Asylum seekers are targeted by multiple extractive processes: they are object of datafication, bureaucratic inscriptions and are interpellated by humanitarian and state actors that ask them to tell their stories and the logistics of their journeys. Scholars have documented how value is produced from these extractive processes grounded in carceral economies (Coddington et al. 2020; Martin, Tazzioli, 2023; Morris, 2019).
Yet, by focusing solely on extractivism, to be partially sidelined is how the political economy of refugees’ encampment generates injured subjectivities. Focusing on the Greek and the Italian contexts, this presentation draws attention to how governing refugees has been turned into wrecking their lives, by depriving them of water, clothes, edible food and cash assistance. How shall we conceptualize the active withdrawal of humanitarian aid, from the standpoint of the political economy of refugee governmentality?