Panel: Challenges to the refugee integration process in a global context – Part 1

Barbara Franz, Riders University

American Immigration Policy under Trump

Building a wall along the Mexican border, banning Muslim immigrants from entering the USA, making the deportation of 11.3 million undocumented immigrants residing in the USA a priority were the promises that catapulted Donald Trump into the presidency. These promises catered straight to his right-wing base. This is why Donald Trump was elected. Once in office, he immediately began to fulfill his promises. Soon after his inauguration, Trump passed a travel ban for residents from six Muslim countries (Iran, Libya, Syria, Yemen and Somalia and Sudan). This ban also suspended US admissions of refugees for 120 days and stopped admissions of Syrians indefinitely. The executive action was depicted as a critical step toward establishing an immigration system that protects Americans’ safety and security. The bidding process for contractors to design and construct prototypes at the south-west border Wall in San Diego, California, the first step towards the multibillion-dollar project, is currently underway. On September 5, 2017 Donald Trump pulled the plug on DACA—the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program—and exposed 800,000 young people to potential deportation. This paper will first analyze the major immigration proposals put forth by the Trump administration or their zealots in Congress, such as the RAISE Act. Secondly, it will focus on Trump’s base, asking what lies behind these policy demands. Specifically, I am interested in examining Trump voters’ opinions on race and immigration.

 

Karolina Lukasiewicz, NYU

Local level responses to anti-refugee framing and shaping of federal policies.

The US Refugee Resettlement Program, since it was enacted in 1980, was criticized for insufficient funding, lack of planned and coordinated actions and conflicting interests of different agencies involved in it. In the same time it was valued for having better labor market outcomes (in terms of employment rate among refugees compared to native born population) than policies aimed to integrate refugees in Europe.  Yet, the current anti-refugee rhetoric shaping public discourse in the U.S., followed by anti-refugee policy framing, jeopardized the program and created a hostile context of reception for the newcomers.   Although studies show that the context is critical for immigrant integration, current conditions have not been analyzed yet.

Using the case of the New York City area, this presentation aims to fill the gap by exploring the dynamics between the federal anti-refugee shaping and framing of policies which divide individuals into those deserving and undeserving assistance, and local level implementation of and responses to these polices.

The presentation is based on interviews with caseworkers implementing federal policies for refugees, experts involved in developing them in the NYC area and refugee-clients. The interviews were analyzed using inductive approach and thematic analysis. The theoretical framework of interpretative policy analysis was used (Wagenaar, 2014), focused on three stages of the policy making cycle: policy shaping, framing and delivery (implementation). This presentation argues that despite the local efforts, the current shaping and framing of the policies at the federal level can decrease chances for upward mobility among refugees in the US and deepen income and social inequalities they experience.  

 

Jamie Lew & Mara Sidney, Rutgers University

Urban Refugees: Making of Space, Place, Race

It is estimated that approximately 3 million refugees have settled in the U.S. since Congress passed the Refugee Act of 1980. During the fiscal year of 2016, over sixty percent of all refugees admitted to the United States came from the Democratic Republic of Congo, Syria, Burma (Myanmar) and Iraq (Pew Research Center, 2017). Studies show that refugees have often preferred to settle in cities as they are more likely to be diverse with less social stigma, provide work opportunities, connect with co-ethnic network. However, there is limited studies on how “urban” refugees may contribute to changing inter-group relations and how this process may be structured and evolve through different time and urban space in the U.S. In this study, we focus on two case studies in New Jersey—Elizabeth and Paterson. We investigate how particularities of these “urban spaces” with their own distinctive migration histories, local politics, and changing demographics serve as important sites of interaction and integration of refugee families and their children. As these host cities negotiate with humanitarian and local agencies to resettle refugees, it is impossible to avoid the geopolitics of refugees in relation to other residents in the city who may be long-time migrants and/or citizens co-ethnics. Rather than focusing on experiences of one specific ethnic or racial group, we investigate under what urban contexts do “origin-based” categories (ie, ethnicity and/or race) become salient. And how are these categories used for drawing both practical and symbolic boundaries in a given urban contexts?

 

Tanzilya Oren, Fordham University

Constructing a refugee: LGBTQI asylum-seekers in the US: intersection of immigration status, race, ethnicity, and age

The worsening climate in several countries regarding Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, Queer or Questioning, and Intersex (LGBTQI) rights brings more individuals asylum-seekers to the Western countries. For instance, the “anti-gay propaganda” laws in Russia and subsequent crackdown in Chechnya, and reverberation of this trend in other post-Soviet countries caused an increase in asylum claims based on sexual orientation and gender identity (SOGI) in the U.S. Though more attention has been paid to LGBTQI issues in academia recently, the specific living experiences and survival strategies of LGBTQI asylum-seekers and asylees at the intersection of SOGI, race, ethnicity, and age have not been adequately addressed. This presentation addresses the issue of constructing a refugee identity by the New York City-based Russian-speaking LGBTQI asylum-seekers of various ethnicities with a focus on the constructed narratives during and after the immigration and asylum hearings. In my presentation, I will use the data collected during participatory research, from individual interviews, focus-groups and online surveys to look for patterns of self-narration to construct new identities and outer-narration to construct identities for immigration officers and judges, for local communities, neighborhoods, and service-providers. My main argument is that there are specific coping and help-seeking strategies reflected in common and distinct self-narratives and outer-narrative to construct refugee identities among Russian-speaking LGBTQI asylum-seekers.

 

Panel: Challenges to the refugee integration process in a global context – Part 2

 

Halina Grzymala-Moszczynska, Jagiellonian University

Challenges for refugee integration, a case of refugees in Gdansk, Poland

Integration became very catching word in the European social discourse about refugees. Usually the word appears in the context of fear about their limited (or lacking) capabilities to integrate with the host society. However structural analysis of the acculturation process based on RAEM model (Navas, et.al 2005) points to serious deficiencies in capabilities  of receiving society (Poland) to integrate  even the most willing and resourceful arrivals. Several aspects of integration will be analyzed: political context, job opportunities, educational opportunities offered by the host society, but also personal and group resources, migratory experiences and social network of refugees coming to Poland. As a specific case study strategies of  Chechen family who has settled  in the city of Gdansk and actively engages in the pursuit of integration in the  city will be scrutinized. Importance of Gdansk as a selected   location steams from the fact that this city is considered in Poland as the top city with the most developed pro-integration strategies, which include inter alia participation of migrants in decision making processes pertaining to the whole municipality. Both successes in integration and barriers in different aspects of social functioning of the family will be incorporated in the RAEM model and suggestions for developing strategies of both parties -refugees and city – will be suggested.

 

Tolu Lanrewaju, Rutgers University

“We Have No Power”: The Violence Faced by Refugees Living in Townships in Cape Town, South Africa

From 2006 to 2012, South Africa received more asylum-seeker applications than any other country in the world (Wellman and Landau, 2015; UNCHR, 2010). In March 2017, the Department of Home Affairs released a draft policy report on international migration, designed in part to address the issue of recurring xenophobic attacks. While many scholars have studied the root causes, manifestations and consequences of South Africa’s recurring xenophobic violence, few studies have applied and paralleled sociological theories of violence to the perceptions of foreigners when discussing different forms of violence. Drawing on interviews of Rwandan, Burundian, and Congolese refugees and asylum seekers (RASs) living in townships and informal settlements surrounding Cape Town, this paper explores how they recognize, conceptualize and link direct, cultural, and structural violence, in ways akin to Galtung’s (1990)  “violence triangle” and the “continuum of violence” (Scheper-Hughes and Bourgois 2004). The findings show that RASs identify state neglect and cultural differences as being the key factors leading to their protracted state of refugehood, in which fear of persecution and multiple forms of violence are still daily realities. After identifying the role of the South African people and government in perpetuating xenophobia, RASs explain the resultant need to constantly negotiate for proper identification documents, housing, safety, education, and jobs. It is concluded that an understanding of the underpinnings and manifestation of different forms of xenophobic violence faced by RASs have become a part of their imagination and interpretation of their position in South Africa – this is particularly useful for future research that examines diverse trajectories of refugee integration and belonging (Strang and Anger 2008).

 

Panel: Migration, precarity and contradiction: contesting categorizations and exclusions

 

With the increased displacement and movement of people around the world, the reification and fortification of external, as well as internal, borders has contributed to the discourses of ‘crisis’ and precarity in different ways. This panel will explore the ways rights are restricted for refugees and precarious status migrants in contradictory ways in various international contexts; it will also engage with the growing resistance to these ideological exclusions. While the contradictions we highlight take different forms, they also offer possibilities to better understand intersecting systemic oppressions, collective mobilizations and individual actions. There is much to be learned by understanding different forms of exclusion and the ways they are contested.

Tanya Aberman, York University

Considering Self-Deportation in a Sanctuary City

As the crisis of migration has been increasingly solidified and included in public discourse, measures have been taken to repressively manage the categorization and criminalization of migrant bodies. In Canada, policies and practices have been outlined to deny social and economic rights, ranging from health care to education, to work and social assistance for those marked as precarious and undesired, with citizens enlisted to implement the necessary borders and boundaries. These exclusions were purposefully developed with the stated goal of deterring future arrivals, yet they also act to encourage migrants to self-deport, return “voluntarily” to avoid the seemingly insurmountable precarity and hardships involved in staying. This addition of forced voluntary return contributes to highlight the contradictions and challenge the binaries between voluntary departure and involuntary deportation. This paper looks at migrants’ and service providers’ experiences of forced voluntary return to consider the multi-layered, multi-sited criminalization of migrants and the associated, often overpowering, loss of hope. These broadly felt experiences of criminalization are necessarily gendered and impact migrants differently based on intersecting identities and social location. While the creation of ‘crisis’ enables recruitment of ever-more people in the exclusion and criminalization of migrants, it also acts to propel a secondary forced migration, one that is too often considered voluntary.

 

Genevieve Ritchie, OISE/University of Toronto

 The Contradictions of Refugee Justice

With more than 65 million people displaced globally, the United Nations has repeatedly announced that we are witnessing unprecedented levels of forced migration. As the alarming nature of the refugee crisis subsides, the on-going struggle to protect and expand the rights of migrants and refugees appears as a paragon of social justice. Young people, in particular, are drawn into the struggle to expand the rights of migrants through nongovernment organizations and civil society actors. However, refugee/migrant rights movements express internal contradictions by simultaneously relying upon and rejecting the nation-state as the guarantor of legal rights. Likewise, campaigns to end the incarceration and deportation of refugees reify the discursive dichotomization of the persecuted refugee and the criminal migrant. My analysis, therefore, asks what are young people learning about the nature of the state and democratic practice through an engagement with refugee/migrant rights movements?

Drawing upon Paula Allman’s theorization of reproductive and critical praxis, my purpose is to flesh out the contradictions that inform contemporary struggles for the rights of refugees. The analysis is built by juxtaposing policy shifts in immigration and national security with social movement campaigns in Canada and Australia. Rather than enumerate or overemphasize the shortcomings of social movements, I aim to think through the types of learning and civic engagement that are engendered through the praxis of resistance.

 

Philip Ackerman, Seneca College

Navigating the Divide: Contesting exclusion through access to education

In the Canadian context, the settlement experiences of newcomer youth are often structured by marginalization and exclusion. Within this discussion, newcomers may include: convention refugees, refugee claimants, people in the process of obtaining permanent residence through Humanitarian and Compassionate ground applications or sponsorship applications, and non-status residents. This paper will take an intersectional approach to explore the ongoing and emerging barriers that newcomer youth encounter when navigating post-secondary education in Ontario, Canada, and how these barriers are perpetuated by exclusionary and contradictory ideologies and capitalist systems within the neo-liberal academy. As newcomer youth interact with various players at crucial moments while applying, registering and attending college and university, the fog of misinformation, contradiction and bureaucratic marginalization deleteriously impacts their mental health while causing irreparable rifts in their academic and professional trajectories. The goal of this research is to uncover these disparities and gain a better understanding of how they intersect with the immigration status and newcomer experience of students. Overall, I hope to add meaningful context to conversations of access and inclusion at the post-secondary level, and ensure that diverse newcomer identities are present and valued within these conversations. This analysis will be greatly informed by the author’s own experience working at both a grassroots, community-based refugee centre in Toronto, as well as at a post-secondary institution.

 

Panel: Behind Closed Doors – The Judicial Administration of Secret Evidence

 

Secret evidence (referred to as “closed material” in the UK) is increasingly used in Canadian and UK courts and tribunals. Proceedings occur in such fields as immigration and refugee law, civil proceedings, appeals to no-fly list designation as well as citizenship and passport revocations, and to a lesser degree, criminal trials. On the one hand, the use and/or non-disclosure of secret material is often necessary to protect the safety of human sources/intelligence officers and the integrity of intelligence operations. On the other, if this material is to stand as evidence, the intelligence community must adapt to the principles, practices, and rules of our courts. But judges, lawyers, and administrative staff must also adapt to the unique implications secrecy has upon autonomous legal values, including those related to a fair trial, the open court/justice principle, and the ordinary practices, procedures, and overall institution of the adversarial system.

 

John Campbell, School of Oriental & African Studies

Guilty by Association: Contrasting disciplinary views on the fairness of ‘secret trials’ of ‘terrorists’

This paper contrasts the very different outlook and assumptions of anthropologists and lawyers by examining the case of one individual detained under counter-terrorist legislation. This task requires a careful look at key characteristics of the legal proceedings which individuals who are detained under a control order/TPIM are subject to, namely a ‘secret trial’, dependence on the work of Special Advocates to disclose/reveal the Home Office case against them and judges who exercise very broad discretion in deciding appeals. By examining the special procedural measures adopted in such cases several issues become clear: the very different way in which anthropologists and lawyers/judges see the world but also why it is that once an individual is accused of a terrorist offence s/he will be found guilty, not by reason of a criminal act but as a result of their ‘association’ with ‘terrorists’. In short the legal procedures involved in secret trials operate very differently from public criminal trials.

 

Graham Hudson, Ryerson University

Behind closed doors: The judicial administration of ‘Secret Trials’ in Canada

Secret trials are thought to be an exceptional form of proceeding, where determinations of rights rest on evidence not seen by affected parties or the public. Used in such fields as criminal, civil, and diverse regulatory law, the basic model for ensuring fairness in secret trials can be traced to immigration law – at least in the UK and Canada. Special Advocates are a case in point: being security-cleared, SAs challenge government allegations as well as the confidentiality of protected information. The use of SAs in diverse legal fields  suggests a rare counterpoint to the exceptionalism of immigration law, even while underlining the normalization of proceedings that are hard to square with rights and the rule of law.  This paper shares the result of a socio-legal study into effectiveness of the SA system in immigration proceedings, with some thoughts about its future within and beyond immigration law. Based on interviews with judges, security-cleared lawyers, administrative staff, and other professionals, this research identifies the mostly informal factors that shape discretionary decisions about rules of practice and procedure. I draw conclusions about the conditionality of fairness on ephemeral relationships of trust and customary law i.e. interactional expectancies.

 

John Jackson, University of Nottingham

In a World of their Own: Security-Cleared Counsel, Best Practice and Procedural Tradition

This paper examines issues emerging from the rise of security-cleared counsel as a mechanism that has been used for managing the tension between security and fairness in secret trials across different common law systems.  The paper begins by briefly considering how concerns about crime and security have led to a rise of secrecy in the courts with increasing inroads being made to the adversarial principles of open and natural justice. The paper then considers how special advocates have emerged to act in the interests of parties excluded from the trial because of the damage to national security and other interests that would be caused if they were able to see the evidence against them. It is illustrated  how the role of the European Court of Human Rights has been central in projecting this mechanism as a supposedly effective counter-balancing measure across a range of different procedural contexts and how poor comparative methodology has been used to promote special advocates as an example of ‘best practice’. The paper then examines how recent research studies have employed a better methodology to both identify and problematise ‘best practice’ within the closed world of security-cleared counsel and argues that apart from managing the tension between justice and security, there is also a need to manage the tension between ‘best practice’ and procedural tradition. The paper concludes by considering whether security-cleared lawyers pose such a fundamental challenge to the adversarial tradition that they ought to be abandoned. While it will be argued that there is a place for security-cleared lawyers, there needs to be much greater attention placed on the procedural setting in which they are used and the extent to which their practices ‘fit’ within the procedural cultures of different adversarial traditions.

 

Panel: Sexual and Gender-based Violence in the Refugee Crisis: Vulnerabilities, Inequalities and Responses

 

Forced displacement has reached an all-time high (UNHCR 2016). The Women’s Refugee Commission (WRC) have highlighted extraordinary levels of sexual and gender-based violence (SGBV) experienced by refugees during recent conflicts, throughout flight, in temporary camps and in detention centres (WRC 2016).  The full extent of SGBV is unknown with incidence under-reported (UN Women 2013). Most research undertaken to date has been small scale and geographically local with calls made for the development of appropriate data collection methods which can be implemented at different stages in the refugee journey (Amnesty International 2016). Limited specialist treatment is available until individuals reach countries of refuge, by which point health consequences may have worsened. The experience of SGBV is mentally and physically debilitating and can prevent refugees from rebuilding their lives. Despite NGOs’ concerns, little scientific attention has been paid to SGBV, its treatment and consequences.

