The stranglehold of asylum: the dim violence of bureaucracy in the lives of young unaccompanied exiles

Based on an analysis of the Swiss asylum system, this article examines the effects of increasing bureaucratisation on the daily lives of unaccompanied minors. Drawing on extensive ethnographic fieldwork, it shows how the reorganisation and partial privatisation of asylum governance, the acceleration of procedures, and the expansion of security apparatuses generate a ‘prison-like’ atmosphere that permeates even ostensibly care-oriented institutions. From the perspective of young exiles, the article traces how the proliferation of rules, excessive normativity, rigid schedules, sanctions, surveillance, and bureaucratic indifference reshape social relations, erode autonomy, and disrupt the temporalities of waiting, care, and mourning. Bureaucratic operations do not merely manage asylum seekers; they actively produce difference, suspicion, and idleness, contributing to a regime of deterrence that makes life difficult for these young people. By foregrounding the ordinary details of their daily struggles, the article argues that the increasing bureaucratisation of asylum is part of a continuum of violence whose effects weigh most heavily on the very people the system claims to protect.