Governing Migrant Detention in the European Union: Financing the Detention Spectrum
Dec 2, 2026 — 11:30 a.m. to 1:30 p.m.
The Centre on Governance, in collaboration with the Centre for International Policy Studies (CIPS) at the University of Ottawa, is pleased to host a discussion featuring Ali Bhagat (McMaster University) and Susanne Soederberg (Queen’s University) on Wednesday, December 2, 2026, from 11:30 a.m. to 1:30 p.m., in VNR 1050.
Entitled “Governing Migrant Detention in the European Union: Financing the Detention Spectrum,” this talk will examine the financial, political, and institutional dynamics shaping migrant detention across the European Union, offering critical insights into the evolving governance of asylum, migration, and refugee policies.
About the event:
The Centre on Governance at the University of Ottawa, in collaboration with the Centre for International Policy Studies (CIPS), invites you to a talk featuring Ali Bhagat, Associate Professor at McMaster University, and Susanne Soederberg, Professor at Queen’s University, on Wednesday, December 2, 2026, from 11:30 a.m. to 1:30 p.m., in VNR 1050.
This talk examines how migrant detention has become a central, though fragmented and unevenly governed, strategy of asylum management in the European Union (EU). Drawing on policy analysis and semi-structured interviews, the speakers will explore three interconnected forms of detention: border externalization and deterrence, detention for sorting, and detention as refugee acceptance.
The discussion will examine how financial, carceral, and political mechanisms shape detention governance across multiple levels of EU authority. It will also highlight how public spending on detention, border enforcement, and migrant containment reflects broader tensions surrounding humanitarian assistance, state sovereignty, and austerity. By tracing these dynamics across the migrant journey, the talk offers a critical perspective on the expansion of detention as a strategy of refugee governance across EU jurisdictions since 2015.
About the speakers:
Ali Bhagat
Associate Professor
Ali Bhagat is Associate Professor in the Department of Political Science and at the Wilson College of Leadership and Civic Engagement at McMaster University. His research focuses on international political economy, migration, and refugee policy. He is the author of Governing the Displaced: Race and Ambivalence in Global Capitalism (Cornell University Press, 2024).
Susanne Soederberg
Professor in the Department of Global Development Studies
Susanne Soederberg is a Professor in the Department of Global Development Studies at Queen’s University, cross-appointed to the Department of Political Studies and the Department of Sociology. She earned her doctorate from Johann Wolfgang Goethe University Frankfurt in Germany and joined Queen’s University in 2004. She was awarded the Jane and Aatos Erkko Visiting Professorship in Studies of Contemporary Society (2015–2016) at the Helsinki Collegium for Advanced Studies, where her research focused on the connections between low-income housing, finance, and social reproduction in Berlin and Dublin.