Exceptional foreigners : Analysing the discourses around immigration detention in Sweden

Sammanfattning: Based on a discourse analysis of Swedish public investigations regarding immigration detention, this thesis examines the discourses around ‘foreigners’ therein. Rejected asylum-seekers awaiting deportation have gone from being systematically detained in prisons by the police, to instead be confined in detention centres administered by the Swedish Migration Board. Yet, an increased criminalisation is evident. Focusing, in particular, on the legal ambiguity that authorises the detention system to further detain and criminalise asylum seekers, it is argued that the practice of detention can be seen as ‘exceptional’ where discourses of care, suspicion and fear constitute subjectivities such as the ‘identity-less foreigner’, the ‘vulnerable foreigner’, and the ‘dangerous foreigner’.