Authorities on the Subject: Deportation and the confluence of violence within forensic mental health and immigration systems Ameil J. Joseph A DISSERTATION SUBMITTED TO THE FACULTY OF GRADUATE STUDIES IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY GRADUATE PROGRAM IN SOCIAL WORK YORK UNIVERSITY TORONTO, ONTARIO June, 2014 © Ameil J. Joseph, 2014 Abstract: The practice of deportation for those identified with “mental illness” in Canada is one unique and telling confluence whereby contemporary conceptions, interpretations, functions of discourse, and technologies of “mental illness”, “criminality”, and “race” can be studied through the shared texts of the mental health, criminal justice, and immigration systems. These systems rely on seemingly separate operations in order to continue common violent projects of segregation, confinement, removal, the application of harm to the physical body and the identification of people as inherently dehumanized. In this study, contemporary deportation appeal decisions documents, archival documents and secondary deportation appeals data are analyzed drawing on postcolonial theory, Gadamerian philosophy, an attention to confluence and the subjective, objective and symbolic modes of violence via Slavoj Žižek. The analysis imperils the reliance of immigration, criminal justice and mental health systems on constructions of the interdependent identities of the untreatable biomedically mentally ill, and the unrehabilitatable inherently criminal and the undeserving foreign alien Other in order to rationalize deportation. The practices and technologies of evaluation and decision making used by professionals, police, lawyers and experts are questioned for their participation in the perpetuation of historical forms of colonial violence through the enforcement of racial and eugenic policies and laws in Canada. The historical developments of professional hegemonies, racial and eugenic laws, and direct professional practices at this confluence are interrogated for their complicity in the (re)making of the fantasy of the Canadian public, representing itself as just, fair and supportive while rationalizing violence at legislative, institutional, and professional levels. At the same time, notions of undesirability and exclusion based on race, class, ability, mental category, criminal history, or health status are reinforced. Opportunities for transformation of the identified colonial technologies and processes at the confluence of immigration, mental health and criminal justice systems are proposed through a denial of isolating individualistic identities, an appreciation of the hurtful advancement of colonial tropes and through connection to collective forms of resistance. ii Dedication: For Rowan. May you live in a world where humanity comes first. iii Acknowledgments: This work has been supported by a community of people that I cannot thank enough for their tireless efforts, patience, feedback and direction. It was truly an honor to have Professor Amy Rossiter as my supervisor. Amy’s aptitude for complexity is inspiring to witness. Her compassionate support created a space where I felt empowered to pursue the most intimidating and humbling project of my life. She is just a damn great person. Barbara Heron has been a constant reflective conscience for this work, without her feedback and guidance, this project would have never been completed with the engaged depth of analysis it has currently. Geoffrey Reaume has contributed a plethora of sources and reflections that have developed the depth and breadth of analysis achieved in this dissertation. I am sincerely grateful to Amy, Barbara and Geoffrey for these reasons and so many more. I would not have arrived at this point without my fellow doctoral students, particularly, Shana Almeida and Julia Janes. Shana and Julia have made it very clear for me that thorough, thoughtful, research can only occur when a collegial environment is honestly supportive with respectful contestation, and forgiveness for the slippages commensurate with a learning process. I hope to continue to seek your feedback and support as well as reciprocate when possible throughout my career. I am grateful to my parents, Ahilya and Sydney Joseph, who showed me that generosity should always be convention and for infusing me with an unrelenting sense of justice. To my wife Elizabeth, whose patience and belief in the value of this work, encouraged me to journey onward, to strive for my best without reservation. Thank you to Prof. Bryn Greer-Wootten for your statistical expertise, your kindness and generosity. Marilyn, you have a gift for reading through the tangled webs of my ideas and providing me with your generous insights in a pleasant manner that my work