87161 - Criminology Of The Borders

Learning outcomes

Objectives: The course is designed to give students a general overview and understanding of the international and European criminological debate concerning border control and a detailed knowledge of key topics and key scholars in the field. Students are expected to be able to combine their knowledge of different contexts and disciplinary approaches when analysing border policies. The goal of the course is that students acquire the competences and knowledge necessary to analyze critically the contemporary policies of border control in different contexts, also in view of possible fields of work and research: border police, the role and functioning of administrative detention and deportation, the international relations of the externalization of borders, the use of criminal law in border control.

Course contents

The course is organized in lectures and seminars, as detailed in the following program. Lectures (16 hours in remote on MS TEAMS) aim to introduce students to the core tenets of the discipline. Seminars (12 hours) aim to provide occasions for in-depth discussions of class materials and exercises. For the seminar section of the course, students will be divided in two groups according to their preferences and according to rules concerning the current pandemic emergency: one group will do the seminar in classroom (12 hours) and another group will do the seminar remotely on MS TEAMS (12 hours), for a total of 28 hours for each student. Students are required to carefully read the assigned material before the session and - in the case of seminars - active participation through presentations of existing scholarship and case studies will also be expected. Regardless of the health-related conditions and the specific organization of the course, students will be able to follow the lessons of the entire course remotely on MS TEAMS.

The course will present the contemporary debate in the field known as "border criminology". This is a recently emerged field of criminological research, especially driven by scholars as Mary Bosworth (Oxford University), Katja Franko (University of Oslo), Vanessa Barker (Stockholm University), Leanne Weber (Monash University), among others. It merges insights from border studies, critical migration studies, and the criminological interest over border control. The label of "border criminology" identifies an interdisciplinary body of criminological literature concerned with borders and, more specifically, concerned with how border control in times of globalization is bringing about important changes in the field of Criminal justice, punishment, sovereignty and membership in continuously changing and increasingly complex societies. At the end of the course, students will be expected to be able to analyse the mechanisms of power subtending the processes of illegalization and criminalization of migrants. The perspective developed in the course embraces a critical approach and considers law, policies, and discourses as entrenched factors in driving the mechanisms of border control.

Lectures will first introduce the students to the theoretical key concepts in border criminology: illegality, deportability, border performativity, crimmigration, border spectacle, differential inclusion, will be discussed through empirical and theoretical researches carried out in different contexts. Special attention will be given to the intersection of race, class and gender in the law-making and law-enforcement activities. Not only the securitization of border will be taken into account, but also the more recently emerged “humanitarian control” will be considered as an object of possible criminological enquiry. The eight classes will be on the following topics:

1. Introduction to the critical perspective in criminology and the “border criminology” debate
2. Illegality and illegalization processes
3. Stumpf and the crimmigration law in the US debate
4. The crimmigration concept in the European debate and its critiques
5. Connecting the internalization and externalization of border control: international relations and criminalization of migration
6. Security, borders and humanitarian control: the “perfect victim” in the European Refugee’s crisis
7. Border performativity and the transformation of the borders from below
8. Us & Them: production of subject at the intersection of race, class and gender

Seminars will focus on six different areas of border policing:

1. Policing of internal borders;
2. Administrative detention;
3. Deportability and deportation;
4. FRONTEX and the policing of the Mediterranean Sea;
5. Push-backs and the control of external borders;
6. Borders, mobility and technologies of control.

Students are expected to be actively involved during seminars and do the readings in advance.

Readings/Bibliography

All students should read the following compulsory articles:

