A project investigating state surveillance and monitoring of irregular migrants in France, Germany and the United Kingdom CSMCH member Christina Boswell, in collaboration with former CSMCH director Emile Chabal, recently coordinated a major collaborative project on illegal immigration and state rationality in Western Europe. The focus was on the ways three states - France, Germany and the United Kingdom - have ‘seen’ unauthorized migrants from the late 1960s to the present day. The aim was to assess whether public authorities maximise surveillance and control of illegal residents, or whether they prefer to cultivate a form of benign neglect or even ‘strategic ignorance’ of these groups; understand which forms of illegality states monitor, and which are left unscrutinised; and investigate the techniques states use to produce knowledge about illegal populations. The project was funded by an Economic and Social Research Council Research Grant (grant number ES/N011171/1) and brought together researchers across history, political science and sociology. It resulted in a new data set, exciting theoretical innovations, and findings that had a direct bearing on the fallout from the 'Windrush scandal'. Full details and information about ongoing publications can be found here. This article was published on 2024-06-19