Presenting the findings of a series of international, interdisciplinary, hermeneutic reviews of evidence collected from Governments, NGOs and academia this panel examines experiences of, and responses to, SGBV across the refugee journey.  We attend to the experiences of women, men and children, recording mechanisms, the role of policy and practice in preventing or reducing incidences and providing treatment, refugees’ healthcare needs, interventions and consequences of SGBV for refugees’ integration.  Through our reviews we outline the global state of knowledge and set out a research agenda that highlights gaps in knowledge and the ways these might be addressed to ensure a globally co-ordinated approach to addressing refugee precarity.

 

Lisa Goodson, Institute for Research into Superdiversity, University of Birmingham; Dale Buscher, Women’s Refugee Commission

Between the devil and the deep blue sea: reporting and monitoring incidence of sexual and gender based violence (SGBV) across the refugee journey

Sexual and gender based violence (SGBV) encompasses a range of human rights violations often linked to unequal gender power relations that can exist at a community level- through prevailing social norms; as well as institutional and legislative levels. SGBV can be both the driver of forced migration as well as being part of the reality refugee’s face during flight and displacement. The threat of SGBV is a global phenomenon affecting displaced women and girls, as well as men and boys. Protection against SGBV can only occur through prevention, which is a complex challenge requiring robust reporting systems capable of identifying both prevailing risks and potential risk mitigation strategies. Data collection and analysis of SGBV is essential to the effectiveness of targeted service delivery, advocacy and policy development.  This paper considers the way in which incidents of SGBV have been recorded across the refugee journey to date. It takes a detailed look at current mechanisms used to record and monitor instances of SGBV and assesses the strengths and weaknesses of current systems according to four key criteria: reliability, validity, robustness and effectiveness. The barriers hindering the accurate recording of SGBV cases are discussed in relation to gender-cultural norms, political, and practical dilemmas associated with self-reporting SGBV incidences. The importance and utility of developing more robust and systematic monitoring systems are finally considered alongside a series of practical and actionable recommendations on how to improve the monitoring of SGBV across the refugee journey.

 

Hannah Bradby, Uppsala University; Saime Ozcurumez, Bilkent University

What is the nature of that SGBV and where/when are refugees most vulnerable to SGBV?

SGBV takes place in a temporal and spatial continuum before, during and after flight from conflict or disaster, as well as during the settlement period and after repatriation. SGBV has cultural, social, economic and political dimensions, which can be studied to map the points in refugees’ complex journeys when refugees are most vulnerable to SGBV. These multifarious dimensions of SGBV shape the preventive measures and interventions that can be formulated to mitigate harm. Identifying the nature, location and timing of the SGBV also helps determine the content and the conduct of sectoral (human rights, economics, health, education) interventions as well as the actors that should be involved.

This paper uses a gender perspective to explore definitions of SGBV experienced across the refugee journey from multiple perspectives (NGOs, policymakers, practitioners, academics) and using an interdisciplinary framework.  Since gender is a culturally defined characteristic, migration through different cultures and therefore variation in the definition of gender, offers another challenge to assessing the scale of SGBV. After setting out the state of knowledge the paper identifies commonalities and differences and examines why different actors define SGBV in different ways and what this means for survivors and those attempting to support them. 

 

Cathy Vaughan, University of Melbourne; Karen Block, University of Melbourne

What supports do refugees who have experienced SGBV need, and what responses are most effective in meeting their needs?

Sexual and gender based violence (SGBV) against refugees has a range of negative impacts on their physical and mental health.  Harms to health are felt immediately upon the experience of SGBV, and over the long-term.  Refugees who have experienced SGBV need health services, psychosocial, legal and other supports at different stages of their journey.  However refugees face barriers in accessing services, including service providers’ inability to respond to the complexities of refugees’ SGBV experiences.  The scale of the current crisis has severely over-stretched agencies providing services to refugees, and has not allowed for the development of specific and appropriate responses.  This paper will review evidence about the types of responses to SGBV against refugees that have been found to be most effective, with a focus on responses through health services.  The paper will literature that outlines health professionals’ experiences in the provision of services to refugees that have experienced SGBV.  It will also analyse, in particular, literature that foregrounds the perspectives and priorities of refugees who have experienced SGBV, illuminating refugees’ views on what responses and support they consider most effective.  It will outline how supports needs may vary for refugees of different ages, genders, at different points along the refugee journey, and depending on the nature of the SGBV experienced.  In synthesising the current state of knowledge, this paper will identify areas of consensus about effective responses to SGBV against refugees as well as gaps in the available evidence.

 

Jenny Phillimore, Institute for Research into Superdiversity, University of Birmingham

SGBV and refugee integration in countries of refuge

In considering the state of knowledge around sexual violence and war Skjelsbaek notes the reluctance of researchers to “look into how this crime affects the victims” (2001:212). This paper responds to the question how does the experience of SGBV influence refugees’ mental and physical health and ability to integrate and achieve equality of social and economic outcomes in countries of refuge? Given the prevalence of SGBV across the refugee journey, experiences need to be conceptualised as an ongoing and multi-faceted experience of trauma, with both immediate and long-term consequences. Understanding such experiences must focus on the perspectives of survivors and the events and actions which they classify as harmful. This approach moves us beyond exclusive focus on SGBV in war zones, to consider the entire refugee journey (before, during and after exile). Thus, attention is paid to details of context: location(s), interaction with perpetrator(s), health professionals, immigration officials and others, and how they shape experience and recovery. Such an approach is pertinent given Wasco’s (2003) argument that the harm done by sexual assault cannot be understood as a single trauma. In this paper we examine literature informing us around subjective experiences of violence and the contexts of social and cultural norms that shape the allocation of blame and guilt. We examine evidence about refugees’ own constructions of SGBV including moments of resilience and fortitude, to explore the impact of SGBV on refugee integration and the resources they employ for survival and resettlement.

 

Comparative Responses to Refugee Protection: EU/Canada/Australia

 

Jona Zyfi, University of Toronto; Idil Atak, Ryerson University

Playing with lives under the guise of fair play: The safe country of origin policy in the EU and Canada

The safe country of origin policy has been adopted and implemented by the European Union (EU) and Canada as a way to deal with a backlog of asylum applications, increase efficiency, reduce administrative costs and exclude fraudulent refugee claims. The concept is founded on the assumption that a democratic country with adequate human rights records is safe for individuals because there is generally no risk of persecution. While this attempt at creating more efficient asylum procedures is sensible in theory, an in depth analysis will reveal that the practice is prejudicial, exclusionary, and a dangerous development that could potentially deny asylum to those who are in genuine need of international protection. Contributing to the existing body of literature, our paper provides a comparative analysis of how SCO policies are rationalized by States and their effect on refugee rights. We argue that these policies are a political response to unwanted migration and a migration management tool used to deter what States deem as ‘bogus’ refugees. Whether these goals have been attained remains questionable, however, as currently maintained SCO policies are detrimental to the human rights of refugee claimants.

 

Anthea Vogl, University of Technology Sydney

At what cost? Private Sponsorship of Humanitarian Entrants in Australia

This paper analyses two refugee policy initiatives in Australia: the Community Proposal Pilot (CPP) and the Community Support Program (CSP). Together, these programs create Australia’s first ever program for the full private sponsorship of humanitarian entrants by individuals, businesses and organisations. The CPP was a pilot program that ran from 2013-2017. The CSP is currently being implemented on a national, permanent basis.

The CPP and CSP are new and controversial programs. Only Government-approved organisations can facilitate sponsorship. Although the annual quota of 1000 privately sponsored entrants under the CSP represents double the number allowed under the pilot, contentiously this quota will be part of, rather than in addition to, Australia’s proposed intake of 18,750 places in 2018/19. As well, the costs of sponsorship are staggeringly high.  This paper assess the CSP and CPP in the context of new and influential literature on ‘alternative pathways’ for humanitarian entrants, whereby the ‘alternative’ pathways are often existing migration programs and entry is determined according to national priorities and work readiness rather than primarily by humanitarian need or concern. The paper will also critically consider both the role of privatisation and the public/private dichotomy in framing the programs, as well as the possibilities raised by community involvement and hospitality in a realm where the State has historically insisted that it exclusively determines which humanitarian entrants come to Australia and the circumstances of their arrival.

 

Panel: Endangered rights and precarious lives

Nassim Majidi, Samuel Hall

The discussion that started in August 2014 – refugees or migrants? (Al Jazeera, UNHCR, Carling) – was not about semantics but about politics and about the interpretation of international humanitarian and human rights law. From a European perspective, the political binary distinguishes between the (good) refugees and the (non-deserving economic) migrants. This distinction protects the rights of some, while diminishing the rights, and increasing the precarity of “others”. This creates the perception and the realization of competing rights between groups who share more similarities than differences. Alternative approaches are needed to understand how conditions of precarity – across time and space – impact the rights of migrants. What are the risks to which migrants are exposed to? What situations of precarity are created not by migration itself, but by the absence of a protective framework? 

This panel presents papers that focus on the precarious lives and endangered rights of migrants and their communities.

 

Heaven Crawley, Centre for Trust, Peace and Social Relations, Coventry University

In search of the ‘human’: re-centering rights in the delivery of refugee protection and assistance

The New York Declaration for Refugees and Migrants includes a commitment to protect the human rights of all refugees and migrants, regardless of their status and to promote their full, equal and meaningful participation in finding solutions. Despite this commitment, the concept of ‘rights’ has, in many ways, been absent from discussions around the Global Compacts. The rights of those seeking international protection are rarely framed or discussed in ways that acknowledge their rights as humans regardless of their migratory experiences. Instead the debate had focused on the application or strict technical or legal definitions of ‘refugeeness’ and whether individuals’ quality for protection on the basis of the (increasingly narrow) criteria.

This paper argues that we need to re-centre the ‘human’ in our discussion of rights. It will be suggested that framing an individual’s protection or assistance needs solely or primarily in terms of their identity as a refugee does a great disservice not only to those whose experiences are deemed not to ‘fit’ but to migrants more generally and to our aspirations for the kinds of societies in which we want to live. Rights are not a zero-sum game – treating refugees as human and providing access to rights does not reduce the rights available to others in society but may in fact enhance access to meaningful human rights protection for all. This is because rights and equality are intricately connected. Re-centring the human in our discussion of the refugee rights creates new opportunities for solidarity-building.

 

Shahram Khosravi, Stockholm University

The time of borders

Migration and borders are generally perceived and studied as a spatial process and the temporal aspect of migration has received much less attention. In this presentation I will develop an anthropological account of the lived experiences of waiting among asylum seekers and undocumented migrants. Despite its common presence in many migrants’ lives, the act of waiting has been less studied in migration studies. Lack of information on how long they have to wait or what exactly they have to do to get their residence permits makes the migrants’ lives unpredictable and results in uncertainty, that generates a feeling of precarity. I will focus on migrants’ ‘social navigation’ of “waithood”, when claiming their rights in encounters with the state, NGOs, or other organizations; to explain the impact of prolonged waiting on individuals. What does it mean to wait for a long period of time? ; How do migrants organize their time waiting? How does waiting affect their access to their rights?

 

Karen Jacobsen, Fletcher School of Law & Diplomacy and Feinstein International Center, Tufts University

Urban Displacement – an Analytical Typology

Most urban humanitarian programming focuses on supporting individuals through cash grants, rent support or livelihood training. My paper argues that within urban displaced populations, certain groups are more at risk for violence, lack of protection, discrimination and impoverisation. These groups include single women (at risk for GBV), children of single mothers and the elderly (both groups at risk for being left home alone, and inadequate nutrition, play/entertainment and education), unaccompanied youths (at risk for recruitment into gangs or armed groups), and LGBTQ people (at risk for violence and discrimination). These high-risk groups would benefit from community-based approaches that are carefully designed to address their vulnerabilities, rather than simply trying to include them in (or even target them for) regular programming. The paper outlines some reasons why these groups are not protected/helped by current urban humanitarian programs. One reason is because current programs simply provide individuals with cash or other assistance and send them out to do battle with discriminatory landlords and employers. I propose a shelter-based (housing) program using a community-based, integrated programming approach that builds on displaced communities’ strengths and promotes their engagement with the host population. The paper draws on recent research in Cairo and other cities where shelters are used, and argues that secure safe housing is literally the foundation that can support and enable related programming needs.

 

Panel: The Challenge of Welcome for Resettled Refugees in New Zealand, Japan, the UK, and the US

 

Growing numbers of refugees and asylum seekers have coincided with increased terror attacks in countries to which they flee, with the result that many politicians and the general public perceive refugees themselves to be terrorists. As a result, those fleeing in search of safety find it ever harder to find spaces of welcome. This panel will explore ways in which four resettlement countries either expedite or challenge (or both) a sense of welcome and belonging for refugees and asylum seekers. The first two examine refugee populations at large; the second two focus on the needs of refugee students.

 

Maria Hayward, Aukland University of Technology

The Use of the Powhiri to Welcome Refugees at the Mangere Resettlement Centre.

In recent decades, New Zealanders have gradually recognized the value of traditions and beliefs handed down by the original inhabitants of the land, the Maori. One of great importance is the powhiri, or welcome ceremony, given only to people who possess what Maori call mana – honor, humility, good traits. This moving ceremony is conducted at the culmination of six weeks of welcome provided at the Mangere Resettlement Centre outside Auckland.

All Convention refugees receive the same opportunity at Mangere to begin their lives in New Zealand with a multiplicity of services, education, and information prior to moving to their new community. Using action research, I will critique forms of welcome as well as problematic issues at Mangere along with describing the significance of the powhiri and the provisions in place for the newcomers to begin life in their new communities in NZ. Although the information and services are important to the newcomers as they settle into New Zealand, the sheer amount can feel overwhelming to newly arrived refugees. In addition, tensions arise between government goals and the Mangere staff knowledge of the newcomers’ needs.

 

Jody McBrien, University of South Florida Sarasota-Manatee

Japan’s Multi-faceted Response to Refugees

Japan has been criticised for the small numbers of refugees that it resettles since it began a pilot program of resettlement in 2009. As an example, Japan accepted only 28 of the 10,901 people who applied for refugee status in 2016, much less than one percent of the total.

However, these numbers tell only part of the story. Japan began assisting refugees to resettle in 1979, allowing resettlement for those escaping the tragedy of war in Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia. This program ended in 2006, resettling over 11,000. Japan has three other categories: refugees (people called asylum seekers in most countries) – those who arrive and request refugee status; humanitarian (those who apply as refugees and are denied the status but allowed to stay for humanitarian reasons), and resettlement refugees (primarily Burmese coming from camps in Thailand and Malaysia).

These categories create confusion, and they determine the kinds of services for which refugees are eligible in Japan, as well as the extent of their official welcome. Presenter Dr. McBrien spent four months in 2017 conducting qualitative research with agency staff and refugees to understand how their status is determined, how it affects their lives in Japan, and how the support they receive affects their ability to integrate into Japanese society.

 

Linda Morrice, University of Sussex

Refugee education and the false promises of resettlement in the UK

The UNHCR emphasises that access to education is not only a ‘basic right’ but an enabling right, a right through which other rights are realised’. Refugee education in countries of resettlement is therefore absolutely key to their integration and to concerns of equity and inclusion. The UK has two main resettlement programmes: the Gateway Protection Programme (GPP) which resettles up to 750 refugee a year, and more recently, the Syrian Vulnerable Persons Resettlement Scheme (SVRS) which aims to resettle approximately 4000 refugees from camps in the Middle East. Refugees arriving in the UK under these programmes are provided with one year of dedicated material and social support to facilitate the smooth transition and integration to UK society.

This presentation draws on quantitative and qualitative data gathered as part of a UK Research Council funded project Optimising Refugee Resettlement in the UK to explore the educational experiences and outcomes for refugee young people and adults five years after their arrival in the UK. The paper will highlight the conflicting policy goals of resettlement and how the lack of tailored educational opportunity structures is creating a ‘lost generation’ of refugees. As a consequence, for many refugees resettlement is translating into integration into precarious, low skill and low status employment or unemployment.

 

Panel: Refugeeness and Precarity: A view from the Global South

The panel will explore refugeeness and precarity among mobile population especially among that refugees/ citizens/ migrant experience during conflict and its subsequent transition into the period of internal displacement. Population on the move from their place of origin often faces severe challenges while they locate to new areas. Some of these challenges that they face appears in the form of hierarchy of belonging that prevents access of opportunity to refugee/ migrant communities. Typically when communities face such challenges the political engagement creates zones of distinction which brings into question the whole apparatus of marking and engagement itself.

 The panel will examine the challenges of communities displaced through violent conflict, and interrogate how groups have adopted mechanisms which affects the sense and practice of citizenship of groups.

 

Ranabir Samaddar, Calcutta Research Group

Precarious Labour of the Migrants: Issues of Ecology, Politics, and Survival

Various historical writings available with us today show the intimate links between environmental changes, a catastrophic political economy, hunger, and migration during the colonial time. The colonial state introduced policies of thrift, herding victims of hunger in camps, villages, and small towns, restricting their movements to rationalise the work of relief as well as stop the spread of anarchy, modes of inspection and reporting, gearing part of the governmental machinery towards conducting relief work, and regulating migration. Colonial history is crucial, because an understanding of the colonial time can help us to see how post-colonial India continues with many of the previous policies at a time when environmental disasters have an accompanying phenomenon – that of increasing food insecurity and labour migration. This paper will discuss the emergence of the precarious migrant as the key figure of our time in the background of above mentioned interrelation between ecology, politics, and survival in the Brahmaputra and Barak Basins in North East India and Deltaic West Bengal and Bihar.

