States Of Exception, Human Rights, And Social Harm: Towards A Border Zemiology

Crimmigration, that is, the merging of criminal and migration law, is receiving increasing attention within criminology. However, while crimmigration widens our understanding of coercion and punishment, it is a reductive lens through which to make sense of migration control. This article comprises three parts: first, I critique the concept of crimmigration, its conceptual foundations, and its methodological limitations. Second, I explore how migration control practice transcends both the state's territory and sovereignty, using the example of the European Union's policy of non-assistance, and argue that this policy evidences the need to move beyond crime-based categories in favour of a social harm-based approach. Lastly, I propose a zemiological methodology for the study of migration control, based on a critical realist view of society and building on Nancy Fraser's idea of social justice. The resulting framework provides a coherent and empirically useful tool for the study of border-related harms.