• Aas Katja Franko (2011), 'Crimmigrant' bodies and bona fide travelers: Surveillance, citizenship and global governance, Theoretical Criminology 15: 331
• Aas Katja Franko (2013) The Ordered and the Bordered Society: Migration Control, Citizenship, and the Northern Penal State. In The borders of punishment: Migration, Citizenship and social exclusion. Oxford University Press, pp. 21-36
• Aliverti Ana (2012) “Making people criminal: The role of the criminal law in immigration enforcement”, Theoretical Criminology 2012 16: 417
• Barker Vanessa (2017) “Penal power at the border: Realigning state and nation”, Theoretical Criminology, Vol. 21(4) 441 –457
• Bosworth Mary, Franko Katja, Pickering Sharon (2018), “Punishment, globalization and migration control: ‘Get them the hell out of here’”, Punishment & Society 20(1): 34–53
• Bosworth, Mary (2012). Subjectivity and identity in detention: Punishment and society in a global age. Theoretical Criminology, 16(2), 123–140. https://doi.org/10.1177/1362480612441116
• Campesi Giuseppe e Fabini Giulia (2019), “Immigration Detention as Social Defence: Policing ‘Dangerous Mobility’ in Italy”, in Theoretical criminology
• Dauvergne Catherine (2004) “Making People Illegal” in Peter Fitzpatrick & Patricia Tuitt, eds., Critical Beings: Law, Nation and the Global Subject Aldershot: Ashgate [http://www.ashgate.com/], pp. 83-100
• De Genova Nicholas (2002) Migrant “illegality” and deportability in everyday life. Annual Review of Anthropology (31): 419–447
• De Genova Nicholas (2013) Spectacles of migrant ‘illegality’: the scene of exclusion, the obscene of inclusion, Ethnic and Racial Studies, 36:7, 1180-1198, DOI: 10.1080/01419870.2013.783710
• Fabini Giulia (2017) Managing illegality at the internal border: Governing through ‘differential inclusion’ in Italy. European Journal of criminology 14(1): 46-62.
• Fassin Didier (2011), “Policing Borders, Producing Boundaries. The Governmentality of Immigration in Dark Times”
• Melossi Dario (2003). In a Peaceful Life’: Migration and the Crime of Modernity in Europe / Italy
• Moffete David (2018) “The jurisdictional games of immigration policing: Barcelona’s fight against unauthorized street vending”, in Theoretical criminology, online first
• Pickering Sharon and Leanne Weber (2013), “Policing the transversal borders”, in The borders of punishment: Migration, Citizenship and social exclusion. Oxford University Press, pp.
• Pinelli Barbara (2018), “Control and Abandonment: The Power of Surveillance on Refugees in Italy, During and After the Mare Nostrum Operation”. Antipode, 50(3): 725-747.
• Stumpf, J.P. (2006) «The Crimmigration Crisis: Immigrants, Crime, and Sovereign power», in American University Law Review, 56, 367.

• Wonders Nancy (2006) Global flows, semi-permeable borders and new channels of inequality: Border crossers and border performativity. In: Pickering S and Weber L (eds) Borders, Mobility and Technologies of Control. Heidelberg: Springer, 63–86.

Students who regularly attend classes:

The above listed readings plus other readings, mainly articles and chapters of books, shall be assigned during the course, according to the topic discussed. The syllabus will be distributed at the beginning of the course and will be uploaded on the web page.

Students who do not regularly attend classes should also read the following texts:

• Aas Katja Franko and Bosworth Mary (2013) The borders of Punishment: Migration, Citizenship and the Northern Penal State. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
• Koulish, R., & van Der Woude, M. A. H. (Eds.). (2020). Crimmigrant Nations. Fordham University Press. (Introduction, chapters 1, 2, 3; plus two other chapters according to the student)

Teaching methods

The course will use different teaching methods to provide students with knowledge on border criminology but also to help them develop critical thinking skills: lectures, seminars, and presentations on behalf of students. The active participation of students during the course will be strongly encouraged.

During each of the six seminars, students will engage in group presentations: they are expected to present any relevant event of their choice occurring in contemporary border control and use the assigned readings for the day to analyse it. Class discussion will follow each presentation. At the end of the six seminars, each group is expected to turn their presentation in a collective short essay (a blog post, no more than 1000 words), which will be assessed and will count for 20 per cent of the final grade.

Assessment methods

• 1000-words collective short essay (20% of the final grade)
• 5000-words final essay and oral discussion of it (80% of the final grade)

Students who do not regularly attend classes will be assessed through a final oral exam.

Teaching tools

Power-point, visual material, collective discussions.

Office hours

See the website of Giulia Fabini