Displacing border violence: Floating prisons, everyday incarcerations and abolitionist journeys

Abstract

In this paper, I discuss the everyday incarcerations and injustices in and through bordered spaces by focussing on the Bibby Stockholm barge that accommodated people racialised as ‘asylum seekers’ on the Isle of Portland (Dorset, UK) from August 2023 until the end of November 2024. In showing how detention, containment, and incarceration, as well as projected deportation intersect in floating offshore spaces, this paper argues for the abolition of such spaces. I reflect on how visibility and invisibility, distance and closeness were used against people contained on the barge and how spatial and mobile distancing (through the barge’s mobile extensions) functioned to segregate and expose people in racialised and gendered ways. I refer to El Jone’s (2022) concept and method of ‘abolition intimacies’ to discuss the fleeting moments of justice as the result of turning to, feeling and engaging with one another beyond carceral views and 'bordered gazes' (Carastathis, 2022). I conclude the discussion with an image of a travelling ship that was visible in the horizon, as we talked together with Shiraz, a resident of the barge, about our ongoing journeys that brought us to the Isle of Portland, our dreams for future ones, and our commitment to (re)connect against a system of containment, forced removal and dispersal. The travelling ship that we never saw set anchor becomes a metaphor to reflect on abolitionist views and horizons. In this way, floating vessels transcend their immediate physical presence, becoming symbolic of people’s desires to connect beyond and against borders.