(former) NGO workers, activists, lawyers and other academics. Chapter 5 about the third sector in Greece and chapter 6 about resistance and activism around detention are the products of these methodological labours. In her groundbreaking book ‘Inisde Immigration Detention’, Mary Bosworth, wonders about what an interior view can contribute to our understanding of the institutions we are researching and writing about. Going inside, she says, ‘illuminates parts of detention that we simply cannot otherwise see, filling in gaps in our knowledge. It challenges easy assumptions about the exercise of power, its effect, effectiveness and legitimacy, by considering how such matters are made concrete in everyday interactions and experiences’ (2014: 53). The Greek immigration detention system is an opaque and confusing institution. Furthermore, it has rarely been academically explored. By considering this diverse body of knowledge as research, this thesis makes a unique contribution to the literature of immigration detention in Greece and abroad. Like Bosworth, I wished to understand from within, to explain not only what happens in this form of custody but what immigration detention means and how it is perceived. It is not surprising that incorporating many different participants, at various points in time, as well as merging in my experience as a practitioner has created a polyvocal result (Aitken, 2019). As a qualitative researcher I had to make sense of this labyrinth. My own approach has been to construct meaningful, insightful arguments about the persistence of immigration detention in Greece and situate them within a broad social and political framework. I have managed to do so, by adopting the perspective of ethnographic returning (O’Reilly, 2012a). As the thesis is based on a wide range of rich data, developed over time, and through many return visits, I was able reflexively to tell a story about the continuity of immigration detention in the country. Far more importantly, though, these diverse experiences have not only made a PhD, but they have also inspired me to take direct action against the injustices I witnessed and am writing about here. Building upon this work and reflecting my ongoing involvement in the field I have been engaged with activist work that aimed to build counter narratives around immigration in general and detention more specifically. These several projects have as shared aims, to visualise the world of detention, make it legible to a lay audience, and work as tools with which detention can be challenged. More recently, working together with people on the ground and other researchers we have been building a database of human 41