Description:
This thorough, interdisciplinary study of long-term trends in deportation examines the historical, institutional, and social dimensions of its use by liberal democracies. It is given added relevance by the rapid contemporary rise in deportee numbers worldwide.
Review Quotes: It is commonly surmised that the increased flows of goods, ideas, finance and people are slowly leading to the dissolution of boundaries between nation-states. However, as the varied and excellent chapters in this collection demonstrate, the enforcement of state power through detention and deportation is still a real and growing feature of contemporary political life. Expulsion has always been a moral sanction (think of Adam and Eve being banished from the Garden of Eden or the ostracism directed against dissidents in ancient Athens, who were forced to leave for ten years). As the editors suggest, deportation remains a means of enforcing a normative order ( a community of values ), while the authors and editors of this book have expanded the subject-matter to include the deportees perspectives and the effects of deportation on families, other potential victims and on those whose social inclusion has been affirmed by the exclusion of others. These studies will enrich and enlarge the study of the more naked forms of state power. - Robin Cohen, Professor Emeritus of Development Studies, University of Oxford This wide-ranging, well-researched, and highly informative work is a major contribution to the growing body of scholarship examining the harsh consequences of deportation around the world. The editors have gathered an impressive group of scholars who craft an eclectic view of how deportation has evolved, what it may signify, and how it now works in various settings. With its inclusion of historical, institutional, comparative, and finely-textured, sensitive experiential studies, this book offers an important--if frequently distressing--overview of phenomena that deserve our full attention. - Daniel Kanstroom, Professor of Law and Director, International Human Rights Program, Boston College Law School