waiting, which is constructed, maintained and fed by both the media technologies available to migrants as well as those used on them to manage life inside the centres, breaks the perception of simultaneity between “inside” and “outside”. This thesis understands detention as a socio-technical system. It re-evaluates and challenges the rhetoric of access to media and connection with the outside world, offered by the advocates and managers of detention, thereby shifting the focus to questions of why and how such access is either granted or denied.