Output details

All Just

'All Just' is a poetic inquiry into the linguistic implications of the state of exception. It works with, and addresses, documents and discourses which govern human movement in contemporary culture and considers how those documents and discourses shape and inform expression. The writing is grounded in practical and theoretical research. Taking its orientation from site visits to the Dover Immigration Removal Centre, the book is informed by attendance at (and observation of) Asylum and Immigration Tribunal Hearings, and by ongoing involvement in issues of detention. The theoretical research has taken the form of extensive reading in philosophical responses to the state of exception, notably the work of Agamben, Arendt and Badiou. These theoretical inquiries have in turn led to reading in the legal frameworks relating to ‘exception’, in particular Habeas Corpus and associated commentaries. In addressing these various materials, the purpose of the book is to explore the way language is used to construct a territory outside itself, and, by way of response, to consider what forms of expression might be developed to speak to or override that exclusionary act. Reviews of the book have clearly, and helpfully, discerned its intentions. For Steve Collis, writing in the American journal 'Jacket 2', it ‘offers us a cognitive map of the spaces currently being erased’.