Humanitarian Detention and Figures of Persistence at the Border

Abstract

Abstract Starting with Alan Kurdi as the “ideal” figure of the refugee, juxtaposed with the figure of the migrant swarm, which rehearses the contrast between humanitarian compassion and securitarian anxiety, this essay traces how these seemingly opposed logics meet in the “humanitarian” detention of children at Europe's borders. This essay examines the partial reinscription of colonial histories and their racist aftermaths in current technologies of surveillance, capture and detention. Adapting the figure of the Möbius strip to envision the relationship between camp and polis, the essay analyzes an experimental documentary on migrant detention at the Greek-Turkish border. In Blue Sky from Pain, by Stephanos Mangriotis and Laurence Pillant, detention sites contain unpredictable subjectivations, forms of dissent, and figures of persistence, even when the detainees are children. The film puts pressure on the frames by which we imagine the subject of human rights and the object of humanitarian compassion.