ABSTRACT
The metaphorical expression 'burning without fire' is a powerfully evocative rendering of the experience of forced removal for deportees and migrants at risk of deportation in Sweden. This chapter critically analyses the official discourse of protection of migrants' psychosocial wellbeing by drawing on first-hand experiences of migrants who are living through the forced return migration process in Sweden. It discusses the migrants' own subjective experiences of the deportation process, with a focus on aspects of their psychosocial wellbeing and health. The chapter contributes to the few publications and studies on detention and deportation in Sweden, most recently by DeBono, Khosravi, Puthoopparambil and Sager. It shows how deportable migrants in Sweden are enduring hardships that, in their different ways, they experience as 'burning', as extreme, painful, agonising, in spite of the relatively good structures in place, or rather, the well-regulated, sophisticated bureaucratic structures in place.
