News and Events

2026

2025

Check out our essay in Current History on the relationship between migration controls and the rising authoritatianism in the US and elsewhere: 'Walls and Cages: A Transnational Blueprint for Rising Authoritarianism.'

Our research fellow, Thom Tyerman, presented our findings at a conference organised by our USA research partners Detention Watch Network.
Check out our article in The Conversation about expanding detention and deportation regimes and their relationship to authoritarianism: ‘Around the world, migrants are being deported at alarming rates – how did this become normalised?'

We co-hosted a workshop on “Border Economies: Surveillance, Externalisation and Resistance” with the ESRC-funded research group ‘Channel Crossings: Irregular journeys, policies and politics in the English Channel’.
PI Ċetta Mainwaring and AVID, our UK research partners, organised a workshop on “Immigration Detention: Seeing, Disrupting and Dreaming” with people with lived experience of detention.

We were delighted to share some of our work at the European International Studies Association (EISA) Pan-European conference in Bologna, Italy, in August 2025.

We were delighted to share some of our work at the British International Studies Association (BISA) conference in Belfast, UK, in June 2025.
PI Ċetta Mainwaring participated in a workshop at the Universidad de Nebrija on "Transdisciplinary Conversations on Migrant Solidarity: Definitional & Experiential Approximations".

PhD student Kirstin Sonne presented her work at a seminar at SOAS about ‘Refugees and Borders: Life, Law and Limits’.
PI Ċetta Mainwaring participated in a workshop at the University of Oxford on "Emerging Challenges and Strategies in Immigration Detention and Deportation".

PI Ċetta Mainwaring and research fellows Andonea Dickson and Thom Tyerman wrote for Al Jazeera about the increasingly draconian detention practices of the USA, UK, and Australia: ‘Trump’s extremist border policies are part of a global authoritarian moment’.

2024

PI Ċetta Mainwaring presented work at Manchester University at a workshop called 'Interdisciplinary dialogues on health and violence in border regimes'.

We were delighted to share some of our work at the IRiS Conference on ‘Bordering Society’ in Birmingham in September 2024.
Big congratulations to Dr Saskia Smellie who worked with us on our project in 2024 and is now a Senior Research Portfolio Manager at the ESRC.
Check out our research fellow, Andonea Dickson, who wrote on detention at sea in the BorderCriminology blog: ‘When the Sea Became a Space of Detention’. You can read more about her research on detention at sea in her recent academic article, ‘Immigration Detention at Sea: maritime migration governance in Australia and the sanctioning of indefinite detention for the purpose of removal’.

Our research fellow, Thom Tyerman, wrote with Setareh Ghandehari, advocacy director at Detention Watch Network, our research partner in the US in Open Democracy: 'Don’t expect Labour to take progressive steps on immigration detention'.

On the eve of the UK’s 2024 general election, PI Ċetta Mainwaring wrote for Open Democracy about the position of different parties on immigration detention: 'Labour offers little hope to migrants locked up without end date'.

PhD student Kirstin Sonne attended World Refugee Week in Malta organised by the Malta Refugee Council.

In May 2024, we held an inaugural international workshop bringing together academics, activists, and civil society members to discuss detention and resistance to it in the US, Australia and the UK.

PI Ċetta Mainwaring helped organise a ‘Human Rights Award Ceremony’ in Malta where the Coalition for the El Hiblu 3 presented three young men with human rights defenders’ awards for their role in preventing an unlawful pushback to Libya.

Welcome to our new research fellow Thom Tyerman and our new project officer Brittany Bovenzi.

2023

PI Ċetta Mainwaring participated in a workshop in Lampedusa, Italy, entitled ‘Maldusa Lampedusa Camp’, which focused on the criminalisation of people in the Mediterranean, including their detention.

Welcome to PhD student Kirstin Sonne whose research will overlap with the Detention Matters project and will be supervised by PI Ċetta Mainwaring.

PI Ċetta Mainwaring presented her work at the British International Studies Association (BISA) conference in Glasgow, UK.
PI Ċetta Mainwaring attended the Feminist No Borders Summer School in Palermo, Italy.
PI Ċetta Mainwaring presented her work at a conference organised by EuroMed Rights called ‘For a Right to Rescue in the Mediterranean’.

PI Ċetta Mainwaring presented work at a Max-Planck Institute workshop called ‘Pushing back & nudging forward: migration governance in Greece, Malta, and Cyprus in the context of the Common European Asylum System’.
Official start of the Detention Matters research project at the University of Edinburgh.