Moffette, David
David Moffette is a sociologist who studies various questions related to the intersections between criminal law and immigration law, the securitization of immigration, borders and bordering practices, policing, state multiculturalism, and race and racism. His recent book Governing Irregular Migration: Bordering Culture, Labour and Security in Spain (UBC Press, 2018) looks at the logics and practices that have informed immigration and border policies in this southern European country since the 1980s.
He is the principal investigator for a new community-engaged research titled “Experiences of Encounters with the Police in Ottawa.” The research team, composed of Chris Bruckert, Sadia Jama, David Moffette and Lindsay Snow, is documenting the experiences of encounters with the police in various disproportionately policed communities in Ottawa. The research is funded by a SSHRC Insight Development Grant.
His other research, titled “Municipal Immigration Control? Overlapping Jurisdictions, National Projects and Borderwork in Montreal and Barcelona,” studies how institutional actors whose work is not primary concerned with immigration regulation can use municipal bylaws to govern immigration, and thus intervene in the city but on a space imagined as national.
Research Interests: Critical border and security studies, Canadian and European immigration policies, Intersections between immigration law and criminal law, Race, racialization and racism, and Spatiality, temporality, scales, jurisdictions
Listing Details
| Institution: | University of Ottawa |
| Fields of Expertise: | Borders Canadian Politics Crime, Policing, and Law Enforcement Defence and Security Ethnicity, Racism, and Xenophobia EU Policies Law and Legal Issues Migration |
| Research groups: | Migration/Citizenship/Borders |
| Email: | david.moffette@uottawa.ca |
| Media outreach: | Yes |
| Languages: | English, French, Spanish |
| Publications: | Moffette, D. (2024). “Governmental Practices of Regularisation: Assessment of Eligibility Criteria in Canada’s 1973 Adjustment of Status Program.” International Journal of Migration and Border Studies. Moffette, D., & Bruckert, C. (2023). “The Violence of Everyday Police Disrespect: Experiences of Encounters with the Police in Canada’s Capital.” Deviant Behavior, 44(10), 1443–1461. https://doi.org/10.1080/01639625.2023.2208254 Moffette, D. (2022). “When the State Promotes ‘Alternatives to Immigration Detention’: Institutional Co-optation and Condition-based Carcerality.” Annual Review of Interdisciplinary Justice Research, 11, 92–116. Moffette, D. (2021). “Immigration Status and Policing in Canada: Current Problems, Activist Strategies and Abolitionist Visions.” Citizenship Studies, 25(2), 273–291. https://doi.org/10.1080/13621025.2020.1859194 Moffette, D. (2020). “The Jurisdictional Games of Immigration Policing: Barcelona’s Fight Against Unauthorized Street Vending.” Theoretical Criminology, 24(2), 258–275. https://doi.org/10.1177/1362480618811693 |
