Overview
I am a postdoctoral researcher working on the ASYFAIR project at the University of Exeter – lead by Prof. Nick Gill. The ASYFAIR project is focused on the process of asylum appeals in the European Union and questions the extent to which there can be consistent and fair adjudication of asylum appeals between the EU Member States (see https://asyfair.com/home/). My role on the project is to analyse the ethnographic research data is being produced across our various fieldwork sites, conduct fieldwork in Belgium and publish academic articles based on our collective efforts.
Prior to joining ASYFAIR, I completed my PhD in Human Geography at the University of Edinburgh (supervised by Dan Swanton and Julie Cupples). My doctoral work was focused on the networks of power that function across national boundaries in order to enact (or in some cases pull apart) national borders. I was interested in how bordering spaces are created and controlled through the complex interactions between EU institutions and agencies, interior ministries of EU Member States, government ministries of non-EU countries, NGOs, private security companies and border control technologies. In other words, my research aims were not to ‘de-clutter’ spaces of border control, rather I sought to evaluate how the practices of border control involve the lashing together of various actors in order to perform the border on a daily basis.
On a side note, I am also interested in the policies, legislation and bio-economic models that are used to calculate the impact of invasive species (both flora and fauna). My MSc in ‘Ecological Economics’ (University of Edinburgh) consisted of adapting existing bio-economic models to predict the possible spread and economic cost of an ‘Asian Longhorn beetle’ population outbreak in the south of England. I first started my academic journey at the University of Cambridge (Geography), where my interest in issues of race, critical geopolitics and state violence and biogeography were first peaked.
Broad research specialisms:
- Political Geography
- Critical Geopolitics
- Migration and border control
- Surveillance and security
- Mobility
- Assemblage theory
- Legal Geography
- Social & Cultural Geography
- Ethnography
- Participatory Action Research
Qualifications
BA (Cambridge), MSc (Edinburgh), PhD (Edinburgh)
Links
Publications
Key publications | Publications by category | Publications by year
Key publications
Fisher DXO (2018). Situating Border Control: Unpacking Spain's SIVE border surveillance assemblage.
Political Geography,
65, 67-76.
Abstract:
Situating Border Control: Unpacking Spain's SIVE border surveillance assemblage
This article builds on the ‘practice turn’ in border studies by critically engaging assemblage theory as a means of unboxing European maritime surveillance. Through a case study of Spain's SIVE (Sistema Integrado de Vigilancia del Exterior) surveillance system, I tease apart the Guardia Civil's technocratic claims of omni-voyance by focusing on the daily interactions between border guards, vision technologies, rescue services, Moroccan forces, and the lively materials of the borderspace itself. I employ a literary narrative in order to expose the daily breaches of control as the guards and technologies contend with the non-human elements of the borderspace, as well as their own inability to remain vigilant. Far from offering unbroken control, therefore, I argue that the vision produced through SIVE is stuttered and fragmented through both human and technological flaws. I also draw on assemblage theory in order to trace the disparate actors being drawn into the border regime. I argue that these new actors are only ever partially encountered and incorporated, however, and that as a result the system's ability to incorporate also becomes its Achilles heel. The effect is a geography of the border that foregrounds the ‘little details’ of borderwork and the volatility of the borderspace itself – thus exposing the flaws behind a scopic narrative that claims unceasing vision and an unhindered reach.
Abstract.
Gill N, Fisher D, Smith J, Burridge A (2018). Written evidence to the Home Affairs Committee immigration detention inquiry 2018.
Abstract:
Written evidence to the Home Affairs Committee immigration detention inquiry 2018
Written evidence to the Home Affairs Committee immigration detention inquiry 2018 submitted by Professor Nick Gill (University of Exeter), Dr Daniel Fisher (University of Exeter), Dr Jennifer Smith (University of Newcastle) and Dr Andrew Burridge (University of Exeter) (IDD0008)
Abstract.
Publications by category
Journal articles
Fisher DX, Burridge A, Gill N (2019). The Political Mobilities of Reporting: Tethering, slickness and asylum control.
MobilitiesAbstract:
The Political Mobilities of Reporting: Tethering, slickness and asylum control
This paper focuses on the coerced mobilities associated with reporting, meaning the mandatory requirement to regularly check-in with authorities for the purpose of control. Drawing on recent calls for a politics of mobility and advances in carceral geographies, we attend to the forces, movements, speeds and affective materialities of reporting with a focus on deportable migrants and the UK Home Office. In doing so we develop two conceptual lenses through which to further understand the politics of mobility. First, we develop the concept of ‘slickness’ in the context of the process of becoming detained at a reporting event. We understand slickness as a property of bodies and objects that makes them easier to move. Second, we argue that reporting functions to ‘tether’ deportable migrants; thereby not only fixing them in place, but also forcing the expenditure of energy and the experience of punishment. The result is that reporting blurs the distinction between detention and ‘freedom’ by enacting the carceral in everyday spaces.
