01566nam a22001457a 4500 530967 530967 250722b ||||| |||| 00| 0 eng d Leroy, Isabella 55516 Migrant reception centres and coercive social control: Rule by legal uncertainty? Social & Legal Studies 34(3), Jun, 2025: p.402-420 Large-scale accommodation for refugees and migrants is often approached from a humanitarian angle, examining the reception conditions on the ground. However, scholars have long shown how such care-providing spaces are also sites of social control. A close examination of the legal framework of an accommodation centre for migrants in Spain, the CETI of Melilla, finds that beyond the content of the law, it is also necessary to examine the nature of the laws framing refugee camps to understand how social control is exerted. While hard law provides a vague legal basis, the reception centre is primarily governed by a patch-work of rapidly evolving soft law emanating primarily from the executive branch. Social control in the form of coercion is facilitated by the law, but not in the form of a strong punitive legal framework, as may be expected. Instead, an effective restriction of the rights of residents is enabled through legal uncertainty.-Reproduced https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/09646639241228963 Migrant accommodation, Refugee camp, Social control, Legal informalism, Legal uncertainty, Discretion. 55517 Social & Legal Studies AR 0 0 ddc 0 0 406166 IIPA IIPA 2025-07-22 34(3), Jun, 2025: p.402-420 AR136687 2025-07-22 AR