 

Paula Banerjee, Sanskrit University

Internal Displacement and question of citizenship

The purport of this paper is to explain that citizenship and statelessness are part of the same spectrum.  There are many people in South Asia who fall within that spectrum who will not be accepted as a citizen by “competent authorities” within a state and neither will they be called “stateless” by the international legal interpreters.  Legal experts who work for agencies such as UNHCR and are placed in Geneva might say that these people should be called citizens by a particular state, and can be called a citizen if the citizenship laws of that state are improved, but the reality remains, the people in question are completely unable to access even the most elementary of the rights attributed to a citizen.  As for the state, unless compelled to do so by the courts of law will never give a definitive description of who might not be a citizen. Very seldom and hardly ever in a democracy will a state come out and definitively mark a group of people as non-citizens as in the cases of Rohingyas or Lhotsampas. Thus, more often than not both the state and the bastions of international law will refrain from defining these people and let them remain as “in between” people or people with indeterminate nationality/ indeterminate status of political being, thereby adding to their vulnerability, rightlessness and discrimination.

 

Nasreen Chowdhory, University of Delhi

Why do people move? Narratives of enclave or ‘new’ citizens , in north Bengal in India

My paper shall interrogate narratives of refugees/ citizens/ migrants who have been left behind in the formation of new citizens in the northern part of Bengal in India. The story of chit or enclave people will be explored to break the binary of sedentary vs. immobility of people. The discourse on ‘mobility turn’ within social sciences tends to focus on ‘objects and subjects on the move’ that privilege the primordial linkages between people and place and their societal context (Urry and Sheller 2006; Malkki 1992). Instead the focus will be on the population that decides to stay behind, i.e., absence of migration and experiences of immobility. The paper will focus on narratives of members of family that refused to be part of new citizens in Land Border Agreement between India and Bangladesh and decided to stay back in Bangladesh. The paper engages in two levels analysis to explore the narratives of those who stayed and those who joined India. 

 

Panel: Silenced and Undocumented: Gender effects in Forced Migration in Turkey 

 

Emel Coskun and Lucy Williams, University of Kent

Criminalisation of undocumented migrant women in Turkey: A case study of Ugandan women

Sub-Saharan African women are at the bottom of migrant hierarchies in Turkey’s migration regime because of their gender, race and undocumented status. This paper focuses on the experiences of undocumented Ugandan migrant women in Turkey and describes the interaction between their gendered poverty in Uganda and Turkey’s migration regime. It considers the ways in which gender and being undocumented determine the experiences of migrant women as waged workers or as prostitutes in Turkey. In addition it shows how Turkey’s migration and prostitution regimes criminalise migrant women and play an important role in creating insecurity and structural vulnerabilities.

Based on the interviews with women in Istanbul and Kampala, Uganda, this paper argues that Ugandan women’s precarious position in the labour market and criminalisation through migration policy and labour restrictions obliges some women to be involve in prostitution as a survival strategy. Economic pressure from home and debts incurred by migration make their situation even worse. Work options open to Ugandan women in Turkey are limited to either ‘low-skilled’ gendered and informal work such as in sweatshops or selling sex. Ugandan women often face severe forms of labour exploitation, discrimination and sexual harassment within their workplaces. Being undocumented keeps migrant women silent against gender based harassment and violence or they often face with police’s ignorance when seek for justice. This paper argues that most migrant women are criminalised through gender inequalities, migration and labour restrictions or prostitution regime of Turkey and this criminalisation makes women silent against any gender based violence.

 

Kamile Dinçsoy and Beril Eski, Bilgi University (Co-researcher Emel Coskun, Duzce University)

Negative Gendered Effects of Turkey’s Asylum Regime

Gendered effects in refugee studies often refer to two problems: the non-recognition of gender related persecution as ‘persecution’ within the sense of the Geneva Convention and the lack of gender-sensitive asylum reception and protection processes. In addition, sexual and gender based violence is often neglected due to the invisibility of refugee women in the daily life. This paper puts issues of gender discrimination at the forefront and explores Turkey’s asylum regime and different forms of sexual and gender based violence that asylum seeker and refugee women face during their journey and on their arrival to Turkey.

This paper is based on in-depth interviews with 18 women and LGBTQ individuals from different nationalities including Uganda, Afghanistan, Iraq and Iran as well as interviews with eleven professionals from NGOs such as managers, translators and social workers.  Neither UNHCR nor Turkey’s official asylum application processes provide support to women and LGBTQ people, on the contrary it exposes them to sexual and gender based violence during application and journey to satellite cities in Turkey. Sexual and gender based violence against women and LGBTQ individuals may come from different parties and even from state officials in the satellite cities. The application process itself is difficult to access and not gender sensitive. Satellite cities do not meet women and LGBTQ asylum seekers’ needs and further expose them gender based violence as they cannot access work permits or any other socio-economic support.  Most of our respondents dropped out of the asylum process because of the requirements in-built in the process, such as living in satellite cities. Finally, this paper highlights some recommendations towards a gender sensitive reception process in Turkey.

 

Directors: Gülşah Keleş, Lyon University; Sara Durmuş, Independent Filmmaker

Documentary Screening: “Kaç Para” (How much?) 25min.

This documentary covers the difficulties that black immigrant women face in Turkey due to their gender, race, and immigration status. Their condition of living without documents causes them problems in many aspects of their daily lives including renting a home, getting paid for work they have done, etc. They also experience near-constant sexual harassment in the streets and in workplaces. Most of these women consider Turkey as a stepping stone to achieving other life goals and projects, it is difficult for them to manage with all the challenges that they encounter.

Trailer can be accessed here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k_E5fWbaAls

 

Panel: Statelessness, Precarity and Representation of Rohingya Refugees: South Asian Perspectives

The refugees are product of the internal politics of the sovereign states and their statelessness is part of the dynamics border politics. The Sovereign states generally normalise subjects or impose normality by standardising and regulating their movements within the territory and exclude the out-groups by spatially organising and/or de-organising them. The processes of organisation of population takes either the path of “bio-politics of the human body” that stresses on calibrated management of human life and population though various measures, what is called “governmentality or the method of organising or deorganising through “anatomo-politics of the human body which imposes compulsory visibility” and surveillance that confine human movement without any rights over subject’s own life and body. Violence is perpetrated on the cultural body of the other as the discourse on security takes the narrative of nationalism and identity. It is narrated in the form of impending threats both from inside and outside to a secured community. The subjects by adopting the “nomadic tactics” transgress violence and suspension of the rule. It uses the border as a gateway point to get away.  The subjects become stateless who are situated in qualitatively different situations. There lies “perspectival line” or “vanishing point” where “techniques, identities, practices, and power relations” are used to regulate as well as confine the flow. In majority of instances, national security is given priority over human security on the question of providing asylum to the refugees. Protection of human rights of refugees vanishes. They are de-humanised, their lives are de-valued and their representation demeaning. They become “undocumented people”, who are constantly exposed to various kinds of harassments making their life at border very precarious. Precarity, “as the generalised state of insecurity”, is manifested in both subjective and material forms: uncertain present, fragile future, everyday hardship through waiting and fatigue to escape, the hope of gaining access to acceptability and subsequently of citizenship rights, socio-economic vulnerabilities and political stamping out.

Refugees and/or stateless people thus become analytical as well as legal categories converging on the notion of citizenship. The rubric of understanding of refugee and/ or stateless population include socio-economic statuses of the community or individuals, group and community histories and constellation of political dynamics within a country. There are hosts of generative contexts — nationalism, xenophobia, violence and war against a community, the issue of human rights and challenges to state sovereignty, citizenship and cultural identities, immigration policies, to name a few — within understanding about refugee crises and statelessness occur.

This panel drawing on the experiences of the politically persecuted ethnic minority Rohingyas of Myanmar, who are escaping persecution or ethnic cleansing in the country and moving to Bangladesh and India for shelter, would  present papers on the issue of statelessness and citizenship with respect to the legal question of refoulement and shelter, the precarious conditions during the process of escaping and vulnerable socio-economic situation at and within the border, the vulnerability of women during the journey and after arrival in the destination country and political meaning of the refugees in the host country in relation to: a) the notion of nationalism and identity politics; b)on their representation in the international, national and local media; and c) impact on the country’s political situation on the issue of resource management vis-a-vis refugee asylum.

 

Meghna Kalja, University of Delhi; Nasreen Chowdhory, University of Delhi

Precarity and Legal Conceptualisation of Rohingyas: A Dilemma of Citizenship

The intervention in this paper is to look at the procedure of making citizens and unmaking citizens in a modern state. The whole idea of becoming a citizen comes through the notion of social contract in which individuals come together to form a sovereign state. In return state ensures security, dignity, social, political and economic needs for that it makes laws. The authority lies with state on deciding citizens and non-citizens or as Agamben puts it bare lives. How does state categorises citizens? The paradox of citizenship lies here with marking out the identity, on which certain rights are given. This identity can be based on any category like caste, language, religion and sex etc. on the other hand, the universal notion of citizenship is contested. It is this contestation within citizenship that will be addressed theoretically by taking present crisis of Rohingyas as the recent case to mark out the particularities. The central idea is to unravel the religious identity vis-à-vis citizenship.Where a state tries to marginalise citizens on the basis of religion first violence against minorities through majorities. The minorities in a state are slowly carved as marginal citizens, who lie somewhere between citizens and non-citizens. It is these margin citizens who tomorrow can be declared as non-citizens. Then finally state declares them as non-citizens by changing the laws as done to Rohingyas through the Myanmar citizenship act of 1982.

 

Meherun Ahmed, Asian University for Women (AUW)

Socio-Economic Assimilation of the Stateless Rohingya Communities in Bangladesh

In the current globalised world, a rising number of people are leaving their native lands for better jobs opportunities, higher education, improved living standard, and last but not least, safety and security. Economic theory labels this as informed decision. In reality, for some unfortunate segment of the population it occurs due to various types of persecution and other forms of political violence. The issues of assimilation of migrants in the asylum country have critical economic implications.  The assimilation process in the host country is not only complex in nature, but the process requires considerable time. The process becomes harder for refugees when migration occurs due to coercion and sometimes even a decade is not enough to settle down in a foreign place. There is a dearth of rigorous quantitative analysis in relation to the coping mechanism and the socio-economic assimilation of refugees in South Asia. The process becomes more stringent with inefficient institutions and prevalence of imperfect market conditions.  Therefore, it is essential to examine the dynamics of refugee assimilation in developing countries. This paper by taking Rohgyas of Myanmar as case study intends to explore the dynamics and the hardship of the process of refugee integration in Bangladesh from a neighbouring country. It examines condition of these refugees and their assimilation and integration processes in terms employment opportunities, access to basic services such as shelter, education and health. It also assesses the gender-disaggregated difficulty levels in the process of integration.

 

Biswajit Mohanty, Deshbandhu College; Babita Verma

Political Representation of Rohingyas in the Indian Media

Media in the modern democratic societies has been playing an important role in building consensus and shaping public mood. It is through the consensus making practices that the mass media has acquired the power of and control over the symbolic resources to manufacture consent and consensus especially in the realm of ethnic relations. It through discriminatory portrayal and prejudiced reproduction of public image of an ethnic group influences the public perception of a nation. It helps to form an ideology of nationalism. Thus, interplay of discourse and ideology dialectics help build images of refugees and migrants. Sometimes some refugee issues are underplayed and others are disproportionately highlighted to build public perception on an ethnic community. The dynamics of construction of images of out-groups, as “us’ vs “them”, are shaped not only by the public mood in the domestic sphere but also the geo-political processes currently in practice. This paper taking the case study of the Rohingyas, an ethnic minority group of Myanmar facing execution by a democratically elected government, seeks to explain the interplay of domestic politics, international relations and public representation of Rohingyas in the visual and print media when they are trying to seek asylum in Indian territory.  The paper also argues that the ruling dispensation with the help of media has been constructing images of Rohingyas as “terrorists” and couching the discourse around the conception of nationalism and scarce resources to deny them asylum in the country. 

 

Panel: Crossing boundaries, crossing borders: Forced migration and resettlement for queer refugees – Part 1

Over the past 20 years, growing awareness of the global situation of LGBTI individuals has led some nations to extend asylum and refugee protections to individuals fleeing persecution on the basis of sexual orientation and/or gender identity (United Nations High Commission for Refugees 2008). Emerging research on sexual and gender minority (SGM) forced migrants has demonstrated that they have experienced severe and pervasive abuse that begins in childhood and continues into adulthood (Alessi, Kahn, & Chatterji, 2016; Alessi, Kahn, & Van Der Horn, 2016). These abuse experiences have contributed to traumatic stress and other mental health problems, making it difficult for them to meet the demands of the asylum and resettlement process (Shidlo & Ahola, 2013). Furthermore, tensions arising from their multiple social locations (age, race/ethnicity, gender, gender identity, ability status, growing up in countries with fundamentalist religious doctrine) can impact their sense of belonging in the host country (Kahn, 2015; Lee & Brotman, 2011).

Despite the growing interest in this particularly vulnerable group, there has been little opportunity among scholars, activists, practitioners, and directly impacted persons to discuss strategies to address issues pertinent to queer forced migrants, including protracted timelines for filing refugee claims in Canada; the Dublin Regulation in the European Union; the “travel ban” in the United States; and rising homophobia/ transphobia, Islamophobia, and xenophobia throughout Europe and North America.

This panel seeks to create a space for interdisciplinary and transnational dialogue to illuminate challenges and potential solutions for ensuring specialized protection and support for queer forced migrants throughout the migration and resettlement process.

 

Panel ONE — Locating Queer Refugees in Policy and Practice: Considering Gaps in Determination and Protection Processes Across Three Continents: Europe, North America, and Africa

 

Edward J. Alessi, Rutgers University School of Social Work; Raoul Wieland, McGill University School of Social Work / McGill Faculty of Law

Understanding the Dublin Regulation: Tracking the Lived Experiences of ‘Dublin’ for Queer Asylum Seekers

The Dublin Regulation was enacted in 2003 to make it easier for E.U. member states to determine which country is responsible for handling an individual’s asylum claim (European Commission 2018). More specifically, if an individual seeks asylum in one E.U. country, they must be returned to the E.U. country where they (i) initially obtained a visa or (ii) were first fingerprinted. This paper – in two parts — describes the preliminary findings of a qualitative study conducted in 2017 with 38 LGBTQ forced migrants resettling in Austria or the Netherlands. The study sought to examine (a) the needs of LGBTQ forced migrants from Middle Eastern countries (e.g., Syria, Iraq, Iran, Jordan, Lebanon, Pakistan) throughout their journeys, and (b) whether these needs were addressed in ways that allowed for the safety and protection of people with diverse sexual orientations and gender identities. Grounded theory methods used to analyze the data revealed that LGBTQ forced migrants from countries in the Middle East who flee their homelands because of war-related violence and violence and exploitation due to their sexual and/or gender minority status may be particularly vulnerable to the Dublin Regulation. Under this policy, they must return to the country of first arrival in the European Union, even if this country is hostile toward sexual and gender minorities.  Specifically, participants in the study reported that the E.U. country to which they held a visa or were first fingerprinted while in transit to Austria or the Netherlands could be blatantly inhospitable to Muslim asylum seekers and also hostile towards LGBTQ individuals.  Further, transgender participants feared a lack of access to gender-affirmative health care should, under Dublin, they be required to leave cities like Amsterdam or Vienna for less trans-affirmative destinations within the E.U.  Further, participants could fear harm – up to and including honor killings – by family members, some of whom were, themselves, refugees living in other E.U. countries. Analysis suggests that losing their Dublin petitions, and, facing deportation, drove some participants underground, to engage in survival sex work, until the statute of limitations runs out. This paper argues for reconsideration of the Dublin Regulation as it is applied to sexual and gender minority asylum seekers.

 

Azar Masoumi, York University

 ‘Barely gay’: An intersectional critique of SOGI refugee framework in the Canadian Context

This paper offers a critique of the dominant SOGI refugee protection framework through the theory of intersectionality. It will argue that absence of an intersectional analysis in dominant conceptualizations of SOGI refugees has produced protection systems that treat and understand SOGI claimants as “barely gay”: without any other forms of identity and insulated from a variety of other processes that shape the complex contexts of their lives. This shortcoming not only marginalizes SOGI claimants by limiting the entirety of their life histories to the lexicon of non-normative gender and sexuality, but also obscures the increasingly restrictive and punishing trends in states’ refugee, travel, and border control regimes and their racialized, racializing, and class-based operations of exclusion. Through a study of in-land refugee protection system in Canada, this paper argues that the lack of intersectional analysis in SOGI and gender-based refugee protection frameworks produces illusions of expansion in refugee rights; this illusion conceals what is actually a general decline in access to refugee protection in Canada. Examination of organizational-level and interdepartmental practices within Canada’s multi-staged refugee protection regime will further demonstrate that complex racial, classed, gendered, and sexual processes underlie the general restriction and targeted forms of exclusion within Canada’s refugee protection regime. Further, this paper traces racial, classed, gendered, and sexual processes in the operations of “Lead” cases and the Designated Countries of Origins (DCOs) policy, particularly as they have affected Mexican and Hungarian Roma claimants. Analysis will demonstrate that these policies and practices have drawn on racialized, racializing and class-based discourses and imaginaries to reinforce the false dichotomy between “real” refugees and economic migrants. This dichotomy has in turn justified harsh treatment and exclusion of those who are labeled economic migrants. The absence of an intersectional analysis in conceptualizations of SOGI claimants as “barely gay” sustains this dichotomy by imagining SOGI refugees and economic migrants as mutually exclusive groups: this process trades SOGI refugee protection with racial and class-based exclusion, and undermines the SOGI claims of those who are labeled economic migrants.