intelligible to any audience outside of my own mind. To all of the people at the Archives of Ontario who tirelessly fulfilled my requests for documents and information, permissions and reproductions. Thank you to Critical Criminology and Oud Consultancy who have published some earlier portions of the ideas I have developed for this dissertation1. To the Nathanson Centre for Transnational Human Rights, Crime and Security, thank you for your support and for funding this important work. I would also like to thank Prof. Jay Dolmage, Prof. Mona Oikawa and Prof. Wilburn Hayden for reading this work and serving on the defense committee. To the people named or affected by the systems in this study, who have resisted the systems of coercion, surveillance, segregation, and deportation, I thank you for your inspiration. 1 Joseph, A. J. (2013). A prescription for violence: The legacy of colonization in contemporary forensic mental health and the production of difference. Critical Criminology, DOI: 10.1007/s10612-013-9208-1. Joseph, A. J. (2012). Ancestries of racial and eugenic systems of violence in the mental health sector. In I. Needham, K. McKenna, M. Kingma, N. Oud (Ed.), Third International Conference on Violence in the Health Sector, Vancouver, BC. (pp. 234-238). The Netherlands: Kavanah. iv TABLE OF CONTENTS Abstract ii Dedication iii Acknowledgements iv Table of Contents v 1. Introduction: Outlining the problem- the confluence of mental health, 1 criminal justice and immigration in the authorization of deportation • The criminalization and deportation of racialized people identified with mental health issues. • Remedies of violence • Charting the course 2. An Addition to Critical Mental Health literature 25 • A note on terminology: The mad, madness and sanism • Fundamental epistemological contradictions • Eurocentrism within critical mental health: a preclusion to colonial analysis • The necessity of an attention to colonization 3. The Canadian Forensic Mental Health System: an overview 52 • Criminal Code of Canada and Mental Disorder • The Mental Health Act (Ontario’s Example) • The Canadian Immigration and Refugee Protection Act and the Forensic Mental Health System • Policies and procedures of the Canada Border Services Agency (for identifying people for removal from Canada) 4. Conceptualizing the violence of deportation at the confluence of criminal justice, mental health and immigration systems 67 • Conceptualizing violence • Theories on violence • Colonial violence • An Integrated theoretical perspective on violence: Slavoj Žižek • Beyond intersectionality v • Interlocking systems of oppression • Confluence 5. Colonial continuities & Colonial technologies of difference: 100 • Orientalism, Dividing practices and the White Family of Man: (re)producing the fantasy of difference • Erasure • Appropriation • Dehumanization • Professional Hierarchy & Hegemony/Human Hierarchy and Hegemony • Remaking North-South divisions-the reinforcement of nationalism • Moral and ethical arguments to justify atrocities 6. Method: A post-colonial document analysis of confluence 144 • Attending to the temporal: Genealogy, questioning “progress”, discursive framing, and material continuities • Horizon of interpretation: Post-colonial Analysis • A post-colonial document analysis of confluence 7. Historical data-archival artifacts 160 • Regulating Undesirables • Historical use gaols of the criminal justice system for detention of undesirables by the Department of Immigration and Colonization • Deportation of hobos, tramps, undesirable aliens • The Department of Immigration’s designation of Ontario Hospitals for the Insane as Immigrant stations 8. Case studies-the Appeals division of the IRB: stories of resistance 207 • A description of the deportation appeals decisions data from the Immigration and Refugee Board for people diagnosed with mental illness in Canada from January 1, 2001- December 31, 2011 • Secondary Data Analysis • Representative Sample for Post-Colonial Document Analysis of Confluence • An overview of the processes of the immigration system IRB, etc in reference to deportation 9. Confluence: analysis of cases 224 vi • The Untreatable: the biomedical, the biologically inferior, the genetically different • The Unrehabilitatable: the inherently criminal, the dangerous, the savage • The Undeserving: the foreign, the alien, the Other • “Not our problem!” –reinforcing exclusion and expulsion • Understanding confluence: The historical, the contemporary, the theory and the practice • Orientalism, appropriation, erasure, dehumanization, the reinforcement of North- South divisions and the use of moral arguments of rationalize atrocities in the cases 10. Conclusion 324 • Figurative language • Colonial tropes & Old machinery: