Globalisation and the Policing of Internal Borders

Leanne Weber, Professor of Criminology, Canberra Law School, University of Canberra.

PROJECT OVERVIEW

In Australia, as elsewhere in the developed world, internal border policing is intensifying and diversifying as globalisation increases anxieties about inclusion and belonging. This research programme explores diverse forms of internal bordering that is sometimes aimed at physically excluding unwanted populations from Australia, and at other times is designed to keep subordinate groups in their place.

This project was funded through an Australian Research Council Future Fellowship awarded to Leanne Weber (FT140101044). Using three separate case studies it critically analysed three types of internal borders operating within Australia: structurally embedded borders that enforce boundaries based on immigration status; socially constructed borders produced by the policing of public places that reinforce notions of entitlement and belonging; and borders created by new forms of welfare policing directed primarily towards Indigenous populations which differentiate supposedly ‘responsible’ from ‘irresponsible’ citizens.

RELATED PUBLICATIONS

Case study 1: Structurally embedded border

Weber, L (2019) ‘From state-centric to transversal borders: Resisting the ‘structurally embedded border’ in Australia’, Theoretical Criminology 23(2), p228-246, special issue on ‘Transforming Borders from Below’, co-edited by Marie Segrave and Nancy Wonders

Gerard, A and Weber, L (2019) ‘”Humanitarian Borderwork”: Identifying Tensions Between Humanitarianism and Securitisation for Government Contracted NGOs Working With Adult and Unaccompanied Minor Asylum Seekers in Australia’, Theoretical Criminology 23(2), p266-285, special issue ‘Transforming Borders from Below’, co-edited by Marie Segrave and Nancy Wonders 

Aliverti, A, Milivojevic, S and Weber, L (2019) ‘Tracing imprints of the border in the territorial, justice and welfare domains: A multi-site ethnography’, The Howard Journal of Crime and Justice 58(2): 240-259 

Weber, L and Powell, R (2020) ‘Crime, Pre-Crime and Sub-Crime: Deportation of “Risky Non-Citizens” as “Enemy Crimmigration”’ in Pratt, J and Anderson, J (ed) Criminal Justice, Risk and the Revolt against Uncertainty, Palgrave Macmillan, pp 245-272

Weber, L (2022) ‘The welfare policing of asylum seekers as necropolitics’ forthcoming in Billings, P (ed) Regulating refugee protection through social welfare provision

Case study 2: Policing public space

Weber, L (2020) ‘“My kids won’t grow up here”: Policing, Bordering and Belonging’, Theoretical Criminology 24(1), p71-89, special issue on Policing, migration and national identity

Weber, L, Blaustein, J, Benier, K, Wickes, R and Johns, D (2021) Place, Race and Politics: The Anatomy of a Law and Order Crisis, Bingley, UK: Emerald Publishing. A summary of key findings is available here.

Weber, L (2020) Risk-based policing and belonging, Border Crossing Observatory Research Brief No. 17, July 2020  

Weber, L (2020) ‘You’re going to be in the system forever’: Policing, risk and belonging in Greater Dandenong and Casey, Border Crossing Observatory, April 2002

Weber, L (2018) ‘Police are good for some people, but not for us’: Community perspectives on young people, policing and belonging in Greater Dandenong and Casey, Border Crossing Observatory, Dec 2018

Case study 3: Income Management

Newitt, R, Weber, L and Maher, S (forthcoming) ‘Exemptions from Compulsory Income Management: a short ‘history of the present’, forthcoming in Australian Journal of Politics and History

Maher, S, Newitt, R and Weber, L (2021) ‘Cashless Debit Card Trials: Interview summary

Maher, S (2021) Welfare Quarantining in Australia 2007-2020: A review of grey literature – updated version

CONTACT

Professor Leanne Weber   leanne.weber@canberra.edu.au   @DrLWeber1

 

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