Labour as a component of carceral circuitry: the case of asylum seekers

Building upon insights from carceral geography, this paper conceptualises the ‘carceral’ as permeating beyond the prison walls to other areas of life through law and policy making that confines and incarcerates without necessarily ‘imprisoning’. Utilising the case study of asylum applicants in the UK, this paper traces the role of ‘work’ as a component of carceral circuitry which enmeshes asylum seekers’ lives. Outside of immigration detention, this includes work exclusions which hinder mobility, life choices and economic independence, as well as fuelling engagement in both ‘voluntary’, unpaid work arrangements and/or unregulated, ‘criminal’ labour practices which arise as a result of exclusionary laws intent on creating a hostile environment. Inside of immigration detention, analysis extends to the practice of ‘paid activities’ in which immigration detainees undertake millions of hours of work at a rate of £1.00 per hour, ostensibly ‘for their own benefit’. Labour law and its explicit exclusions, as well as the social welfare framework, thereby intersect with immigration control and the criminal law to construct, shape and reproduce this carceral sphere which seeks to control and govern asylum seekers’ lives as well as entrenching their vulnerability as an easily exploitable workforce from which value can be extracted.