 

B Camminga, Institute for Humanities in Africa (HUMA), University of Cape Town

Intersectional Silences: Transgender Asylum seekers in South Africa

On 26 November 2012 the South African trans rights organisation, Gender DynamiX, along with Lawyers for Human Rights and the Consortium for Refugees and Migrants met with the Committee for Home Affairs to discuss issues regarding access to ID documents, statelessness, and the closure of refugee reception offices. Although these organisations played a critical role in helping to improve understanding of ‘transgender’ and ‘migrants’ in South Africa, not one organisation mentioned transgender refugees. Given that the policies and discussions of this meeting continue to have long lasting impact on the lives of transgender refugees in South Africa, this silence and lack of intersectional analysis on the part of these organisations in attendance was curious. Drawing on this issue as an entry point, this paper seeks to understand the machinery that reinforces the silence or absence of transgender refugees in these kinds of conversations and spaces more broadly. This paper argues that it is not that transgender refugees are simply trans, but that they are also trans and migrants. It is this alignment with the migrant body that trans organisations perceive as threatening to the already precarious nature of trans rights, while the inverse is also true for refugee organisations. Ultimately, the transgender refugee represents a zone of precarious politics for organisations dealing with competing marginalities. This paper will explore the peculiar outcome of this, which is not only the failure to build a politics of solidarity, but also the failure of organisations to recognise this silence in the first place. This silence – and indeed South Africa’s anxiety regarding migrants – is not unique to South Africa. This paper will therefore consider the larger implications of silence around the distinct needs of trans refugees across contexts, particularly as migrant flows continue to increase.

 

Panel: Crossing boundaries, crossing borders: Forced migration and resettlement for queer refugees – Part 2

Part Two: Understanding Facilitators of and Barriers to Protection and Resettlement of SOGI Refugees and Asylum Seekers on Three Continents: Findings from Brazil, Canada, and South Africa

 

Sarilee Kahn, McGill University School of Social Work

Refugees (Un)Like Others: An Examination of Systemic Barriers in Protection and Resettlement for Queer Asylum Seekers and Refugees

The European Union may offer queer refugees the promise of safe haven, however the policies and practices designed to assist them may place them at further risk of stress and trauma (Rumbach & Knight, 2014; UNHCR, 2015b).  For example, queer refugees in migration camps in the E.U. have reported harassment and violence by other refugees (Associated Press, 2016). Queer refugees may also encounter bias and discrimination from immigration officials, refugee service providers, and translators (FRA, 2017; UNHCR, 2015). In detention centers, they may experience physical and sexual assault as well as harassment by staff and other detainees (Tabak & Levitan, 2013). In resettlement, queer refugees may feel estranged from members of the LGBT community in the host country due to race/ethnicity, religion, and/or immigration status (Portman & Weyl, 2013).  This paper, part of a larger study conducted in 2017 with 38 LGBTQ forced migrants from the Middle East (e.g., Syria, Iraq, Iran, Jordan, Lebanon, Pakistan) resettling in Austria or the Netherlands, examines the pre- and post-migration experiences of LGBTQ refugees and asylum seekers. Analysis of in-depth qualitative interviews revealed that queer refugees may experience discrimination from members of the host society, racism and xenophobia from the mainstream queer community, and homophobic and transphobic threats from members of the their diaspora communities. Further, these challenges may interfere with access to essential services. Harassment from co-ethnic others during language classes, for example, may go unchecked and dissuade queer refugees from attending. Those requiring temporary shelter may face multiple stigmatizations — as a Muslim and as a sexual or gender minority and a refugee.  Potential romantic partners from the host community may shun them for perceived differences in terms of race, class, religion, and citizenship status. As a result, these multiple and intersecting alienations can leave queer refugees in resettlement contexts with limited social capital from which to re-establish their lives. Although these challenges present barriers to integration, some participants, nonetheless, thrived in resettlement. Recommendations are presented for specialized policies and practices to address barriers and promote integration for sexual and gender minority newcomers.

 

Edward J. Alessi, Rutgers University School of Social Work

‘If you are not mentally good, everything will seem not livable’: An Examination of the Mental Health of LGBTQ Refugees and Asylum Seekers in Austria and the Netherlands

Emerging research has begun to highlight the mental health needs of LGBTQ forced migrants. However, few studies have explored what LGBTQ forced migrants identify as their most traumatic events, what symptoms persist and continue to influence their functioning in the host country, and the degree to which their perceived levels of distress change once they have reached the host country. This paper, part of a larger study conducted in 2017 with 38 LGBTQ forced migrants from the Middle East (e.g., Syria, Iraq, Iran, Jordan, Lebanon, Pakistan) resettling in Austria or the Netherlands, examines the pre- and post-migration mental health of LGBTQ forced migrants. In-depth qualitative interviews were implemented to elicit information about traumatic events and their psychological sequelae. Data were also triangulated with two widely used standardized measures—one that that assessed for PTSD (PCL-5; Weathers et al., 2013) and the other for psychological distress (K-10). Findings showed that more than half (63%) of participants reported a traumatic event involving violence or abuse related to their sexual orientation and/or gender identity and that 71% met diagnostic criteria for PTSD. Additionally, 26% of participants were likely to have a mild, moderate, or severe mental health problem (i.e., anxiety and/or depression). Using grounded theory analysis, findings also revealed that for some participants, being shunned or rejected by close family members outweighed the traumatic impact of abuse and violence perpetrated by strangers or state actors. Mental health symptoms also tended to be exacerbated by systemic discrimination based on participants’ multiple marginalized identities (sexual or gender identity, race/ethnicity, religion, social class, and migration status). While some LGBTQ forced migrants reported few or no symptoms of PTSD or psychological distress, they still struggled, at times, with fitting in and making a life for themselves in the host country. This paper emphasizes the importance of using trauma-informed approaches (psychotherapy and lawyering) with LGBTQ forced migrants and also discusses the need to develop program and policies that help address the mental health symptoms of LGBTQ forced migrants.

Panel: Queering asylum across Europe: The legal and social experiences of sexual orientation and gender identity (SOGI) asylum seekers

Academics, policy makers, decision makers and activists are becoming more aware than ever of the particular experiences of asylum seekers in Europe who present a claim based on their sexual orientation and/or gender identity (SOGI). These ‘queer’ asylum experiences require focused legal and sociological analysis, which the European research project SOGICA – Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity Claims of Asylum (www.sogica.org) aims to deliver in a theoretically-informed and empirically-based manner. Based on documentary analysis and early field work findings, as well as the researchers’ own experience as activists in refugee support and human rights organisations, the speakers in this panel will explore the legal and social experiences of SOGI asylum seekers. The panel includes four papers, which offer comparative observations and policy recommendations in the context of the European Union, Italy, the UK and Germany.

 

Nuno Ferreira, University of Sussex

Rainbow Europe: Enough rainbow for queer asylum seekers?

Since the 1990s, the European Union (EU) has slowly developed an increasingly sophisticated body of asylum law and policy, known as the Common European Asylum System (CEAS). This framework – both in the shape of legislative instruments and case law – has inevitably also affected those asylum-seekers who claim asylum on the basis of sexual orientation and/or gender identity (SOGI). This has been vividly demonstrated by particular norms in EU asylum directives (for example, Article 10 of the Qualification Directive 2011/95/EU) and judgments of the Court of Justice of EU (for example, C-199-201/12, X, Y and Z and C-148-150/13, A, B, and C). The current CEAS can be said to have several shortcomings in relation to SOGI claims, including in relation to: its rules on accelerated procedures; country of origin information; the notion of ‘safe country of origin’; the burden of proof and the principle of benefit of the doubt; the concept of a ‘particular social group’; and the definition of persecution.

A new set of proposals for reform of the CEAS is on the table, and these also pertain to SOGI asylum claims in precise and acute ways. This paper will scrutinise the current proposals of reform, including the different positions of the Commission, Parliament and Council. In particular, the paper will assess the extent to which these proposals and different institutional positions address, ignore or aggravate the issues that currently affect SOGI asylum seekers.

 

Carmelo Danisi, University of Sussex

Good Intentions, Bad Reforms? Measuring the Impact of General Measures against Irregular Migration on the Experience of SOGI Asylum Seekers in Italy

The difficulties some European countries have experienced during the last few years in facing irregular immigration has led to a process of reform at supranational and internal level. Italy, in particular, is facing a phase of double transition: the adoption of internal reforms moving towards a more restrictive system for asylum seekers, and the attempt to review a supranational discipline that has greatly influenced how the Italian asylum system appears today. Although both processes seem to be based on good intentions insofar as groups identified as ‘vulnerable’ are at stake, the impact of the new set of general measures against irregular migration on specific groups of asylum seekers remains obscure.

Focussing on the Italian peculiar legal and jurisprudential framework on SOGI asylum seekers, this paper will try to ‘measure’ as far as possible the impact of this supranational and internal process of reform on SOGI asylum seekers. First, it will verify whether or not the EU proposed reform of the Common European Asylum System (CEAS) risks lowering the higher standards of protection slowly reached in Italy in relation to this specific group, thanks to a proactive internal judicial system. Second, it will investigate the consequences of the most recent domestic reforms on the experience of SOGI people involved in the asylum system. Third, it will compare the results of this comprehensive evaluation with the outcomes of empirical research carried out in Italy with SOGI asylum seekers. The paper concludes by elaborating recommendations for a new wave of ‘good’ reforms.

 

Moira Dustin, University of Sussex

Running up that hill: Sexual orientation, gender identity and asylum in the UK

The need to protect sexual minorities fleeing persecution is now universally recognised, but that does not mean that individuals fleeing homo and transphobia are treated fairly. The UK approach to SOGI asylum has developed on an incremental basis over the past 20 years, responding to UNHCR and European guidance, and incorporating European Court of Justice, European Court of Human Rights and domestic case law. As a result, while many advocates would agree that the asylum system has seen improvements compared to a decade ago (when there were reports of ayslees presenting sexually explicit videos in a desperate bid to prove their sexual identity), there are still significant flaws and anomalies. Firstly, what is known as ‘discretion’ thinking puts the UK at odds with EU law in the eyes of many observers. Secondly, inadequate country of origin information and assumptions about particular nationalities mean that there is little consistency in the treatment of asylum seekers with similar experiences of persecution coming from different states. Finally, the burden of proof is often insurmountable, as SOGI applicants are generally assessed on the basis of whether they constitute a particular social group (PSG) with the issue then being whether they are indeed a member of a SOGI minority and how to prove that through either identity or behaviour. This paper suggests a shift of focus away from the sexual or gender identity of the individual towards verification of persecution or the risk of persecution by or in the state of origin.

 

Panel: Moving camps and carceral junctions – Part 1

The recent ‘refugee crisis’ in Europe has demonstrated both the widespread use of encampment, when dealing with influxes of migrants and asylum seekers, and the ways in which migrants and asylum seekers navigate this encampment terrain. These holding sites, temporary shelters, registration and accommodation centres are easily seen as isolated and isolating spaces, distinct and disconnected from ordinary space. However, camps are also connected to spaces beyond them through flows of bodies, through social media and through the knowledge and practices of those who create and manage them. The key point is that camps are at once sites of incarceration and junctions that connect and enable mobility. In order to understand asylum encampment as it is developing in Europe, this paradox of connectedness and incarceration – of carceral junctions – needs to be examined empirically and analytically.

Empirically, this means examining the double sense of “moving camps”: On the one hand, camps shape, detain, and enable particular forms of movement for asylum seekers, as they move between camps and cultivate networks in hopes of viable futures. On the other hand, camps themselves are also mobile in the sense that models of encampment travel and shift within and between states, just as individual camp staff careers may span multiple and multiple kinds of camps. Bringing these senses together, the panel will develop the analytic concept of the “carceral junction” as a way of grasping the paradoxical work and consequences of asylum camps. We encourage contributions from various disciplines such as anthropology, architecture, urban planning, media studies, geography, philosophy, and sociology.

 

Cecilie Odgaard Jakobsen, AMIS, University of Copenhagen

Taking me back: Ethnographic and methodological approaches to refugee journeys (in reverse) and experiences of temporalities.

This paper will take its starting point from an on going PhD-project focused on the refugee journey along the route of which carceral junctions are passed, created and experienced, and the way in which this journey shapes how refugees think of and negotiate their past and present and especially how it shapes hopes and dreams (and fears) for the future. With a preliminary empirical foundation, this paper will focus on a discussion of the methodological implications and possibilities of back-tracing these routes through places and networks, where the aim is to discover, not just retrospectively but also in different ethnographic temporalities, how journeys might be pivotal in the refugee experience. The methodological approach is inspired by a narrative process (Steinberg 2015) and the aim is to work very collaboratively with key interlocutors based in Denmark while carrying out fieldwork across specific places in Europe, addressing how refugees navigate the terrains of encampment they face on their way to, through and in Denmark, and specifically focusing on connecting the temporal aspects of this journey with the spatial conditions encountered.

 

Katrine Syppli Kohl,  University of Copenhagen & VIVE

The departure centres as technologies of mobility and sites of permanent exclusion

In Denmark, a new kind of camp for the management of unwanted migrants was introduced in 2015. The ‘departure centres’ in Sjælsmark and Kærshovedgård were created with the aim to incite movement by getting rejected asylum seekers and other aliens in expulsion position to leave Denmark for their country of origin. However, the movements generated by these departure centres seem to differ from the inherent ideal of government, as very few persons have left the centres voluntarily. Rather, the centres have become sites of a permanent exclusion as about half of their residents are stuck due to expulsion hindrances (Holst, 2017). The movements that departure centres do create tend to be into the unknown, as a substantial amount of the persons who are referred to the centres disappear from the system instead of checking in (Rosendahl, 2016).

The project will explore the interface (Long 1989, 2001) between employees and residents in departure centres, to see how confinement and expectations of mobility are played out in practice between different actors within the camp. The project asks what forms of everyday life is possible inside the centres and with what counter tactics rejected asylum seekers navigate their circumstances. The project will also include congregations, activists and volunteers, whose presence shape and connect the camps to the outside. Finally it will attempt to track the forms of connectedness and confinement that continue for those asylum seekers who go underground. The study will be based on a mixture of document analysis, qualitative interviews with staff, asylum seekers, authorities, advocates and activists in and around the centres.

 

Kirsten McConnachie, School of Law, Warwick University

Political Movements: Stasis and Mobility in a Refugee Camp

This paper will develop the panel theme on “moving camps” through a case study of Mae La Oon refugee camp on the Thai-Burma border. Most analyses of refugee camps appear to conceive of camps as a distinct and discrete site.  In reality, mobility of people, goods, information and ideas is constantly apparent in any camp setting.  Mae La Oon is a ‘closed’ camp, i.e. one where the official policy prohibits refugees’ travel outside the camp bounds.  In this sense, it is indeed a site of stasis.  Nevertheless, it also a site of mobility.  This paper will examine mobility in Mae La Oon as it is manifested in three spheres:   within Thailand; in refugees’ country of origin (Myanmar, and particularly in Karen State) and in terms of international and transnational relationships.  Within Thailand, camp residents travel ‘out’ for work, education and family, while Thai citizens travel into the camps for similar reasons.  In Myanmar, refugee camp residents maintain relationships with family and friends, civil society, church, and political organisations, and these relationships are supported through flows of money and information as well as individual movement.  Mae La Oon is also embedded in transnational networks, manifested most clearly in relationships with international agency staff and donors and with a diaspora, many of whom were resettled from Mae La Oon to Western countries.  By revealing the embedded social and political structures within a refugee camp and the mobility underlying these political relationships, this paper will explore the inherent contradiction between camps as a space of stasis and as a space of mobility.

 

Panel: Moving camps and carceral junctions – Part 2

Ditte Krogh Shapiro, University College Absalon

Navigating moving camps – flexible participation in connected and restricted communities of asylum

This paper explores the flexible navigation of Syrian family members in the unstable and temporary camp terrain constituted by involuntary and conflictual communities in Danish asylum centers. Based on an ethnographic study among Syrian families seeking asylum in Denmark, this paper examines the ruptured and continued everyday life practices of families from the perspectives of different family members. The study represents a subject-theoretical perspective on collective agency and moving structures in politically contested asylum practices. The paper address how experiences of encampment are shaped by varied social and material conditions of camps that are shaping and being shaped by the flexible participation of family members as they conduct their everyday life in and beyond moving camps.  

 

Simon Turner, AMIS, University of Copenhagen

Camps as Blueprints – The emergence of the camp model across Europe.

While UNHCR has officially initiated a policy of ‘Alternative to Camps’, we see a proliferation of camp-like sites across Europe. Irregular migrants, deportees and asylum seekers find themselves in situations where they are at once stuck en route and seeking this liminal position to achieve other kinds of mobility. These camps are ambivalent in nature. On the one hand, they incarcerate and immobilize mobile populations. On the other hand, as long as they remain liminal, future possibilities remain open for those who end up in them. This paper explores the nature of these camps and compares camps that are created by states and other public authorities in order to control and contain certain populations, with camps that are put in place in order to provide care and compassion. The latter may be official camps of states or international NGOs or they may be unofficial camps, put in place by volunteers; such as squats in Paris, Athens or Berlin. Finally, camps emerge ‘from below’ when migrants (irregular, asylum seekers) seek refugee in the Jungle outside Calais or in various sites across Greece. This paper asks why the camp as a form is so dominant, and what are its effects.

