ABSTRACT
This chapter describes some methodological challenges of researching everyday life in immigration detention and deaths in custody. It draws on two research projects, one about staff in a UK immigration removal centre (IRC) and another about responses to suicide in IRCs and prisons. In the first section I argue that IRCs are distinctive institutions and explain how some of their peculiarities make it difficult to research them. I then reflect on interviews I have conducted about deaths in custody, many of which have been with individuals who do not work in IRCs or prisons. I conclude that there is much to be gained from researching both the internal world of immigration detention and its broader social and political context.
