Immigration detention and deportation are being increasingly utilised in many countries as key state responses to irregular migration. These practices work together to force migrants to their countries of origin or third countries, offering limited choice about whether to stay or leave. Drawing on a multi-sited ethnographic study of British immigration detention, this paper explores how detainees negotiate deportability and their accounts of the spectre of departing the United Kingdom, often against their wishes and occasionally by force. It analyses how deportability and the institutional structures and logics of immigration detention coalesce to shape detainees’ understandings of their positions and options as deportable subjects. The paper highlights the materiality of return from immigration detention and the complexities and multiplicities of how detainees account for their possible departures in relation to the themes of identity, belonging, and home. British immigration removal centres can be understood as ‘sites of struggle’ in which those subject to detention and deportation negotiate these interconnected practices, acting as best they can within coercive and isolating carceral institutions.

中文翻译：

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生活在强迫返回的幽灵中：谈判英国移民拘留中的驱逐出境

许多国家越来越多地将移民拘留和驱逐出境作为国家应对非正常移民的关键措施。这些做法共同迫使移民前往其原籍国或第三国，在留下或离开方面提供有限的选择。本文利用对英国移民拘留的多地点人种学研究，探讨了被拘留者如何协商驱逐出境以及他们对离开英国的幽灵的描述，通常是违背他们的意愿，有时是用武力。它分析了可驱逐性与移民拘留的制度结构和逻辑如何结合在一起，以塑造被拘留者对其作为可驱逐对象的立场和选择的理解。该论文强调了从移民拘留中返回的重要性，以及被拘留者如何解释与身份、归属和家庭主题相关的可能离开的复杂性和多样性。英国移民遣返中心可以被理解为“斗争场所”，在那里，那些被拘留和驱逐出境的人协商这些相互关联的做法，在强制和隔离的监狱机构中尽其所能。