Nothing Personal?: Geographies of Governing and Activism in the British Asylum System

In this groundbreaking new study of attitudes towards marginalized groups in Western society, Nick Gill provides a conceptually innovative account of the ways in which indifference and insensitivity to desperation and hardship comes about. Taking UK asylum laws as its case study, and supported by survey and interview evidence obtained over the past decade, this book tells the story of immigration decision makers and the institutionalized spatial processes that limit and steer their agency. In addition to detailed illustrations of the flaws inherent in contemporary immigration administration, Gill provides an original theory of the relationship between distance and indifference to human suffering that is both theoretically informed by, and challenging to, the works of social theorists like Max Weber, Zygmunt Bauman, Emmanuel Levinas and Georg Simmel. In doing so, Gill questions the consensus that border controls are necessary or desirable in contemporary society, making Nothing Personal? a provocative and important addition to the contemporary conversation on immigration.

Nick Gill is Associate Professor of Human Geography at the University of Exeter. Co–editor of Carceral Spaces: Mobility and Agency in Imprisonment and Migration Detention (with D. Moran and D. Conlon, 2013) and Mobilities and Forced Migration (with J. Caletrio and V. Mason, 2013), Dr. Gill has published widely on forced migration, devolution, governance and activism. His current research, funded by the Economic and Social Research Council, focuses on activism around irregular migration and the legal geographies of border control.