 

Zachary Whyte AMIS, University of Copenhagen and Michael Ulfstjerne; University of Aalborg

A moving camp: The logistics and mobility of humanitarian infrastructure between Denmark and Bosnia

This paper takes literally the panel’s focus on “moving camps” by focusing on a specific cluster of asylum housing units that were shipped from Denmark to Bosnia in 1996, ostensibly to house repatriated Bosnians, and remain in place today. That is to say, camps that were literally moved. These buildings and the logistics surrounding their movement served to structure a range of humanitarian and administrative connections both in and between Denmark and Bosnia. Instead of tracing movements, networks, or careers of migrants, we present an archival and ethnographic account of the trajectories of these prefabricated housing modules designed as temporary shelter solutions for Bosnians seeking refuge in Denmark in the late 90s. This case materializes a number of key paradoxes of carceral junctions: Designed as temporary, the camps endured, and the mobility of the camps at once reached in to the past and the future. Conceived of as isolating, the camps and not least the logistics involved in their movement engendered extensive connections, which reached well beyond the use of the housing modules themselves.

 

Legal and Policy Issues

Stephanie Nawyn, Michigan State University, Kelly Birch Maginot, Michigan State University

Precarity and Displacement: How Legal Recognition Matters (or Doesn’t) for Protecting Migrants Fleeing Violence

Within scholarly and humanitarian circles it is largely accepted that migrants who have recognition as refugees benefit from that legal distinction compared to migrants whose need to flee violence is similar but who lack legal recognition as refugees. However, as protection regimes have deteriorated and states fail to provide sufficient protection to refugees and people in refugee-like situations, the distinction that refugees status is suppose to confer does not carry the benefits it once did. Using the framework of precarity (Goldring and Landolt 2011) to compare the situation of Syrian refugees in Turkey with Salvadoran migrants in the United States, we demonstrate that while their legal statuses are very different, there are disturbing similarities in access to rights and the ability to achieve security. Our analysis demonstrates how refugees who are not resettled in a third country are increasingly exposed to the same types of precarity experienced by migrants not granted refugee status, pointing to an overall degrading of the international refugee protection regime.

 

 

Michael Gordon, McMaster University

(De)Constructing the European ‘Refugee Crisis’: Producing the Humanitarian-Security Nexus

The paper looks at the construction of so-called European ‘Refugee Crisis’. The paper is concerned with examining the development of a humanitarian-security nexus in relation to the production of crisis in the European context. The contradictory nature of the humanitarian-security nexus sees a duality in irregular migrants as victims deserving of assistance and needing to be saved, while conversely being perceived as a threat to the safety and security of the state necessitating both the securitization of the individual and in turn, the enhancement of violent bordering practices. This process operates to produce irregular migrants as both helpless victims, devoid of agency and in need of rescue while simultaneously representing a dangerous and criminalized existential security threat to the state. The production of this phenomenon is both a discursive and material process as the discursive performance enables the material production of the border and exclusionary practices leading to the development and performance of ‘Fortress Europe’. The humanitarian-security nexus reaffirms the state as a paternalistic protector of vulnerable individuals while being positioned a guardian of the proverbial gates of the state. Outlining the production of the humanitarian-security nexus illuminates the contradictory nature of exclusion in a supposedly globalized system while providing a glimpse into the implications of this exclusionary practice and the associated border violence. The construction of crisis and the enactment of the humanitarian-security nexus serves to increase the precarity associated with irregular migration through promoting a state of exception surrounding the current border discourse in Europe.

 

Panel: Living on the Margins: Analyzing Security, Safety, and Precarious Migration Status in the Canadian Context

 

This interdisciplinary panel examines the complexities of living with precarious status in Canada. The impacts of living without status intersect legal frameworks, psychosocial well-being, the ability to access services and means of redress when necessary. Precarious immigration status is also a highly gendered phenomenon, compounded by race, ethnicity and social status, among others.

 

Deepa Mattoo, Barbra Schlifer Commemorative Clinic and the Rights of Non-Status Women’s Network, Julia Romano, University of Toronto Faculty of Law

“Race, Gendered Violence, and the Rights of Women with Precarious Immigration Status”

This presentation will discuss the key findings and recommendations from Deepa Mattoo’s Community Leadership in Justice Fellowship, funded by the Law Foundation of Ontario, entitled, “Race, Gendered Violence, and the Rights of Women with Precarious Immigration Status”. There is a gap in the existing literature regarding the connection between race, gendered violence, and women with precarious immigration status. We found that race is not explicitly considered in the analysis of gendered violence and women living with precarious immigration status both domestically and internationally around the globe. Instead, women living with precarious immigration status who have experienced gendered violence are analyzed as a unitary and homogenous group. Through exploring this complex relationship between race, gendered violence, and immigration status, the aim of this fellowship project has been twofold: First, to bridge the aforementioned scholarly gap. Second, to build the capacity of settlement workers and lawyers to better provide services to racialized women with precarious immigration status who have experienced gendered violence. This presentation will provide key findings and recommendations for the following three research focus areas: 1) The eligibility requirements for benefits and social services for different immigration applications as most commonly seen in the Barbra Schlifer Commemorative Clinic’s practice; 2) A catalogue of the gender-based Immigration and Refugee Protection Act framework and guidelines; 3) Privacy legislation in the context of the City of Toronto as a “Sanctuary City”, and the requirements of service providers to disclose information about a woman’s immigration status to the Canadian Border Services Agency (CBSA).

 

Seema Nadarajah, SALCO

“The discretionary nature of Humanitarian and Compassionate (“H&C”) decisions – An examination of the degree of psychological and social impacts on non-status persons”

This is a ‘work in progress’ study. The aim of the study is to understand the psychological and social impacts of non-status persons (“NSP”) in Canada who are pending a decision on their H&C application. An H&C application is an application for permanent residence in Canada. The general rule is to apply from outside of Canada; however, individuals can request Immigration, Refugees, Citizenship Canada (IRCC) to make an exception to this rule. NSP are faced with a unique set of problems as they do not have access to the same resources and supports as people with status. NSP live in a state of limbo; they cannot move forward without a decision and cannot go back due to issues of safety and persecution. A secondary component to be explored in the study is the discretionary powers of the immigration officers in making a determination.

The proposed study will employ both quantitative and qualitative research components with triangulation methodology to gain a better understanding of the lived experiences of NSP. A sample of 15 participants who have a pending H&C will be interviewed individually and their application analyzed. The participants will be administered the Beck Depression Inventory – II (BDI-II) and Trauma Symptom Checklist – 40 (TSC- 40) at the various application stages. The results will be analyzed for potential themes/factors that reference psychological and social impacts. A challenge to the discretionary nature in which H&C applications are processed requires an understanding of the impact on NSP to create better support structures.

 

Petra Molnar, International Human Rights Program, University of Toronto Faculty of Law

Shadowing the Community: The Sociolegal Ripple Effects of Immigration Detention on Women in Canada

Gender lenses are inadequately applied to immigration detention resulting from trafficking, and the unique experiences of women interacting with the detention apparatus are not being heard. Detention affects thousands, if not tens-of-thousands, of women in Canada. Families are separated for prolonged periods, resulting in loss of income, support, and housing. The stigma of incarceration and harsh visitation conditions harm families waiting for release of detained loved ones. Traffickers and smugglers take advantage of intersecting vulnerabilities, further increasing the precarity of women. Children are harmed across axes of dependency, insecurity, poverty, racialization, discrimination, stigma, and physical and emotional violence. Even short periods of detention have long-lasting psychosocial impacts.

This paper foregrounds the lived experiences of women interacting with the Canadian detention system. In collaboration with survivors, frontline workers, lawyers, and anti-violence against women (VAW) activists, our research reveals a novel geopolitical understanding of detention where VAW occurs before, during, and after incarceration. We find that practices like reporting and the ‘snitch line’ re-traumatize women and empower traffickers to threaten further detention and/or deportation. Pervasive fear of detention and deportation may increase women’s vulnerability to violence from traffickers, partners, employers, or other perpetrators. We find that the depth of the psychosocial traumas of immigration detention’s harms on women in Canada is underestimated, that traffickers prey in these depths, and that this implicates the state as a VAW facilitator, if not perpetrator.

 

Panel: Entangled Trajectories of Violence, Precarity, and Exploitation

Benjamin Etzold, Bonn Internation Center for Conversion Studies and Suzan Ilcan, 
Department of Sociology and Legal Studies, University of Waterloo and Balsillie School of International Affairs; co-organizers.

Labour migrants, refugees, and internally displaced persons alike face insecurity, socioeconomic marginalization, exploitation, violence, or even death on their journeys and at the places where they live – in urban centers and camps in Africa and the Middle East, in borderlands, where pathways of mixed migration movements cross, or the centers of Europe and North America.

Our panel seeks to shed light on the highly precarious situations of migrants and refugees in countries of transit and reception. We raise some fundamental questions that our panelists address from very different perspectives as part of their presentations:

1. To what extent do migrants or refugees experience different forms of violence, precarious livelihood conditions, or exploitative labour relations on their journeys or at their current places of living? How are they responding?
2. How and to what extent are displacement, violence, precarity and exploitation entangled? How do specific figurations of violence, precarity and exploitation shape migrants’ or refugees’ prospects for future mobility?
3. What is the role of state agents and humanitarian organizations in fostering, shaping, or preventing conditions of violence, precarity, or exploitation for migrants or refugees?

 

Maegan Hendow and Albert Kraler, International Centre for Migration Policy Development (ICMPD)

Whose Crisis? Alternative and alternating perceptions of crisis (Maegan Hendow and Albert Kraler)

In the context of acute crises, migrants and refugees are confronted with extreme situations of precarity. Yet at the same time, based on accounts of migrants who were displaced by crises, questions emerge as to the meaning and conceptualization of a “crisis”, particularly as related to opportunities, individual vulnerabilities and structural impacts. Based on research for the EU-funded Migrants in Countries in Crisis project, which examined six crisis situations across 12 fieldwork countries, this paper examines how perceptions and experiences of “crisis” have varied based on the actual experiences of migrants caught in large-scale acute “crises”. First, migrants’ perceptions of a crisis were multifaceted and varied – they perceived positive outcomes of the crisis situation, or challenged our selection of a particular crisis as it did not fit with their experiences. Second, our analysis demonstrated that acute violence against migrants often emerged and re-emerged as ‘tipping points’ (McAdam 2014), following long periods of growing hostilities, including smaller scale attacks, thus highlighting the variable dynamics of crises. Third, in several cases, crises are not exceptional periods of relative short duration but are protracted, reflecting broader and chronic state instability, as for example in Libya. Finally, our research suggests that a crisis should not be viewed as a stand-alone event – rather, it often overlaps with other crises that migrants, states or other institutional actors are dealing with in parallel or in succession and that may compound already difficult situations.

 

Suzanne Menhem, Lebanese University

Forced migration and its impact on the work of Syrian young women in Lebanon

After the breakout of the Syrian war in 2011 and the ensuing crisis, thousands of Syrian refugees and their families (came) to Lebanon. According to UNHCR statistics for 2015 the number of Syrian refugees registered were 1 200 000. It should be noted that these refugees are not residing in camps of their own, but are distributed in towns and cities and therefore engage with Lebanese society. The result of this asylum is their relentless search for work and a salary that is less to what the Lebanese worker receives. 

The integration of Syrians in the Lebanese labor market is not new. The Syrian workers was previously employed in the construction and agriculture sectors. After the end of the Lebanese civil war in 1990, the Syrian labor force expanded from their former sectors into the industrial sector as well as the tourism services sector of hotels and restaurants.  Previously, many Lebanese employed Syrian girls in domestic service and in agriculture, but this reality changed with the Lebanese civil war due, on one hand, to the instability of the security situation and (on the other hand) to the change in the Syrian mentality.

This paper studies the employment of young Syrian women in Lebanon through the hypothesis of social and economic changes. It will raise the problematic of the employment of young Syrian women and their emergence in the Lebanese labor market. 

 

Roberto Forin, Mixed Migration Centre

Trapped in “transit”: involuntary immobilization and the capability to stay 

Most research in refugee studies focuses on populations compelled to move. Although understandable, this focus on forced mobility has arguably led scholarship to overlook those migrant populations whose vulnerability pertains precisely to their inability to move. Drawing on the concept of  ‘trapped populations’ this paper contributes to address this research gap, enabling a reconsideration of the relationship between mobility and vulnerability in situations of crisis. While existing theorising on trapped populations typically focuses on migrants’ ability to escape from danger, the paper argues that the lack of resources needed to cope with forced immobility, rather than the lack of the resources necessary to move, actually represents the greater problem. By analysing the experiences of trapped migrants in Libya during the 2011 civil war, the paper makes clear how differential access to economic, social and cultural capital can shape patterns of (im)mobility, leading to involuntary stasis for the most vulnerable groups. Furthermore, the paper argues that involuntary immobility for migrants in Libya took the form of a process, which I term involuntary immobilisation. This concept speaks to the fact that mobility is often progressively eroded by the structural constraints generated by a crisis. The paper concludes by suggesting that the concept of involuntary immobilisation can also be applied to analyse other instances in which structural constraints lead to the disempowerment of individuals by disrupting their freedom of movement, already central to their life project.

 

Panel: What are the relationships between human trafficking, ‘modern slavery’ and forced migration? 

 

Patricia Hynes, University of Bedfordshire

Forced migration, refugees and ‘trafficking’ 

People who are forced to migrate include refugees and those who are ‘trafficked’. However, there are distinct legal frameworks, definitional differences, separate recording of statistics, differing policy agendas and, often, separate literatures surrounding seeking asylum and trafficking. Arguably a product of restrictive borders and lack of safe channels for migration, ‘trafficking’ is often viewed as a result of economic drivers and is viewed through a security lens with labels assigned such as ‘victims’ or ‘survivors’. Refugees, as by-products of social change (Zolberg, 1989) and social exclusion, are largely recognised as political, seeking refuge from persecution and considered either to be ‘deserving’ or ‘undeserving’ of protection within increasingly narrowing interpretations of the definition of a refugee and shrinking asylum space.

This paper draws on early findings from mainly qualitative research underway into ‘vulnerabilities’ to and ‘capacities’ to resist human trafficking across Vietnam, Albania and Nigeria and arrival into the UK. The study utilises a conceptual framework from the International Organization for Migration (IOM) – the Determinants of Vulnerabilities Model – that explicitly incorporates both ‘vulnerabilities’/’risk factors’ and ‘capacities’/’protective factors’ for migrants. This research seeks to generate ‘thick descriptions’ (Geertz, 1973), rich, nuanced and contextually-based accounts of human trafficking to move beyond stereotypical representations and existing dominant narratives. The interface between those who are forced to migrate and people who are ‘trafficked’ is explored.

 

Hannah Lewis, University of Sheffield

Victimhood and deservingness in forced migration and modern slavery

This paper will explore moral frameworks of deservingness and victimhood that operate in relation to depictions of refugees and people who have been trafficked. Human trafficking emerges amid complex intersections of migration regimes, global inequalities, precarious labour, and the criminalization of certain activities, peoples and mobilities. Abolishing modern slavery has achieved global policy consensus, arguably by relying on simplistic tropes of ‘evil’ traffickers and deserving ‘victims’. What can be learned from debates in refugee studies about the consequences of constructing refugees as an exceptional figure particularly deserving of intervention politically, morally and practically? What convergences and divergences exist in the production of victimhood in images and frameworks to address forced migration and human trafficking?

The paper will report on early findings of a UK Economic and Social Research Council project that aims to better understand the roles of faith-based organisations in three terrains: anti-trafficking service provision, public representations, and governmental discourse and policy making. How do images and representations that convey victimhood shape the types of exploitation and people deemed deserving of assistance? Postsecular partnerships between religious, non-governmental and statutory bodies emerging in the global ‘fight’ against modern slavery are balancing rights-based and moral imperatives. However, debates on human trafficking and how tackle it regularly sideline links with migration processes and governance.

 

Kiril Sharapov, School of Applied Sciences, Edinburgh Napier University

Dead animals, frozen grass and people on the move: neoliberal encompassment and abandonment in Mongolia

In recent years Mongolia experienced a series of prolonged natural disasters, including the ‘dzud’ – unusually hot summers followed by severe winters. With temperatures dropping to -55C in February 2016, 1.1 million of the total 56 million national livestock died of starvation devastating livelihoods of nomadic herder families, and contributing towards the on-going displacement of hundreds of thousands of nomadic herders and their families from vast grasslands of Mongolia to the growing shantytowns outside the capital city – Ulaanbaatar (hosting up to 700,000 internally displaced people).

This paper draws upon the concepts of neoliberal abandonment and agnotology to interrogate how continuums of slow decay of nomadic herders, their animals, grasslands and entire ecosystems pass between and through each other within the context of neoliberal state/capital entanglements. By drawing upon a series of interviews with internally displaced residents of semi-legal ‘ger’ settlements on the outskirts of Ulaanbaatar conducted in June 2016, the paper explores the processes of, on the one hand, neoliberal encompassment of the savaged body of Nature and of expendable human bodies as resources to be consumed and exploited; and, on the other hand, of neoliberal abandonment of the viciously neglected human and non-human others, whose life is earmarked as lying outside market value. In response to the panel proposal to explore links between migration, displacement and human trafficking, the paper sets the scene for further discussions of the relationship between internal displacements, socio-economic vulnerability, demand (or the lack of it) for low-paid low-skilled labour, the availability and the ease (or difficulty) of accessing such labour, as factors determining the location of the global ‘precariat’ on the continuum of neoliberal abandonment/encompassment. 

