“Maja Hertoghs has made a valuable empirical and conceptual contribution based on extensive and exhaustive fieldwork.” • Jordan Dez, University of Amsterdam
“(This book) proposes the interesting concept of state intensities, which I find quite compelling. It stands to make an important intervention in the anthropology of the state, of bureaucracy, and of borders.” • Anouk de Koning, University of Amsterdam
Since the 1970s, the recurring discourse of a ‘refugee crisis’ in Europe has affected border strategies that create a context of suspicion and criminalise asylum applicants. This book examines how the Netherlands engages with the arrival of certain (often illegalised) travellers and the asylum procedure, a tense liminal space and time that ensures decisions of inclusion and exclusion. Dutch asylum procedure is a peculiar legal procedure that gathers different people and sensitivities together to make swift, life-altering decisions for those applying for protection. Based on an extensive ethnography, this book reveals the ways in which suspicious compassion in Dutch asylum pervades an objective decision-making practice.
Maja Hertoghs is Assistant Professor teaching anthropology at the University of Amsterdam. She has worked extensively in critical border and migration studies.
LC: HV640.4.N4 H47 2026
BISAC: SOC002010 SOCIAL SCIENCE/Anthropology/Cultural & Social; SOC007000 SOCIAL SCIENCE/Emigration & Immigration; POL035010 POLITICAL SCIENCE/Political Freedom & Security/Human Rights
available open access under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0) with support from Berghahn Open Migration and Development Studies initiative.
