immigration detention in the country from its conception up to 2015. The collection, codification and analysis of this extensive material form the basis of chapters 2 and 3. Fieldwork phases I undertook fieldwork in two phases. The first phase started in 2011 and included a set of interviews with detained women in the Petrou Ralli detention facility, detention officers, the manager of the centre, the social services at the detention centre and other administrative migration officers, as well as one month of participant observation. The second phase started in 2016 and it includes mainly a set of elite interviews with key stakeholders inside detention, detention managers, and interviews with (former) NGO practitioners. It further draws on a thorough examination of how human rights inside detention are monitored by official bodies. At both phases, before I spoke to any interviewee or entered detention, the projects were approved by the Oxford and Lancaster Research Ethics Committees. To receive ethics clearance, I was required to summarise my research, indicate my prospective sample, and provide various draft research materials (e.g. interview invitations, proposed interview schedule, consent form, debrief form). As my research projects involved interviews with (potentially) vulnerable individuals, the main concerns were to ensure that all participants would give informed consent, that they would know their testimonies were confidential and anonymous, and that I would collect, store and use the data I gathered responsibly. Yet, as I will discuss later in the chapter, many of the ethical issues I faced when putting this project together and writing this thesis are beyond the scope of institutional review board procedures and protocols (Blee and Currier, 2011). Fieldwork in Petrou Ralli The first piece of research that the thesis draws on began in 2011 when I was employed as a research assistant for the Greek part of an international project that sought to examine women’s decision making in relation to border policing, based on their testimonies. That project aimed to develop a more comprehensive understanding of unauthorised border crossing and its policing. Having had very little knowledge of the specifics of immigration detention and given the lack of academic research inside the country’s detention facilities, I did not know how to ‘get in’. 45