Bodies and persons: The politics of embodied encounters in asylum seeking

Abstract

In this paper, we propose that there is a politics of encounters centered on the body at play in seeking asylum and refuge, and that it is critical to study how it unfolds from the point of view of both governing and agency. Building on existing work that looks at the role of embodiment in the political struggles of refugees, and leaning on Helmuth Plessner’s original thinking about social embodiment, we develop a theoretical understanding of this political dynamic, illustrating how it can help us make sense of power relations and forms of governance and (latent) resistance involved in it.