Book Launch - Supply Chain Justice: the Logistics of British Border Control by Mary Bosworth (hybrid)

Please join us for the Sydney launch and discussion of Professor Mary Bosworth's new book, Supply Chain Justice: the Logistics of British Border Control (Princeton University Press, 2025). 

During the event, Professor Mary Bosworth will introduce her book followed by a critical response from Dr Louise Boon-Kuo (USYD Law School) and moderated by Associate Prof Anthea Vogl (UTS Law). Virtual and in-person tickets are available. There will be light refreshments for in-person attendees from 11:45am and the panel will run from 12pm-1pm (AEDT). Online attendees will receive a Zoom link prior to the event. This hybrid panel is co-hosted by UTS Law’s Migration & Labour Law and Criminal Justice Clusters and UNSW’s Centre for Criminology, Law and Justice.

Zoom link for online attendees:  Room ID: 81592586868 Password: 976721

 Short Description of Supply Chain Justice

Supply Chain Justice is the first study of immigration detainee escorting in the UK. This wholly outsourced form of border control includes sites of short-term immigration detention at the border and in country, a fleet of custodial vans, and scheduled and charter deportation flights. Drawing on a four-year mixed-method project, which spanned the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, Mary will discuss how this system is arranged and run like a supply chain. While the outcome may feel punitive for those subject to it, unlike the more familiar sites of long-term immigration detention, this system is not obviously penal it in its design or execution. And yet staff are trained in and entitled to use force and people’s liberty is taken away. Exploring the tensions between these elements Mary will turn to studies of infrastructure and logistics, to consider how they might further our understanding and critique of this system.

About the Author

Professor Mary Bosworth is founder and Co-Director of Border Criminologies, an interdisciplinary research group focusing on the intersections between criminal justice and border control. In addition to being Professor of Criminology, she is a Fellow of St Cross College at the University of Oxford.

Dr Louise Boon-Kuo (University of Sydney Law School, discussant)

Dr Louise Boon-Kuo works as a Senior Lecturer at the University of Sydney Law School. Louise’s research centres on borders, law, and policing. Recent research projects have analysed accountability for harm by private officers working in immigration detention, and the policing of WorldPride Sydney and Mardi Gras events in 2023.

Dr Anthea Vogl (UTS Law, moderator)

Dr Anthea Vogl is an Associate Professor of Law at UTS. She teaches and researches in the fields of refugee and migration law and border control, and co-runs the clinical refugee law program at UTS Law. Anthea is the author of Judging Refugees: Narrative and Oral Testimony in Refugee Status Determination (CUP, 2024).