Nothing Personal?: Geographies of Governing and Activism in the British Asylum System

In this groundbreaking new study, Nick Gill provides a conceptually innovative account of the ways in which indifference to the desperation and hardship faced by thousands of migrants fleeing persecution and exploitation comes about.

• Features original, unpublished empirical material from four Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) funded projects
• Challenges the consensus that border controls are necessary or desirable in contemporary society
• Demonstrates how immigration decision makers are immersed in a suffocating web of institutionalized processes that greatly hinder their objectivity and limit their access to alternative perspectives
• Theoretically informed throughout, drawing on the work of a range of social theorists, including Max Weber, Zygmunt Bauman, Emmanuel Levinas, and Georg Simmel

Keywords:

Immigration, migration, geography, sociology, social justice, border control, bureaucracy, immigration control, asylum seekers, immigration detention, HMRC, human geography, mobility, political geography, Max Weber, Zygmunt Bauman, Emmanuel Levinas, Georg Simmel, the state