Administrative Power: Temporal Dispossession through Migration Bureaucracy

This chapter explores the concept of 'administrative power' as a mechanism of racial capitalism within migration bureaucracy, specifically focusing on asylum investigations in the Swedish context. By examining the chronopolitics of racial time, I analyze how temporal dimensions influence the distribution of life chances and facilitate processes of temporal dispossession and its affects on those seeking asylum. The asylum interview emerges as a critical site for understanding the enactment of power dynamics and the bureaucratic management of time, revealing how waiting and time management serve as tools of control that significantly impact both street-level bureaucrats and individuals seeking asylum, yet with different effects on their life chances.

The analysis highlights that migration bureaucracy invokes temporal dispossession through governance practices that obscure asylum applicants' understanding of their situations, leaving them in states of uncertainty and limbo. By examining how waiting can be manipulated through both slow and accelerated timeframes, I uncover the complex negotiations, strategies, and struggles that unfold within the migration system. This exploration emphasizes the relational nature of time as a mechanism of control, illustrating how temporal governance shapes the experiences of vulnerable populations and contributes to unequal distributions of power and agency.

Ultimately, the paper addresses how dispossession operates within the border regime through its temporal configurations, shedding light on the broader implications for individuals navigating the asylum process. By contributing to the understanding of the political economy of borders in the Nordic context, I illustrate how racial capitalism is enacted through welfare state mechanisms, rendering asylum seekers disposable and highlighting the urgent need for a critical examination of the bureaucratic structures that shape their experiences. This research aims to foster interdisciplinary dialogue around the intersection of race, time, and migration, centring the productivity of time in politics of dispossession.