Comparative camp governance: Power, autonomy, and pluralism

How, by whom and to what effects are camps governed today? Despite persistent critiques, camp institutions remain a resilient and versatile apparatus of power globally. Yet there is only limited conceptualization of camps and the multi-scalar governance they operate within from a comparative perspective. This special issue remedies this by looking at governance of five different types of camps: prison camps, detention camps, (re)education camps, refugee camps, and relocation camps. In all these seemingly contrasting iterations, we argue that contemporary camp institutions (from Guantanamo to refugee camps) are deployed ultimately as an order-making apparatus. Camps deploy plural governing techniques for this purpose, ranging from material, spatial, and high-tech to ideological and experiential. Nevertheless, it is argued that these institutions represent a self-contained reality and an autonomous order that is distinct from the broader objectives and planning that initially established them. Part of this order demonstrates a diverse range of resistance mechanisms to dominant governing logics. Overall, we argue contra to the prevailing Agambenian theorization of the camp: Camps are not spaces of exception that reveal the norm but have become an expected norm in contemporary governance, and they are not a priori or ultimately spaces of exclusion, but instead apparatus of desired forms of incorporation into the dominant socio-political order, whether state or non-state.