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Paper short abstract

This paper offers an autoethnography of ICE detention through the regulation of touch. As the daughter of an asylum seeker detained, I focus on windows, screens, artificial light, cold and concrete, and theorise sensory deprivation as a carceral technology shaping kinship, power and control.

Paper long abstract

This paper presents an autoethnographic analysis of ICE detention, written from my position as the daughter of an asylum seeker detained in the United States during the Trump administration Using touch as a central analytic lens, I examine how carceral power operates through the regulation, deprivation and selective authorisation of sensory experience. I draw on encounters mediated by detention-issued tablets and in-person visits to my father. Hence, I focus on the window as a key carceral interface: the glass separating bodies during visits, the screen through which contact is technologically staged, and the concrete enclosure that isolates detainees from sunlight, warmth and unmediated human touch. I argue that these surfaces do not merely block contact, but structure it. That is, touch is not absent but tightly governed, limited to hard materials, cold air circulated from above, and glass or screens that can be pressed but never reciprocate. Reflecting on my father’s prolonged exposure to artificial light, low temperatures and weeks without access to sunlight, I argue that ICE detention reorganises the sensorium as a form of slow violence. The enforced deprivation of elemental touch, combined with the controlled provision of simulated contact through technological devices, constitutes a non-spectacular yet pervasive mechanism of punishment and control. By foregrounding touch rather than visibility, this paper challenges visual-centric accounts of carcerality and contributes to debates on digital and sensory regimes of confinement. To summarise, I situate windows, atmosphere and interfaces as carceral technologies that regulate intimacy, kinship and embodied presence across borders.