Paper short abstract:

Our paper examines food practices in two contexts of immigration detention, the United States and Mexico. Drawing on interviews with border agents, we show how agents use food to exacerbate or alleviate the punishment experienced by detained migrants.

Paper long abstract:

Millions of meals are served in immigration detention centres each year. The periodic ritual of food consumption, as in other carceral settings, takes place under constant surveillance. At the same time, food can be used by state agents to communicate their moral judgements about migrants in their custody and engage in discretionary acts. Agents can either extend extra or more favorable foods for those migrants they find deserving or withhold those same discretionary practices from those who they find undeserving. Our paper examines food practices in two contexts of immigration detention, the United States and Mexico. Drawing on interviews with border agents in both contexts, we explore how they use food to exacerbate or alleviate the punishment experienced by migrants while in detention in Mexico and the United States. We argue that food and foodways are part of the disciplinary machinery in these settings, are used to reproduce the notion of migrants’ (un)deservingness as well as mobilised as an expression of care-control.