 

Elizabeth A. Faulkner, Staffordshire University

The removal of the agency of the child within the discourse of human trafficking and ‘modern slavery’

The terms human trafficking and ‘modern slavery’ are used interchangeably and are treated as exceptional phenomenon which require an array of legal, political, technological responses in addition to widespread emotive driven campaigns to ‘spot the signs’. What is frequently excluded from the discourse is the impact that the power of the contemporary abolitionist movement has had upon our perception of migration and the adoption of the constructed hierarchy of status afforded to those identified as victims of trafficking, slavery and forced migration. The relationship between child trafficking, child slavery and the forced migration of children is illustrative of the hypocritical language that enshrouds contemporary debates about children within migration frameworks. The powerful protectionist discourse that has emerged seeks to remove all agency from children, endorsing the perception that all children are inherently vulnerable. The endorsement of a hierarchical framework of status serves to draw discrete and concrete boundaries between deserving and undeserving ‘victims’. The lack of access to safe migration routes is not acknowledged nor the impact of the sometimes-lethal immigration policies adopted by states such as the United Kingdom. This paper seeks to challenge the removal of the agency of children within the context of the legal and policy responses to the phenomenon.

 

Refugees in Europe (1)

 

Panagiotis Peter Milonas, York University

The Psychologization of Security and the Syrian Refugee Crisis

How can North Americans and Europeans justify knocking down financial borders, while simultaneously erecting walls to put an end to the flow of immigration? There are a number of justifications. Most relate to the alleged security threats immigrants pose. Very few considerations, however, can prevent the unprecedented transformation the world is currently experiencing and restrict the mass movement of people as global health risks. The outcome is the medicalization of security. This has resulted in the idea of “health security” where public health and public safety are a priority. Although disease control and prevention were initially the central points for all global public health activities, today, global public health crises also include mental illnesses. This shift offers Western countries the opportunity to exclude scores of people fleeing war zones from entering their borders or the privilege of moving freely within them. By focusing on the treatment and management of the refugees from the Syrian Civil War, I want to demonstrate that there is a correlation between the psychologization of security and the exclusion of immigrants and refugees who are wrongfully depicted by governments and the mainstream media as a threat to the West’s stability. I argue that global mental health risks serve as an ostensible reason to exclude economic immigrants and asylum seekers. This, however, is not the first time that the psychiatry and psychology have been misused to justify segregation. The expanding psychologization of security serves as a disciplinary mechanism to justify excluding certain groups, in this case, Muslims.

 

Seyedeh Akhgar Kaboli, Finland Futures Research Centre, University of Turku

Images of the future of young refugees in Finland

Since the onset of the second decade of 21st century, the popularity of Finland as a destination for forced immigrants has increased. In 2015, Finland experienced the steepest raise in the European Union (EU) for reception of asylum-seekers. The majority of refugees who have joined Finnish society since 2010 are with Iraqi, Somali, Afghan and Syrian background nationalities while the outcomes of surveys display these four nationalities as the least welcomed by Finns.

In this study, the images of the future of a group of young refugees are investigated as representatives of their expectations for the future in the new society. Images of the future indicate their holders’ hopes, fears and anticipations for the future, influence their decisions and when future becomes reality, it involves elements from the previously held images of the future. Reflections of gender, ethnicity and refugee background of the participants are also investigated in their images of the future.

The participants of this study are a group of young refugees (18 to 29 years old) whose countries of origin are Iraq, Somali, Afghanistan and Syria. In-depth interviewing and active imagination process are applied to collect the research material. Then, Qualitative Content Analysis is used for analyzing the material with Causal Layered Analysis (CLA), as the framework of analysis. CLA is method and theory from the realm of critical futures research.  The created images of the future using the above-mentioned combination of methods reflect on their holders’ multi-layered emotions and assumptions.

 

Raluca Bejan, University of Toronto

Problematizing EU’s Relocation System of Shared Responsibility

Starting in 2015, high numbers of irregular migrants from Middle East and Africa had reached the Italian and Greek coasts. Hungary had later become an entry ‘hot spot’, once people could no longer claim asylum in Greece due to long backlogs and limited reception capacities. The European Commission invoked a quota based provisional relocation system to ease out the burden felt by these front line states and to transfer some of the refugee numbers to other EU nations. The first relocation decision intended to transfer 40,000 people from Italy and Greece over the next 2 years. The second one added a new relocation goal of 120,000 people: 15,600 from Italy, 50,400 from Greece and 54,000 from Hungary and calculated a distribution key on four weighted indicators: GDP (40%), size of the population (40%), unemployment rates (10%) and past number of asylum seekers applications (10%).

The relocation process was for the most part unsuccessful. There was a lack of thorough implementation and several states failed to launch (or accommodate) pledges. Lack of a shared agreement has led to political and ideological frictions amongst the Member States. Some countries simply refused to comply and several states have completely opposed the plan.

This paper critically analyzes EU’s temporary relocation system for internally re-distributing refugees. It argues that the current distributive quota fails to equitably allocate inter-state responsibility, especially as the weighted distributive indicators do not fully account for the inherent economic, social, cultural and political differences between the EU Member States. It further draws from the field of taxation policy and uses the notions of horizontal equity and vertical equity to demonstrate how the current relocation scheme is progressive in application, yet flat in impact, since it proportionally equalizes the share of responsibility, without progressively adjusting it to match states’ capabilities for relocation.

 

Panel: The Potential of ‘Big Data’ to Improve our Responses to Forced Displacement

Given the unprecedented levels of forced displacement and the recurrent problems in addressing large-scale movements, a community of social and computer scientists in collaboration with humanitarian actors is working to use ‘big data’ to develop an evidence-based simulation tool that can identify patterns of displacement and support the planning of humanitarian responses (e.g. the location of shelter, food, supplies). This panel reports on a collaborative project of Georgetown and York Universities with NGO partners funded by the National Science Foundation (NSF) and the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRC) that is using Iraq, a country of high displacement, as a case study. The panel will present on the 1) challenges of building a research community among social and computer scientists and humanitarian practitioners; 2) the model of migration theory that informs the analysis; 3) the development of modelling and data mining tools; and, 4) preliminary findings using online social media data and traditional data sources.

 

Susan McGrath, Centre for Refugee Studies, York University

The challenges of building community across the cultures of social and computer scientists and NGO practitioners and integrating quantitative, qualitative and practice knowledges.

 

Susan Martin, Donald G. Herzberg Professor Emerita of International Migration, Georgetown University

The challenges and implications of using ‘big data’ in forced migration research and the development of a theory of migration that is attempting to address the micro, meso and macro drivers of forced displacement.

 

Lisa Singh, Georgetown University

The modelling and data mining tools that can effectively discern patterns of displacement from extremely large data sets such as Twitter

 

Kira Williams, Wilfrid Laurier University

The findings

While simulation, via agent-based modelling, is an increasingly-used approach to study migration in the field (An 2012: 25; Kniveton, Smith, & Wood 2011: 534), scholars have yet to sufficiently formalise traditional theories of international migration to be used in simulation (Bijak 2011: 47-50). Following Bijak (2011), we therefore used expert knowledge gathered via a Delphi method survey with humanitarian workers in Iraq to identify and relate key factors causing displacement. Proxied variables of these factors form the basis for an agent-based simulation designed to predict future displacement.

 

Regional Perspectives: Central and South America, Mexico, Haiti

Jorge Morales Cardiel, Universidad Autonoma de Zacatecas

The process of accompanying undocumented immigration by transit countries, the case of Mexico

Mexico in the early decades of this century is going through by a new migratory paradigm, the most outstanding is the change in relation to their migratory patterns, from being the traditional country of expulsion to become a country of transit of undocumented migrations. The documentation on the process of accompaniment towards immigrant persons will be carried out within a network of civil society organizations; secular and confessional, installed on the route of undocumented immigration, that have been proposed to promote  assistance in joint strategies to address violations of the human rights of these migrants.

The accompanying process focuses on the defense of the human rights of the undocumented immigrant with a special scope in the process of empowerment, Since it prioritizes the advice on a personal level based on the restorative action of attention to the victims. One of the keys of the accompaniment is to attenuate the huge emptiness of power on the part of governmental institutions through the practice of humanitarian service. The accompaniment throws increasingly clear signs that is starting to prevail a community perspective of certain groups of civil society and faith-based volunteer groups towards the undocumented inmigrant in transit, who through their support strategies are in the process of transforming its own role making it more active.

 

Luann Good Gingrich, School of Social Work & Centre for Refugee Studies, York University and Julie E.E. Young, Institute on Globalization and the Human Condition, University of Lethbridge

The NAFTA border’s dispossessions: Social exclusion within, across, and in-between the Mexico-Guatemala borderlands

The focus of this paper is the production and function of the “NAFTA” border as a transnational social field in the day-to-day lives of migrant women who organize their livelihoods around the Mexico-Guatemala border. Through the narratives of Central American women in a town near this border, we apply a feminist political geographical analysis of the everyday practices and official procedures that produce symbolic violence (Good Gingrich 2010). Using Pierre Bourdieu’s concept of the state (and its borders) as a transnational social field with a precise structure of capital and social economy, we articulate emerging spaces and mechanisms of social exclusion and dispossession that reduce certain bodies to commodities and sites of economic and symbolic profit. We document the paradoxical enforcement and definition of state borders in relation to the (im)mobility of migrant women through extraterritorial or transnational policing of movement into and through Mexico. While we start from the experiences of migrant women from Central America living in the in-between space of the Mexico-Guatemala borderzone, the de facto border that defines their opportunities both here and in their home communities is one we refer to as the NAFTA border. We argue that this transnational marketized social field produces systems of predation and exploitation. Crucially, the simultaneous openness and closure of state borders via migration management regimes produces an entrepreneurial context that makes possible – even makes necessary – a range of gains and profits at the expense of migrant bodies.

 

Yannick Gill, Howard University School of Law

The Problem with “The Haitian Problem”

This paper discusses the causes of “The Haitian Problem” and the oversimplification of the issue which currently impacts Haitian refugee claims. This paper proposes a legal remedy to

the disparate Haitian refugee claims the through 4 sections. Section I will discuss the governing

law, both domestic and international, that controls Haitian asylum claims in the United States. In particular, the section will provide an overview of The Refugee Convention of 1951, the Refugee Act of 1980, and the Convention Against Torture. Section II will detail the past and present conditions within Haiti and the Immigration and Nationality Act as it relates to Haitian asylum claims and temporary protected status. Through an explanation of the politics and natural disasters of the area, this paper will discuss the source cause of both the forced migration and refugees from Haiti. Section III will detail how Haitian refugees are received in the United States and the political history that establishes a basis for political claims of asylum. Finally, section IV will offer recommendations to remedy “The Haitian Problem” and explore the issues that stem from viewing Haitian refugee claims as a problem. This paper recommends a change in the policy surrounding what qualifies a refugee, training to streamline the disparate rulings on refugee claims, and an extension to the temporary protected status granted previously granted to Haitian refugees.

 

Roundtable: Protection Mechanisms for Migrant Young People and the European Border Regime

Jennifer Allsopp, University of Oxford; Marianella Kloka, PRAXIS; Jovana Arsenijevic, MSF Serbia

Chair: Reem Mussa, Médecins Sans Frontières

The Limitations of Child Protection Mechanisms in the European Border Regime

Key Questions:

• What are the implications of the EU border policies on unaccompanied minors and separated children
• What are the policy implications or limitations in the child protection mechanisms
• In what ways have child protection interventions or categories contributed to increased vulnerabilities

It has been reported that children account for more than one third of the total migrant population arriving in Europe, high number of them travelling unaccompanied or separated from families[RM1] . European border policies which are increasingly restrictive and focused on deterrence mechanisms pose great challenges for the protection and well-being of child migrants. This panel will examine the limitations of protection mechanisms for migrant children and young people requiring protection in light of EU border policies. 

Under the EU law specific to child refugees and children seeking asylum, key requirements are established to: (a) recognise enhanced vulnerability of unaccompanied minors to sexual abuse/exploitation and/or human trafficking; (b) appoint guardians or representatives for the child victim of human trafficking; and (c) ensure ‘special protective provisions’ such as free legal counselling, representation and child-sensitive conduct of investigations and trial hearings among others (also mentioned under the Directive 2013/33/EU).  However, the implementation of restrictive border policies has compromised the basic principle of providing ‘international protection for unaccompanied minors’; placing children in conditions that often  deprive them of their rights.

The discussion will take place between academics, legal actors and humanitarian operational experts. Through reflection of empirical research and operational experiences this panel will interrogate the (i) implications of EU border policies on increasing UAMs vulnerabilities, (ii) the limitations and deterioration of child protection mechanisms as a result of border policies, and (iii) the ways in which child protection interventions and categories increase risk and vulnerabilities for young migrants. 

Important case studies from three different points along the European migratory route (from Greece to the UK), asylum process and categories will be considered. This includes the issues of detention as a means of protective custody for UAMs as seen in Lesvos, the rates of violence experienced by young people at borders by state authorities in the Balkans, and the {something on the becoming adult project UK- possibly the implications of categories associated with categories such as “child” as limited  often not supporting through transition into adulthood}

 

Panel: Beyond the crisis frame: unpacking the complexities of the enduring phenomenon of separated child migration from Central America and Mexico to the US

 

In 2014, the Obama administration declared that a “humanitarian crisis” was underway as the number of Central American separated children arriving at the borders peaked. Yet the crisis frame oversimplifies this phenomenon, and there is still a dearth of research exploring the diverse experiences of children who migrate alone. This panel focuses on Central American and Mexican unaccompanied and separated children who flee violence in their home countries to seek refuge in the US, presenting findings from four empirical studies that illustrate different historical periods, stages and dimensions of this complex and perduring regional phenomenon of child migration. We discuss the ways in which unaccompanied minors complexify dominant narratives regarding their assumed vulnerability as they develop resilience while pursuing dangerous journeys north, confronting conditions of extreme precariety and navigating risks posed by smugglers and immigration check-points. Further, we bring attention to Mexican separated children, “invisible refugees” whose right to seek refuge in the US is undermined by discriminatory policy and by state actors who assume them to be economic migrants, ignoring how violence shapes the migration of Mexican children similarly to that of Central Americans. We also discuss another invisible population of child-migrants: unaccompanied and separated indigenous children, whose distinctive ethno-linguistic characteristics lead them to face increased vulnerabilities both during migration and while detained in the US. Finally, we examine how unaccompanied minors’ perception of self, coming of age and incorporation experiences in the US are shaped in enduring ways by their interactions with the immigration and asylum bureaucracies.

 

Amy Thompson, University of Texas Austin, School of Social Work

Invisible Refugees: Separated Mexican children and the United States

In recent years, United States media and policy attention has focused on the arrival of separated children from Central America, fleeing regional violence and instability. However, with the notable exception of 2014 – 2016, US Border Patrol data indicate that historically and consistently more unaccompanied children from Mexico cross the US border than any other nationality. The relative invisibility of this population is due, in part, to the United States’ bifurcated policy for receiving separated children that effectively blocks admission to children from neighboring countries. Parallel to this political barrier, to the extent that they are visible, separated children from Mexico are popularly perceived as either economic migrants rather than refugees or smugglers and potential security threats. Still, results from multiple mixed methods investigations of the repatriation of separated Mexican children indicate that the economic motivations of these children and youth often bely experiences similar if not identical to those of separated children fleeing from Central America. Drawing on a decade of field research experience with repatriated Mexican children, I discuss misconceptions and misrepresentations of this population by state actors on both sides of the border. I will then discuss the implications of policies that ignore the agency and lived experience of separated Mexican children.

 

Angel Escamilla Garcia, Northwestern University, Sociology Department

Unaccompanied Mayan Children and the Journey to the United States

In 2014, an unprecedented number of unaccompanied minors—approximately 68,500—were detained by the United States at the U.S.-Mexico Border. Due to this rapid and drastic increase in numbers, the United States’ capacity to provide minors with shelter and services was overwhelmed, and President Obama went so far as to call the situation an “urgent humanitarian situation.” Most of these minor migrants came from Guatemala, El Salvador, and Honduras. They were mostly native Spanish speakers and “mestizos.” However, some of these unaccompanied minors were Indigenous Mayan children from Guatemala who stood out in many ways, including culturally and linguistically. The two primary objectives of this paper are to estimate the number unaccompanied minors that are indigenous, as no available data currently does so, and to explore indigenous minors’ migration experiences. This paper explores the situation of minors by combining information from two sources: (1) narratives I collected in 2014 at government-sponsored migrant shelters hosing unaccompanied minors along the Texas-Mexico border; and (2) migrant detention data. I compare available Border Patrol data with data collected in migrant shelters by the Vera Institute of Justice to estimate what percentage of minors detained by Border Patrol are indigenous Guatemalans. Then, I describe specific issues that indigenous children face during migration and following detention. Ultimately, this paper explores the unique vulnerability of Guatemalan indigenous minor migrants as they migrate to the U.S.