Abstract.
Fisher DXO (2018). Situating Border Control: Unpacking Spain's SIVE border surveillance assemblage.
Political Geography,
65, 67-76.
Abstract:
Situating Border Control: Unpacking Spain's SIVE border surveillance assemblage
This article builds on the ‘practice turn’ in border studies by critically engaging assemblage theory as a means of unboxing European maritime surveillance. Through a case study of Spain's SIVE (Sistema Integrado de Vigilancia del Exterior) surveillance system, I tease apart the Guardia Civil's technocratic claims of omni-voyance by focusing on the daily interactions between border guards, vision technologies, rescue services, Moroccan forces, and the lively materials of the borderspace itself. I employ a literary narrative in order to expose the daily breaches of control as the guards and technologies contend with the non-human elements of the borderspace, as well as their own inability to remain vigilant. Far from offering unbroken control, therefore, I argue that the vision produced through SIVE is stuttered and fragmented through both human and technological flaws. I also draw on assemblage theory in order to trace the disparate actors being drawn into the border regime. I argue that these new actors are only ever partially encountered and incorporated, however, and that as a result the system's ability to incorporate also becomes its Achilles heel. The effect is a geography of the border that foregrounds the ‘little details’ of borderwork and the volatility of the borderspace itself – thus exposing the flaws behind a scopic narrative that claims unceasing vision and an unhindered reach.
Abstract.
Publications by year
2019
Fisher DX, Burridge A, Gill N (2019). The Political Mobilities of Reporting: Tethering, slickness and asylum control.
MobilitiesAbstract:
The Political Mobilities of Reporting: Tethering, slickness and asylum control
This paper focuses on the coerced mobilities associated with reporting, meaning the mandatory requirement to regularly check-in with authorities for the purpose of control. Drawing on recent calls for a politics of mobility and advances in carceral geographies, we attend to the forces, movements, speeds and affective materialities of reporting with a focus on deportable migrants and the UK Home Office. In doing so we develop two conceptual lenses through which to further understand the politics of mobility. First, we develop the concept of ‘slickness’ in the context of the process of becoming detained at a reporting event. We understand slickness as a property of bodies and objects that makes them easier to move. Second, we argue that reporting functions to ‘tether’ deportable migrants; thereby not only fixing them in place, but also forcing the expenditure of energy and the experience of punishment. The result is that reporting blurs the distinction between detention and ‘freedom’ by enacting the carceral in everyday spaces.
Abstract.
2018
Fisher DXO (2018). Situating Border Control: Unpacking Spain's SIVE border surveillance assemblage.
Political Geography,
65, 67-76.
Abstract:
Situating Border Control: Unpacking Spain's SIVE border surveillance assemblage
This article builds on the ‘practice turn’ in border studies by critically engaging assemblage theory as a means of unboxing European maritime surveillance. Through a case study of Spain's SIVE (Sistema Integrado de Vigilancia del Exterior) surveillance system, I tease apart the Guardia Civil's technocratic claims of omni-voyance by focusing on the daily interactions between border guards, vision technologies, rescue services, Moroccan forces, and the lively materials of the borderspace itself. I employ a literary narrative in order to expose the daily breaches of control as the guards and technologies contend with the non-human elements of the borderspace, as well as their own inability to remain vigilant. Far from offering unbroken control, therefore, I argue that the vision produced through SIVE is stuttered and fragmented through both human and technological flaws. I also draw on assemblage theory in order to trace the disparate actors being drawn into the border regime. I argue that these new actors are only ever partially encountered and incorporated, however, and that as a result the system's ability to incorporate also becomes its Achilles heel. The effect is a geography of the border that foregrounds the ‘little details’ of borderwork and the volatility of the borderspace itself – thus exposing the flaws behind a scopic narrative that claims unceasing vision and an unhindered reach.
Abstract.
Gill N, Fisher D, Smith J, Burridge A (2018). Written evidence to the Home Affairs Committee immigration detention inquiry 2018.
Abstract:
Written evidence to the Home Affairs Committee immigration detention inquiry 2018
Written evidence to the Home Affairs Committee immigration detention inquiry 2018 submitted by Professor Nick Gill (University of Exeter), Dr Daniel Fisher (University of Exeter), Dr Jennifer Smith (University of Newcastle) and Dr Andrew Burridge (University of Exeter) (IDD0008)
Abstract.
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