Performative encounters. DT&V caseworkers strategies of care and control and their impact on migrant autonomy
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2025-08-20
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nl
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This thesis examines how return procedures in the Netherlands are implemented by the Repatriation and Departure Service (DT&V) toward illegalised migrants. While policy frameworks and caseworker perspectives are well studied, less is known about how institutional strategies and migrant responses unfold in practice. The central question is: How do DT&V caseworkers implement return procedures in practice, and how does this process shape the social realities of illegalised migrants?
The analysis combines a close reading of DT&V’s internal Methodische Handleiding with qualitative data from case files and interviews from participants. Coding was used to trace how institutional logics, caseworker strategies and migrant responses intersect across trajectories.
Findings show that caseworkers employ pressure tactics centred on responsibilisation and repetition. Migrants are persistently reminded of their obligation to leave, held responsible for systemic barriers, and confronted with scripted narratives of failure. Pressure is intensified through conditional support and threats of detention, deportation, or family separation, yet framed as empathy and professional care. Migrants resist, argue morally, or endure silently, but often face growing stress and precarity.
Interpreted through theories of repressive compassion (Kalir) and embodied encounters (Scheel), this study shows how return procedures fracture migrant autonomy and shape lives marked by uncertainty.
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Faculteit der Managementwetenschappen