 

Chiara Galli, University of California Los Angeles, Sociology Department

Coming of Age while “Hyperaware” of the Law: Legal Consciousness of Unaccompanied Minors and their Incorporation in the US

Since 2012, 157,936 unaccompanied and separated children from Honduras, El Salvador and Guatemala have been apprehended at the US-Mexico border and classified as “Unaccompanied Alien Children”. This legal category confers them temporary protection from deportation and placement in the custody of the Office of Refugee Resettlement (ORR), which has the dual mandates of caring for and controlling them. Upon release from ORR custody, youths are placed in the care of family members, who are entrusted by the state to ensure their compliance with the law, and they must navigate the asylum application process to seek long-term status in the US. Based on interviews with these adolescent asylum-seekers, this paper explores how their incorporation and coming of age experiences are shaped by their multiple interactions with the immigration control bureaucracy, as well as the care and control of ORR and their family members. Through these contacts, youths are made “hyperaware” of the law, taught normative values of appropriate teenage and migrant behavior, and internalize the stigmas associated with their social position, as racialized Latino adolescents, perceived as deviant, as claimants for humanitarian relief, perceived as suspicious. These interactions shape youths’ “legal consciousness” (commonsense understanding of law), which is characterized by a unique combination of fear and trust of government institutions, misinformation and information about US laws, and notions about how deserving migrants should behave. This influences unaccompanied asylum-seeking youths’ incorporation in the US, informing the ways in which they claim belonging in their new homes and make coming of age decisions.

 

Panel: Forced Migration Law’s broken seams: When the normative framework is part of the problem

Forced migration is a complex phenomenon in constant transformation. Thus, its regulation means a huge challenge.  The intricacy of its nature collides with the rigid structure of any legal system, preventing normative frameworks from embracing the whole matter. For example, legal categories are often unable to include all the diverse ways in which these types of exodus take place.  As a consequence, those excluded are silenced. Moreover law responses have trouble identifying the multiple factors that cause involuntary migration, producing partial solutions that sometimes worsen displaced persons’ fate. It is also possible that the implementation of a particular normative framework triggers forced displacement, even if that is not its aim.  This panel explores four scenarios in which normative frameworks for managing forced displacement seem to be part of the problem.

From a perspective based on Critical Political Geography, Angela Iranzo’s paper questions human rights’ capability to effectively protect victims of human trafficking, refugees, asylum seekers, stateless, irregular migrants or persons in exile. Beatriz Eugenia Sánchez’ paper analyses how the strict separation between voluntary and forced migration legal categories have prevented regional organizations in Latin America from offering multilateral responses to environmental migration.  In the third paper, Woodly Louidor revels the failures of the responses given by host States to Haitian environmental migrants after the 2010 earthquake.  Authorities’ inability to understand the heterogeneity of both migrants and their needs explains the gaps in the protection of this population. Finally Maria Prada and René Urueña present the worst of the scenarios: when Law, trying to provide protection to fragile ecosystems, causes forced displacement.   

 

Ángela Iranzo Dosdad, University of Deusto

Movement as a political place and its exclusion from the universal system of human right,

States’ compliance with human rights is currently understood as the best way to face the vulnerability of forced migrants in the world. However, human rights are not being effective to protect victims of human trafficking, refugees, asylum seekers, stateless, irregular migrants or persons in exile. From a perspective based on Critical Political Geography, this paper analyzes to which extent the solution to be achieved is an integrated part of the problem. Although we live in globalized societies, the international regime of human rights is still rooted in a modern understanding of politics, which is mainly based on the territory of the State. Therefore, it supports a sedentary approach of human beings which interprets movement as an exception in itself; resulting in the difference between the rights of placed people and the rights of those displaced. Thus, this proposal studies the most recent international legislation on human rights (particularly focusing on UN, EU, Council of Europe, the Organization of American States and other Latin American regional institutions) looking to know whether they include other forms of human space different from that one based on the State’s territory. To this end, this paper addresses the difference between two key concepts,  “the rights in motion” and “the right to be in motion”, and explores a particular case concerning the treatment the diaspora of the Colombian armed conflict is receiving under transitional justice mechanisms as victims of human rights.

 

Beatriz Eugenia Sánchez-Mojica, Independent Researcher

Multilateral Managing of Environmental Migration in Latin America: Looking for a hero?

Managing migration and displacement related to environmental disasters and climate change effects is one of Latin America’s greatest challenges in the XXI century. According Internal Displacement Monitoring Centre for 2016 there were about 1.8 million people internally displaced due to environmental causes in the region.  There are no official data related to transnational migration and cross-border displacement; nonetheless several studies had pointed out that both of them are growing.  Responses to these kinds of exodus have started to emerge at the local level. However there have been few multilateral actions. Despite the fact that some statements on this issue have been made by diverse intergovernmental organizations —such as the Regional Conference on Migration, the South American Conference on Migration and the Organization of American States— just the former has developed an instrument for helping States to cope with cross-border disaster-induced displacement in a coordinated way.

This lack of multilateral action is particularly striking in a region where three integration processes are taking place:  MERCOSUR –that involves most of South American countries –   as well as the least known Central America Integration System (SICA) and Andean Community of Nations (CAN).  All of these regional organizations have developed complex normative and institutional frameworks to managing transnational migration.  Thus, it would be reasonable to expect some kind of action regarding environmental exoduses.  But, although there have been some debate, not a single measure has been taken in this regard yet.  This situation turns even odder as these regional organizations have already developed actions and even policies to deal with climate change effects and offer coordinated responses to environmental disasters. However, none of them has included the human mobility factor into such measures.

Latin America seems to be a very particular case where, in spite of the existence of numerous possible regional forums to cope with environmental migration and displacement, no one seems to be willing to do so.  One powerful reason for such behaviour is that environmental human mobility simply does not fit into the normative and institutional structures used by regional organizations to manage human mobility.  Does it mean that a multilateral response in Latin America should be searched outside these organizations? This paper looks into that question

 

René Urueña and Maria Angelica Prada, Universidad de los Andes

The last peasants: non-conventional forms of environmental displacement in the wastelands and natural parks of Colombia,

Fabio Moreno lives in El Verjo, a rural area situated within the Forest Reserve of Bogota’s Eastern Hills. He has lived there all his life, just like his parents, from whom he inherited not only his land but also his way of living. He recognizes himself as a peasant, as do his children, at least for now. However, like many other peasants around the country, his way of living is being threaten by the most unusual rival: conservation policies. According to the Colombian environmental legislation, wastelands and natural parks, such as Bogota’s Eastern Hills Forest Reserve, are conservation territories that are incompatible with most human activities, including among them all forms of agriculture or construction.

The teleology behind this legislation seems very clear, to protect environmentally rich territories from degradation by human activities. However, such legislation is currently threatening more than 25 thousand peasant families around Colombia with displacement and the eradication of their way of living. Most of these families have lived in those territories for more than half a century and, in many cases, long before they were declared wastelands or natural parks by the law. The existence of this, almost Kafkian, socio-environmental problem has been triggered by a conservation paradigm that sees environmental protection as opposed to all forms of human activities.

For Fabio Moreno, and his fellow peasants in El Verjon, the tangible effect of this regulation has meant the loss of their form of sustenance and the abandonment of the territory by their children. Until now they have resisted displacement, as they themselves call it, through the appropriation of environmental discourses and practices, while advocating for a shift towards a “parks with people” legislation. Nonetheless, some fear that increasing the flexibility of conservation policies would open the door for some forms of land grabbing by multinational corporations. The objective of this paper is to make sense of this uncommon form of environmental displacement by analyzing the competing interests and discourses that lay behind the conflict between Colombia’s environmental legislation, and peasants’ claims for a right to remain in their territories and maintain their traditional way of living.

 

Refugees in Europe (2)

 

Ine Lietaert, Ghent University; Malte Behrendt, Ghent University

Comparative analysis of care and reception structures for URM in Greece, Italy and Belgium

 Since 2015, large concerns are expressed regarding the important numbers of refugee children who are travelling on their route to or through Europe. A considerable number of these young people are travelling without their parent(s) or caregiver(s) and are referred to as unaccompanied refugee minors (URM).  Despite shared agreements on protecting URM’s rights and providing effective protection as key priorities for EU Member States, the care and reception structures availed for URM largely differ in various States, and keep on challenging many MS authorities.

Building on a typology of services developed by Watters and Hossain (2008) and based on document analysis and extensive observations during field visits, this paper compares care and reception structures for URM in Greece, Italy and Belgium along Watters’ & Hossain’s multiple dimensions, including participation in services, services’ structural dimensions, levels of control, and state versus NGO involvement. Further, the paper investigates whether for this particular type of care structures, the existing typology needs to be complemented with additional dynamic or static dimensions, including URM’s profiles, states’ welfare regimes and societies’ social climate and opportunities available for URM’s in the societies. As such, this elaborated typology can help to understand particular differences between care structures, also for other refugee and migrant groups.

 

Agata Blaszczyk, Polish University Abroad in London

The Polish Resettlement Act and Polish Resettlement Camps – the origins of the Polish Diaspora in the UK after WW2

 The subject domain of this paper is Polish immigration to post-War Britain. It portrays the Polish community’s rehabilitation in exile and the British government’s creation of a model migrant settlement policy for Polish refugees after 1946. It explains how Poles successfully integrated into mainstream British society and highlights the importance of education as their route to civic integration.

The research leading to this study examined the political implications of the passage of the Polish Resettlement Bill in March 1947 (the first ever British legislation dealing with mass immigration) and how the original refugees formed much of the Polish community as it exists today. A good deal of the work linked to the Bill involved education as provided for by the Committee for the Education of Poles, a body brought into being on 1 April 1947.

Thanks to the Committee, many Poles obtained the qualifications that enabled them to secure jobs posts and ultimately a career in industry or business and so play a useful part in the economic life of Great Britain and her overseas territories.

Children of Polish descent, who were born, brought up and educated in the reality of the resettlement camps or hostels have engaged in professional careers and made their Polish names recognizable in a rapidly diversifying British society. 

Polish refugees became one of the most prosperous immigrant groups in Great Britain and the Polish minority constitutes one of the largest ethnic groups in the UK today.

 

Molly Fee, University of California, Los Angeles

Pre-Resettlement and the Precarity of Waiting in Transit Countries

 Refugees rarely travel directly to their final destination. During their forced migration, refugees often first pass through transit countries, especially for those who will be resettled elsewhere. Refugees’ stays in urban areas or camps may last several days or years as they await the next step of their journey. During this time, refugees often face the challenges of navigating a culturally and linguistically foreign context in which they are excluded from the meaningful activities that facilitate integration, since they may not be permitted to work or attend school. This paper examines the context of waiting for Iranian religious minorities who must first travel to Vienna, Austria in order to apply for resettlement in the U.S. This group serves as a timely case study for examining how refugees navigate the transient stages of their migration, which may be prolonged though temporary. While in Vienna, they endure months of compulsory idle waiting, free from persecution yet unable to begin the long-term process of settling in a new country. Based on participant observation and 43 interviews with Iranian refugees in Vienna, this paper examines the precarity and vulnerability associated with protracted waiting. Because resettlement ultimately provides safety and stability, we tend to overlook the uncertainties associated with this “pre-resettlement” phase. My finding suggest that even when waiting is temporary and remedied with eventual resettlement, the time spent in transit has very real consequences on refugees’ physical and emotional well-being as well as on their financial resources intended for resettlement.

 

Jane Freedman, Université Paris 8

 “After Calais?”: Creating and Managing (In)Security for Refugees in Europe

In October 2016 the dismantlement of the main refugee camp in the Calais region began. This camp, often known as the “Jungle” had become a symbol of the refugee “crisis” at the heart of Europe, at once a growing point of contention between the British and French Governments both claiming that they were attempting to secure their borders, and a visible reminder of the insalubrious and insanitary conditions in which refugees were living in European borderlands. Following the destruction of the camp refugees were dispatched to various reception centres across France, but these have proved largely unsuitable to their needs, and in some cases have facilitated the use of the Dublin process to return refugees to third countries. This article will examine the “mismanagement” of the refugee camps in and around Calais, arguing that French government policy has been largely reactive, led by competing and often contradictory demands coming from various sources at local, international or European levels. Further, attempts to “secure” borders have led to increasingly insecure conditions for the refugees themselves, and have made it more difficult for those who are attempting to support them. Finally, the failure of the French and British governments to propose any suitable long term solution to the issue of refugees in Calais can be seen as a reflection of the wider failure of EU policies, and of the ways in which inaction and mismanagement can constitute a form of violence against these refugees.

 

Syrian Refugees (1)

 

Myriam Ouellet, Université Laval; Danièle Bélanger, Université Laval

Forced migration and social stratification: pathways to exile from Syria to Canada

Of the nearly 5.3 million exiled Syrian registered to date with the UNHCR, 40,081 were resettled in Canada since 2015. This paper focuses on the pre-migration and migratory experiences of refugees resettled in the province of Québec under the Government-Assisted Refugee category (GAR). More specifically, we seek to analyze the influence of social class on the exile pathways of these migrants. The paper examines the relationships between various forms of capitals – economic, social, cultural, symbolic, human, and spatial (in a Bourdieu’s sense)- and ressources mobililized in forced migration pathways from Syria to Canada. Based on on semi-structured interviews with 20 Syrian families resettled in Quebec City from Lebannon and Turkey, our results show an heterogeneity of profiles and pathways. The first group is composed of middle-class families who had sufficient ressources to reach a third country on their own but who have been selected by the Canadian Government on the basis of their global vulnerability in that country. Second, families from middle-high class had access to sufficient resources to live in the first host country, but faced serious health problems requiring costly and high quality health care. We elaborate on how refugees being resettled under the same program have different experiences of forced migration, in part shaped by their social class. The paper seeks to address the heterogeneity of experiences and the importance of social class as a marker of pathways to exile.

 

Deniz Gökalp, American University in Dubai

State-Building and Syrian Refugees in Iraqi Kurdistan

Drawing on fieldwork in Erbil and Sulaimaniyah and theoretically informed research on the politics of displacement, this paper provides an analysis on the refugee situation in Iraqi Kurdistan. The Kurdistan Regional Government of Iraq (KRG-I) presents a unique case of refugee politics given its aspirations for independence and strategic/militarized population management tactics to change the population demographics in favour of the Kurds in northern Iraq. As of August 2017, according to UNHCR, there are 238,500 registered Syrian refugees residing inside Iraqi Kurdistan. In a recent statement, the Kurdish authorities are claiming that there are about an additional 25,000 unregistered Syrians inside their territories. The KRG-I has embraced an ‘open door’ policy with a political motivation given that the majority of the Syrians seeking refuge in Iraqi Kurdistan are the Syrians of Kurdish origin. Syrian refugees are expected to stay, settle down and integrate into the ‘soon-to-be independent’ Kurdistan by the Kurdish authorities as opposed to the 1.5 million Arab IDPs who are currently residing in the region, perceived as a demographic challenge and security threat, and expected to leave. The lenient official attitude towards the inflow of Kurdish Syrians by the Iraqi Kurdish authorities has not yet been translated into social inclusion and improvement of living circumstances of the refugees (about 40% of them are children) in the politically and economically vulnerable region. This paper aims to investigate the socio-political implications of the KRG-I’s refugee policy, and the cases of social exclusion and violence against Syrian refugees in Iraqi Kurdistan.

 

Thomas McGee, Independent Researcher

Syria’s Stateless: Vulnerabilities in Displacement

This paper traces migratory narratives of stateless Syrians, highlighting historic  context of statelessness in Syria as well as the challenges some have experienced as asylum seekers along the European refugee routes. Focus is placed on how the status of persons who are already stateless can trigger new and additional vulnerabilities in displacement contexts. One aim of this paper is to make visible the suffering of such ‘stateless persons’ within the large refugee and migrant flows since the onset of the recent Mediterranean crisis, while also highlighting deficiencies in the response of immigration and humanitarian actors to adequately understand their situation. This includes the exclusion of stateless refugees from certain international resettlement schemes for Syrian refugees. Ultimately it is necessary to recognise how the protection concerns associated with each of statelessness and displacement respectively are often mutually exacerbating, multiplying the vulnerabilities faced by stateless refugees seeking safe passage to Europe. Based on this case study, the paper concludes by suggesting a series of areas for advocacy attention in order to ensure the best interests ‘stateless refugees’.

 

Refugee Issues: A view from Africa

 

Eveliina Lyytinen, Migration Institute of Finland

Refugees’ Exilic and Deportation Journeys of Trust

This paper presents a novel analytical framework to examine refugees’ journeys to exile from the perspective of ‘trust‘. I define trust as a positive feeling about or evaluation of the intentions or behaviour of another, and conceptualize it as a discursively created emotion and practice which is based on the relations between the ‘trustor’ and the ‘trustee‘. I create an analytical framework for the study of refugees’ ‘journeys of trust’ that consists of the temporal characteristics, the drivers and contexts, and the contents and orientations of ‘journeys of trust’, and the characteristics of the voyagers and their intersectionality. In this presentation, I will present my empirical findings regarding Congolese refugees’ journeys to Kampala, Uganda. Moreover, I will discuss the usefulness of this trust-focused analytical framework in others contexts, such as asylum seekers’ forced deportation journeys from the EU.

