Distance,absence and advocacy

The role of law

There is very little law in Gill’s book. ‘Major new piece[s] of legislation’ are tucked into a footnote at the end of Chapter 1 in reference to a ‘challenging research environment’ (p. 13). For the most part, Gill references the law as ‘rules’ with little clarity on obligation or violations of domestic and international law. My curiosity on the place of law peaked in Chapter 6 ‘Indifference and Emotions’ as Gill delved into the active pursuit of emotions and values of care, empathy, compassion, respect, professionalism, innovation, and collaboration by immigration control organizations: ‘Since their inception, these and similar values have been rolled out to underpin many of the seemingly brutal elements of immigration control’ (p. 147). Is this because the ‘brutal elements’ are within the law and cannot be otherwise challenged? Gill warns that

care begins to act as a smokescreen for an immoral or brutal system…The mistake of carers who allow themselves to become part of the brutal systems is to accept the primacy of the ethical over the political, of care over justice. (p. 149)

But where is this justice located or asserted?

Law’s absence is raised in the examination of spatial separation in asylum appeal hearings. Gill points to the work of Robert Thomas to suggest a lack of legal coherence or substance (p. 98) in the proceedings. He then moves to position the hearing as an ‘adversarial’ ‘legal approach’ where asylum seekers vulnerably enter the ‘battlefield’ on ‘unequal footing’ (p. 99). And yet, ‘a quarter of negative initial decisions are overturned on appeal’ (p. 97). There is a positive strength to the law here: the power of the legal recognition of refugee status and the right to have one’s claim heard. Within this space refugees’ lives are changed for the better.

Gill shows how this legal process is undermined by the spatial segregation and distancing in the design of tribunal rooms. There is a growing range of literature on point. Rebecca Hamlin’s (2014) study of refugee status determinations in the United States, Canada, and Australia likewise outlines how differences in process, institutional players, and administrative insulation or oversight affect the scope and level of protection provided under the same refugee definition. In the context of sexual assault trials, Elaine Craig (2016) powerfully exposes Canadian trial rituals that create an ‘inhospitable court’ for participants. Returning to refugees, claims in Canada are increasingly heard via videoconferencing. The move creates a digital distance spanning geographic and temporal divides between claimant and decision-maker that continues to expand despite challenges (Federman, 2006). In this blurring of proximity and distance, Gill asks what is the capacity for ‘morally demanding encounters between applicants and decision makers’ (p. 81), while I wonder if this demand for morality is adequate to reassert or challenge the law? Gill is a political geographer but beneath his analysis flows the untold legal geography of migration management that might challenge the fixed assumptions of the law and explore the relations between law, space, and power.

Academic/advocate/ally

Chapter 4 ‘Distance at Close Quarters’ starts with the July 2013 protest and counterprotest at Lunar House, the headquarters of immigration control in the United Kingdom. An anti-immigration stance by the English Volunteer Force triggers a counterprotest by both Unite Against Fascism and the Public and Commercial Services Union that represents many frontline staff at Lunar House. Gill is there as an observer, speaking of the participants in the third person, describing the positions and actions of both sides and talking to some. He details the composition of the counterprotest: ‘There are middle-managers employed by the Home Office in immigration control here, standing next to frontline immigration officers, standing next to radical anti-fascist activists and refugees’ (p. 76). He does not list himself but the fact that he is aligned with the counterprotest is subtly acknowledged with a viewpoint change: ‘the counter protest, which easily outnumbers the EVF, are united in their chanting in reply. “Whose streets?”…“Our streets!” we thunder in response’ (p. 77). When Gill returns to the Lunar House protest in Chapter 8 ‘Conclusion’ he has shifted entirely to the first person, aligning himself with the counterprotest:

It is as if we are arguing over Lunar House itself…We are in an endurance contest to keep our voices louder than theirs…literally occupying the air with our sound to prevent their chanting from reaching our ears. (p. 179)

This is personal. Gill outlines his methodology in the appendix but it is swift treatment of four separate research projects that contribute to Nothing Personal. He addresses some ethical considerations and the effects of secondary trauma working within suffering, but a discussion of his own personal positioning within the broader research agenda is regretfully absent.

Perhaps this is because Gill is able to situate his argument outside of the personal protest in which he engages. Having outlined the fragility of proximity and the power of indifference, Gill rejects the possibility of traditional recommendations in his conclusion. He takes this moment instead to acknowledge an admittedly ‘bleak picture of immigration controls and, through my critical discussion of compassion, a bleak picture of the prospect resisting them as well’ (p. 187). Rather than resistance through reform, Gill uses his conclusion for the distinct argument for open borders. Having illustrated the real challenge in achieving meaningful interactions in the previous chapters, his argument for dismantlement sits as the logical alternative: ‘there is no a priori dilemma in relation to asylum seekers that is not created by the existence of international borders themselves’ (p. 186). While I commend his case for the dismantling of borders, this turn to ‘radical quarters’ (p. 187) leaves one back in the bleak reality and rather unconvinced by Gill’s assurance, in the face of all that comes before, that ‘it is perfectly possible to remain oppositional and defiant even in situations where revolution is not yet feasible and the system being resisted is un-reformable’ (p. 188). Rather than sitting with my doubt, I turn briefly to Canada.

Oh Canada

Often in my reading of Nothing Personal I wanted to hear Gill’s thoughts on Canadian migration policies and control. In Chapter 4 ‘Distance at Close Quarters’ in which the aversion of meaningful interaction is explored, my mind turned to Canada’s private refugee sponsorship program. In September 2016, at the UN Summit for Refugees and Migrants, Canada announced a joint initiative aimed at increasing the private sponsorship of refugees around the world. This was followed by the launch of the Global Refugee Sponsorship Initiative in December 2016 to promote Canada’s model. Filipo Grandi, UN High Commissioner for Refugees declared that ‘Canada has taken the mantle of humanitarian leadership in the world’. The private sponsorship model permits individual citizens to take on the responsibility of providing assistance, accommodation and support to resettled refugees for up to 1 year after arrival. The program is commended for the social capital value of sponsors as network ties (Lamba and Krahn, 2003). Gill’s lens of ‘morally obligating interactions’ (p. 80) fits on sponsorship. A 2017 Migration Policy Institute report listed ‘Opportunities to build meaningful relationships between refugees and receiving communities’ as a key value of the program (Fratzke, 2017). In this sense, the UK borders are opening through an increase in refugee resettlement and an experimentation with the Canadian model through ‘community sponsorship’ launched in 2016.

I am curious to hear Gill’s thoughts on the latter as a border response reliant on community compassion. Within Chapter 7 ‘Examining Compassion’ Gill focuses on the limits and risks of compassion. But a discussion of compassion necessitates some contrast to law and legal rights. As Gill acknowledges, ‘Attempts to nurture compassion should be viewed as last-ditch recourse to unreliable and risky tactics of activism in the face of failure to properly secure the welfare of the most vulnerable through appropriate laws and policies’ (p. 172). Is this then a solution to moral distance or a reconstituted soap bubble (p. 189) that cleanses away concern for the still swelling numbers beyond state borders and the legal obligations to asylum seekers within our borders? By bringing refugees in through resettlement and private sponsorship, are states and citizens able to satisfy their humanitarian impulse while continuing in their indifference (or worse) to other asylum seekers? Again, the border stands as a point of concern with troubling treatment on both sides.

With Nothing Personal, Gill may not be able to topple international borders but he is effective in bringing his reader disturbingly close to the troubling techniques of migration management. Those who read the book will be drawn to stand and chant in protest at Lunar House and elsewhere, challenging the production of indifference and the consequential failures of morality and justice.