Performative research in immigration removal detention: investigating power asymmetries on an interactive level

The detention of migrants for the purpose of their deportation or in order to clarify their asylum status is a worldwide practice. In the last decade, the detention of migrants has been growing sharply. Global changes in immigration laws, visa policies and border control have led to a criminalization of migrants and a normalization of detention. Yet, immigration detention centres remain under-researched places. In our presentation, we report on our study of Austrian immigration removal detention centres. Our contribution will give an insight into everyday life in detention and show furthermore that theories from gender and queer studies can be fruitfully applied to the topic of detention. By referring to Judith Butler’s linked concepts of performativity and vulnerability, we analyse the relationship between the two main groups within the centres: the detainees and the police. We focus on one specific participatory method used, the so-called vignette-based focus group. We show how the method of vignette-based focus groups can be understood to be performative in the sense that the research process itself changed the empirical situation. In this respect, our study is an example of the potential for performative research – not merely for investigating power asymmetries but also for altering relationships on an interactive level (the handling of the actual rules and routines), in spite of structural power asymmetries. In addition, we will present some findings that explicitly show that gender is a category that frames the organizational structure and therefore promotes gender stereotypes.