ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on a case study region of Britain: Merseyside. Researching and campaigning with women seeking asylum in Merseyside has facilitated insight into some of these more banal, insidious and racialised forms of everyday surveillance and control that people regularly face. Public health is a central aspect of asylum. Pemberton outlines more structurally determined examples of physical and mental health harms, some of which can be evidenced in the asylum system. Pemberton also addresses two forms of harm which can be difficult to define, yet limit the quality of people's lives: autonomy harms and relational harms. The relational harms include enforced exclusion from social relationships, and harms of misrecognition. Perhaps the most literal form of autonomy harm within the British asylum system is detention. Poverty – a form of economic harm which relates to unequal or inadequate distribution – often acts as a controlling factor for how people eat or where they might spend time.
