Book launch: Detention and Deportation in Europe: Analyses, Contestations, and Radical Visions in the Aftermath of Covid-19

Join us for the online book launch of the Volume “Detention and Deportation in Europe: Analyses, Contestations, and Radical Visions in the Aftermath of COVID-19”, edited by Francesca Esposito, Teresa Degenhardt, and Annika Lindberg.

Spanning Europe’s carceral border regimes and interspersed with the poetic reflections of those who have endured the violence of their enforcement and those who struggle against it, “Detention and Deportation in Europe” offers a radical critique of immigration detention and deportation systems, testifying to their inherent harms. Covering countries such as the UK, Spain, Greece, Italy, Germany, Poland, Serbia, Sweden and Denmark, and Northern Ireland, contributors examine how COVID-19 intensified state control, abandonment and marginalisation, while highlighting inspiring acts of resistance and solidarity. Combining abolitionist and no-border perspectives with critical scholarly analysis, the book offers urgent insights into dismantling oppressive carceral border systems and building caring communities for all.

The editors will introduce the volume and engage in conversation with some of its contributors. The discussion will address the violence of carceral border regimes and their reconfiguration in the aftermath of COVID-19, as well as past and present forms of resistance and contestation that can help us think toward carceral border abolition in moments of multiple crises. A Q&A session with the audience will follow.

Speakers:

Ana Ballesteros-Pena is a Ramon y Cajal Senior Research Fellow at the University of A Coruña (Spain). Her more recent research projects have been GEIPP (2023– 2025) (MSCA- COFUND), which analyzes gender equality policies in prisons in Spain, and Governmigration (2018– 2021) (MSCA- GF), which explores the main transformations of immigration detention systems in Canada and Spain. 

Aino Korvensyrjä is a postdoctoral researcher at the School of Sociology, Politics and International Studies, University of Bristol, and at the University of Helsinki. Her research focuses on deportation, criminalisation, migrant and black movements, postcolonial racial capitalism, and abolition. She collaborates with collectives that monitor and organise against racialised state violence.

Deanna Dadusc is Senior Lecturer in Criminology at the University of Brighton’s School of Humanities and Social Science. Her research critically examines the criminalisation of migration, border violence, and the intersection of carceral and border regimes. Deanna coordinates the ‘Feminist No Border Struggles’ research strand at the Feminist Autonomous Centre for Research.

Teresa Degenhardt is Reader in Criminology at Queen’s University Belfast. Her research focuses on processes of criminalisation and securitisation in the international sphere, combining criminology with international relations. Teresa has been involved in activism on immigration detention for the last eight years.

Francesca Esposito is a Researcher at the Department of Psychology ‘Renzo Canestrari’ at the University of Bologna and an Associate Director at Border Criminologies. Trained in community psychology, she has over 15 years of experience working alongside survivors of intimate and state violence. Her research examines detention violence through an intersectional abolitionist lens, focusing on the entanglements between care and violence. 

Setareh Ghandehari is the Advocacy Director at Detention Watch Network (DWN) where she works alongside other DWN staff and members to abolish immigration detention in the United States. Ghandehari has been involved in social justice movements for over 20 years. As an advocate, she has developed material and arguments for campaigners working to end immigration detention. Ghandehari’s work can be found in outlets such as OpenDemocracy (2024).

Annika Lindberg is Assistant Lecturer at the School of Global Studies, University of Gothenburg, and holds a PhD in Sociology from the University of Bern. Her work focuses on European border, detention and deportation regimes, and the role of state violence and bureaucracy in their enforcement.

Cheikh Sene is Vice President of the Ragazzi Baye Fall association, and coordinator of the Maldusa space in Palermo. He runs projects in solidarity with criminalized migrants and in particular boat drivers (captains) who are currently in prison or on trial. They do so by organizing letter writing to prisoners, facilitating legal support and material support to those imprisoned.

Elahe Zivardar, aka Ellie Shakiba is an award- winning Iranian artist, architect, journalist, and documentary filmmaker. She was detained on the notorious island prison of Nauru for six years for attempting to seek asylum in Australia. During her illegal detention, she was highly active in using photos and videos to document the horrendous mistreatment and appalling conditions endured by asylum seekers imprisoned on remote islands by Australian authorities. Elahe was finally granted refugee status in 2019. Through her publications, paintings, photography, and documentary films, she seeks to depict and raise awareness on the abuses committed against refugees and stateless people fleeing wars and persecution, shining a light on the hypocrisy of governments such as Australia’s, which claim to uphold human rights and international laws. In addition, Elahe is an advisor to international refugee rights organisations and campaigns in Australia, the UK, and the US. To learn more about her work, visit: https://shakibaproductions.com/