confined and long after their release. These accounts need to be documented, but to sustain these accounts of immigration detention, it means that we engage in finding ways to reform the system, to make it more humane, it means that we let despair shadow hope. Yet, it is not an easy task. Liat Ben-Moshe (2020) maintains that reform and abolition live side by side, with the former being considered as true knowledge and the latter as belonging to a radical fringe that is illegible to most people. Therefore, we need to ask the right questions. Does the scale of atrocity need to be so (exceptionally) awful as to merit condemnation? If the system were slightly more humane or more in line with human rights norms, would it mean that detention is more legitimate? These questions find their root in abolitionist praxis, to which the thesis turns to explore the physical and political architecture of detention space in Greece. By creating synergies between border criminology and abolition, it opens up new ways of thinking about detention centres. With regard to abolition, Greece is an interesting case for two reasons. First, access to detention centres is so difficult and inconsistent, as the following chapter will show. While access to a field is crucial for the production of knowledge, researchers may get entangled in constraining relationships with gatekeepers that would prevent them from levelling oppositional narratives, if they want to maintain their access, the argument goes (Skillbrei, 2018; Gundhus, 2018). On the other hand, distance from the field can sometimes feel liberating and lead to critical research that flourishes in the reformulation of the duality between inside and outside. There is not an easy solution, critiques without evidence will easily be demolished by those eager to protect a field. Similarly, research without a critical understanding of the relationship between the researcher and those holding the keys cannot cross the threshold of reflexive social practice. This thesis stands in between, it is informed by rich data and passionately stands against detention centres. Second, abolitionism does not work in silos. As its advocates highlight, it takes a village to bring these institutions down. Greece’s civil society can offer many examples of innumerable and unremarkable acts of care and solidarity. Ιt is time for academics and researchers to take an active stance against detention in Greece. The time is ripe for them to work together. In adopting an abolitionist lens, I was able to identify five key tenets that guided my critique of the Greek immigration detention system. Together, they form what can be termed as the ‘detention industrial complex’. 28