Conclusion This paper has addressed how the CCAC on Samos cumulatively constitutes a space of detention. The infrastructure and blanket, automatic detention of people newly arrived to the CCAC already amounts to an unlawful and arbitrary deprivation of liberty contrary to article 8 of Directive 2013/33/EU and in violation of article 5 ECHR. Nonetheless, the inconsistent decisionmaking and enforced waiting of the CCAC contribute to and exacerbate the conditions of detention. In particular, these measures have shown how the Greek and EU authorities produced the current situation—worsening conditions and exceeding capacity over 250%—by their strategic ignorance. The decision to ignore alternative forms of identification, conduct weekly censuses, and restrict access to food provision, are not examples of responsive decisionmaking, but rather attempts to reinforce control over a population. These seemingly mundane measures, moreover, have profound impacts on basic rights, such as access to food and legal counselling. By developing Gayatri Spivak’s concept of ‘sanctioned ignorance’, this paper aimed to situate the CCAC and these measures within a legacy of disavowing the counter-narratives, or experiences, of people that allows for this legacy to be reproduced. In this instance, by ignoring the European legacy of bordering and detention of racialised people, the authorities are able to reproduce, consolidate and conceal these structures. I developed Spivak’s concept from an epistemic violence to a more material violence. The authorities weaponise ignorance both as their own ignorance and by projecting it onto the population in the CCAC. The authorities ignore how changes to the ‘restriction’ to the CCAC, waiting for medical assistance, and refusing people information on when they can leave or see a doctor, cumulatively contribute to detention. However, by refusing the counter-narrative of detention, confining people to wait, and projecting ignorance onto the population in the CCAC, sanctioned ignorance in the CCAC is equally a form of epistemic violence. The final section identified how a third ignorance is experienced by International Organisations and NGOs as they attempt to mediate and challenge detention in the CCAC. To conclude, Dipesh Chakrabarty argues that people are nonetheless living in the ‘imaginary waiting rooms’ that they are consigned to. People in the CCAC resist the ignorance that is projected onto them and work together with organisations to criticise how the CCAC on Samos amounts to unlawful and arbitrary detention. 19