 

Roberto Forin, International Centre for Migration Policy Development

Trapped in “transit”: involuntary immobilization and the capability to stay

Most research in refugee studies focuses on populations compelled to move. Although understandable, this focus on forced mobility has arguably led scholarship to overlook those migrant populations whose vulnerability pertains precisely to their inability to move. Drawing on the concept of  ‘trapped populations’ this paper contributes to address this research gap, enabling a reconsideration of the relationship between mobility and vulnerability in situations of crisis. While existing theorising on trapped populations typically focuses on migrants’ ability to escape from danger, the paper argues that the lack of resources needed to cope with forced immobility, rather than the lack of the resources necessary to move, actually represents the greater problem. By analysing the experiences of trapped migrants in Libya during the 2011 civil war, the paper makes clear how differential access to economic, social and cultural capital can shape patterns of (im)mobility, leading to involuntary stasis for the most vulnerable groups. Furthermore, the paper argues that involuntary immobility for migrants in Libya took the form of a process, which I term involuntary immobilisation. This concept speaks to the fact that mobility is often progressively eroded by the structural constraints generated by a crisis. The paper concludes by suggesting that the concept of involuntary immobilisation can also be applied to analyse other instances in which structural constraints lead to the disempowerment of individuals by disrupting their freedom of movement, already central to their life project.

 

Reem Mussa, University of Oldenburg

Growing Up Precariously in the City: The Case of Second Generation Eritrean Refugees in Khartoum

This paper examines the lived experience of second generation Eritrean refugee youth residing in Khartoum, primarily exploring issues related to identity, constructions of refugeeness and precarious status. Due to the legal structures in Sudan including the encampment policy, refugee status offers protracted urban refugees a lack of protection and opportunities for formal integration. Many Eritrean refugees in Khartoum are in violation of the Asylum Act (2014) which limits freedom of movement, access to government services such as education and registration in urban centers. Thus, Eritrean refugees in Khartoum sit in the nexus between refugee and irregularity , which has resulted in continued police harassment, exclusion and exploitation. This analysis is starkly missing in current debate on border management and the so-called European Refugee Crisis which disproportionately places a spotlight on Eritrean migration to the Global North and constructs Sudan as a transit country. These categories and discourses have significant political and structural implications that impact the lives of Eritrean communities at a local, national and international level. The current discourses of migration management restrict refugees, potentially criminalizing communities whilst failing to address root structural issues such as precarious status. An analysis of inter-generational settlement in Khartoum offers an opportunity deconstruct these categories through centering the narratives of Eritrean youth who grew up navigating the city under continued policies of exclusion.

 

Hanna Haile, McGill University Faculty of Law

The role of law in aggravating or mitigating the vulnerability and precariousness of refugeeness: the Case of Eritrean Refugees and Asylum Seekers

Since the early 2000s, many Eritreans have been leaving their country often illegally and at great peril to their lives in order to escape human rights abuse, political and religious persecution, drought and bleak economic prospects. Despite the dangers associated with these kinds of crossings, the numbers of those crossing borders into Sudan, Ethiopia and Libya in hopes of attaining asylum or refugee status in Europe or North America. These refugees and asylum seekers are vulnerable to many dangers during the journey, including the possibility of becoming victims of the Eritrean government’s shoot to kill policy at the border, war in neighboring countries, predatory human traffickers, and very unsafe traveling conditions which may sometimes result in death.

Canada is one of the destination countries for many refugees who originally come from countries like Eritrea through the Canadian Refugee and Humanitarian Resettlement Program for people seeking protection from outside Canada and the in-Canada Asylum Program for people making refugee protection claims from within Canada. Although the Canadian refugee resettlement system is considered one of the best in the world, it has also been criticized for having some flaws, including, the high permanent residence fees and the appeals procedures in the case of an unfavorable outcome.

Based on personal interviews, this paper chronicles the vulnerabilities and precarity faced by Eritrean refugees and asylum seekers that are resettled through the Resettlement Assistance Program in Canada pre, during and post migration and the role of law in aggravating or mitigating their vulnerability and precarity.

 

Caroline Kihato, University of Johannesburg

Urban Refugees: Resilience, social networks and policy implications lessons from Nairobi, Peshawar and Gaziantep

This is part of a three-country study that explores the role of social capital and social networks in urban refugees’ quest for self-reliance in Nairobi (Kenya), Peshawar (Pakistan) and Gaziantep (Turkey). Using survey data and in-depth interviews conducted with refugees in Nairobi, this paper outlines the nature of social relationships in refugees’ home and host countries and examines the ways in which social relationships shape their socio-economic capabilities. The study used both quantitative and qualitative research methods. Our survey comprised of 1074 interviews with refugees from twelve countries, now living in Nairobi. In addition to the survey, we held one-on-one interviews with twenty-two respondents (with an equal number of male and female respondents) from Eritrea, Ethiopia, Somali, the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), South Sudan, Uganda and Burundi. Urban refugees in Nairobi are income and asset poor, living mostly from hand to mouth. With few income generating opportunities, low and irregular remittance transfers, less than half are able to meet even basic needs such as clean drinking water or sanitation. Overall, the research finds that few respondents have social networks in Nairobi. In fact 75% of our sample said that they did not have any contacts in the city before arriving. What emerges is a picture of a population that is socially isolated. Although the survey shows that primary kin connections provide some support to newly arrived refugees in Kenya, these too are tenuous and provide erratic support in the medium to longer term. In fact in some cases, these ‘strong’ social connections result in weak or negative forms of social capital causing greater individual isolation. In-depth interviews show that refugee households that experience external economic shocks, rely increasingly on weak ties – strangers or well wishers – for assistance. Overall, men are more economically resilient than women – they are more likely to earn more and find work than their female counterparts. Our research shows that the most important indicators of employment are language skills, gender and the age of the respondent. Further, Somali and Eritrean refugees have better economic outcomes than other refugee populations, while Ugandan and Burundi refugees appear to be the most vulnerable.

 

Laurence Juma, Rhodes University

Closure of refugee reception centres in South Africa: Erosion of rights and a creeping policy of encampment

This paper discusses the underlying issues of law and policy that inform the current move by the government of South Africa to close refugee reception centres that are located away from the borders. The move while raising fears that the government may be slowly edging towards enacting a policy of encampment for refugees and asylum seekers, has also prompted a relook at the existing legal framework for the protection of urban refugees in South Africa. Indeed, and as the paper will show, the closures have not only impacted rather negatively on the protection of refugees, especially urban refuges, but also diminished the responsibility that the government should bear as far as the guarantee and protection of the rights of refugees and asylum seekers are concerned. The paper will appraise these developments and at the same time critically analyse the newly published White Paper on International Immigration for South Africa (2017), which is supposed to be the government’s response to what it views as the deficits in the existing immigration law. Despite affirming the government commitment to non-encampment, the White Paper proposes the introduction of “Asylum Seeker Processing Centres” which will be facilities that provide “accommodation” for refugees and asylum seekers while their status is being determined. The paper will consider this new proposal by the White Paper in light of the moves mentioned and debate whether the government is moving closer to adopting a policy of encampment as a strategy for managing urban refugees. Apart from discussing the protection imperatives that are likely to be adversely affected and the rights deficit may result from the closures, the paper will also analyse some of the recent judicial decisions such Scalabrini & Others v Minister of Home Affairs & Others, that have challenged government action to show how the issues that are of concern in this paper have been ventilated and settled through judicial intervention.

 

Regional Perspectives on Refugee Issues: Asia/Southeast Asia

 

Minati Kalo, Jawaharlal Nehru University

The Rohingya Refugee Crisis in Bangladesh: A Current Analysis

The problem of forced migration and refugee is seen as composed of various major clusters of factors and the network of relationships between Bangladesh and Myanmar. Bangladesh is one of the important countries facing the problems of refugees, migrations and displacements. At the Same time, Bangladesh is an over populated country of South Asia, sharing its borders with India and Myanmar. After the independence in 1971, Bangladesh has started experiencing the constant refugee flight of Muslim Rohingya (An ethnic Muslim Minority Group) from Myanmar because of the fear of religious as well as ethnic persecution. Bangladesh has mostly welcomed them and provided them protection under the ad hoc decisions, although there is no statutory law for the refugees. This work takes into consideration the basic components of the Rohingya refugee situation such as forced migration due to repression in native Myanmar, the consequent refugee problems causing conflicts between Bangladesh and Myanmar and the local and international efforts to manage and resolve these situations. For understanding the dynamics of the problem, the activities of the Rohingya refugee and internationalization of this issue are also singled out for particular consideration. Basically, it is a problem which manifests itself in various forms on the societal, governmental and international levels. It is a humanitarian and moral issue, a security issue, a development issue and to a growing extent it is issue of an environmental and natural resources. This paper also explores the dynamics of Bangladesh-Myanmar relationship disrupted by the Rohingya refugee crisis.

 

Basundhara Tripathy, Wageningen University and Research

Migration, Immobility and Climate change: gender dimensions of poverty in coastal Bangladesh

Global environmental change has led to movements of people within and between various world regions. Bangladesh has been recognized as one of the most vulnerable countries in the world to the impacts of climate change. The issue of climate-induced migration and immobility of the ‘trapped population’ are the key issues investigated in this paper. Gender complexities, the confinement of women to certain spaces and its relationship with poverty have been explored within the environmentally fragile region of south west Bangladesh. The focus on immobility is a consequence of the paradigm shift towards seeing migration as adaptation. It implies that in focusing on the migrants, researchers could be missing the most vulnerable populations—those who cannot afford to adapt and/or move. Keeping track of both those who stay and those who migrate will offer a better understanding of the effects of mobility on vulnerability and resilience as well as serve as a yardstick for the policies being devised.

Women and young girls who fall within the ‘poorest of the poor’ umbrella category, but their experiences in the vulnerable environment vary according to inequalities such as age, class, religion, etc. These experiences of women and their lack of capability of movement from the place of origin have been analyzed in this research. The study contributes to the larger debate of migration and immobility which is under researched, highlighting gender dimensions in coastal Bangladesh.

 

Chaphiak Lowang, Jawaharlal Nehru University

The Forgotten Refugees: A Study of Lhotshampas of Bhutan

The present era has witnessed a series of conflicts between different ethnic groups which has uprooted thousands of lives from their homelands, making them stateless people. This phenomenon is particularly pervasive in South Asia where every state barring Maldives has been home to one or more ethnic conflicts. The tiny nation of Bhutan has cultivated a self-righteous image of itself owing to its unique national philosophy that measures development based on the gross happiness of its citizens. However, it is relatively unknown that the discriminatory policies of what is essentially an ethno-majoritarian state systematically disenfranchised and dispossessed a large section of its population which gave rise to a full-blown ethnic strife between the dominant group-the Drukpas (Buddhism) and the minority group-the Lhotshampas (Nepali Hindus). This ethnic conflict which took place in Bhutan clearly depicts characteristics of human rights violations furthering displacement and forced migration of the minority group. A refugee crisis was reached as state action led to the expulsion of around 100,000 Nepali residents from the southern Bhutan to neighbouring countries like India and Nepal where they were given shelter in the refugee camps in Nepal. Decades later this crisis still remains unresolved. Although it is expected to relax as more refugees are resettled in developed countries like USA Canada Norway, New Zealand etc. This paper would examine the origins of refugee crisis in Bhutan and their current concerns and experiences and also would analyse the state responses and policies towards addressing the refugee problem in Bhutan.

 

Lucy Fiske, University of Technology Sydney (UTS)

Crisis and Opportunity: Gender and Social Change in Exile

Expulsion from the state is approached as a crisis within both human rights and refugee studies, with Hannah Arendt proposing that the ‘loss of national rights was identical with the loss of human rights’ (Arendt 1976, 292). This analysis, conceptualises the state as a protective structure and seeks to rehabilitate the refugee into the state system, whether within a reformed natal state (through return), or into a new state (through local integration or resettlement), ultimately restoring the refugee as ‘citizen’. This model is rooted in what Nira Yuval Davis (1999, 119) terms ‘the “fraternal” enlightenment project’ and is both western centric and has a male, purportedly universal imagined citizen at its heart. Postcolonial feminist scholars have articulated the many ways in which third world/non-western women’s relationships to the state are more commonly either distant or repressive. Expulsion from the state may not, for those who have held only notional or marginal citizenship, entail the ‘radical crisis’ of human rights (Agamben 1998, 126) that refugee studies and human rights theories conceive. Moments of rupture and crisis that disrupt powerful socio-cultural norms and break the alliance between constraining state and civil society structures can also be moments of social transformation and opportunity. This paper examines the testimonies and social practices of a community of Hazara refugees in transit in Indonesia who are using their expulsion from the state to challenge constraining patriarchal norms within their community, profoundly changing gender, age and power relations.

 

Mary Rose Geraldine A. Sarausad, Asian Institute of Technology

Creating Categories of Migrants at the Borders of Cambodia and Thailand

This paper investigates the rising trend in migration not only from within the Mekong region, but also of those coming from outside the region; mainly, unauthorized or irregular migration. Findings from the study of Filipinos in Thailand is particularly revealing because of the type of migration system established by migrants themselves, evolving over the last 60 years and has remained understudied. Although a migration system exist, its development was difficult to ascertain because of the absence of formal connections based on labour migration between the two countries.  Results from the surveys in five major provinces in Thailand and at the three borders between Cambodia and Thailand, and in-depth interviews revealed that Thailand’s approach to international migration or cross-border migration has been twofold. On one hand, migration policies are seriously enforced upon those coming from the Greater Mekong Sub-region (GMS) such as Myanmar, and in some cases, on other countries within the GMS corridor.  On the other hand, the handling of migration policies toward other migrants from outside of the GMS has been seen as flexible, changing and indefinite; creating ambiguous implications of legality.  Various categories have emerged and have been used to refer to a migrant’s status in the absence of a legal employment status.  The main reason for this is that current definitions of legality in Thailand are problematic as seen in the twofold approach in enforcing migration laws, the social climate created, and the ability of other migrants to ‘bend’ them.  Thus, the practice of border crossing has become a negotiated space due to the complex migration regimes present in Thailand.  This paper, therefore, highlights the various ways in which classes of migrants have been redefined within more complex migration regimes in Thailand, and explains the dynamics within networks and processes vis-à-vis the borders resulting to the development of other categories within the binary classifications of migrants. 

 

Saima Raza, Asia Pacific Refugee Network

Refugee as a human

Refugees are presented as illegal migrant, alien etc. Everywhere in the world there is a different concept of refugee. No one treat them as a human. Refugees are also humans they have same dreams and wishes as we have but the differnce is we go to other country as tourist or for some business purpose but refugee not choose the countries to live,their purpose is live with peace like other humans. People now adays have very quick jugdment on refugee issues without looking on fact they call them terrorist.

 

Regional Perspectives: Refugees in the Middle East

 

Oroub El-Abed, SOAS- London University

Citizens and refugees: Managing through engendering disparities

This work questions the economic opportunities accessed by Palestinian-origin Jordanians living in East Amman since 1989. The question sought to unpack four aspects: firstly, the access to citizenship rights Palestinian-origin Jordanians have been enjoying since 1948 in the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan. Secondly, the economic integration of Palestinian refugees, who have become citizens in Jordan and their ability to grow up the ladder. Those Palestinian-origin Jordanians studied in this research represent a group of a particular class, the disenfranchised one, living in the eastern part of Amman known to host the middle-lower class. Fourthly, the research question has specified a time, the year 1989, that dates the beginning of the political and economic liberalisation which very slowly sought to create new circles of actors whose political or economic interests pair with that of the state. The disparities, that existed earlier in Jordan, widened, bringing in limited beneficiaries who have been reaping the fruits of liberalistion and open economy. The case study in this work, the Palestinian-origin Jordanians of East Amman, has been impacted by these aspects and have been vulnerable to political instability, economic fluctuations and social divisions. This work has sought to analyse the state-refugee/citizen relationship in order to understand the politics used by the state to manage its peoples, with their varied origins, classes and social statuses. This background has become essential to understand how the new comers of the many refugees, pushed by the new conflicts in the Middle East region, have been treated in Jordan. 

Suzanne Menhem, Lebanese University

Forced migration and its impact on the work of Syrian young women in Lebanon

After the breakout of the Syrian war in 2011 and the ensuing crisis, thousands of Syrian refugees and their families (came) to Lebanon. According to UNHCR statistics for 2015 the number of Syrian refugees registered were 1 200 000. It should be noted that these refugees are not residing in camps of their own, but are distributed in towns and cities and therefore engage with Lebanese society. The result of this asylum is their relentless search for work and a salary that is less to what the Lebanese worker receives. 

The integration of Syrians in the Lebanese labor market is not new. The Syrian workers was previously employed “in the construction and agriculture sectors. After the end of the Lebanese civil war in 1990, the Syrian labor force expanded from their former sectors into the industrial sector as well as the tourism services sector of hotels and restaurants. 

Previously, many Lebanese employed Syrian girls in domestic service and in agriculture, but this reality changed with the Lebanese civil war due, on one hand, to the instability of the security situation and (on the other hand) to the change in the Syrian mentality.

The security occurrences that hit Syrian society since 2011 has led to the forced migration of Syrians, in general, and of “children, women and youth in particular”.

This paper studies the employment of young Syrian women in Lebanon through the hypothesis of social and economic changes. It will raise the problematic of the employment of young Syrian women and their emergence in the Lebanese labor market. 

The employment of young Syrian women into the Lebanese labor market is not something new. Most of them had left schooling in Syria in order to start work while others continued to work in the professions in which they worked in Syria. In addition, within this group of young women who had worked in Syria and who then started a new type of employment in Lebanon. 

This reality, created by the Syrian crisis, raises a number of central questions: the arrival of these young women in Lebanon; their preparations for entering Lebanon’s formal and informal labor market and their involvement within; the basic occupations and conditions in which they work, their relationship with the Lebanese employer, and their interaction with both the Lebanese and  Syrian employees and the socio-economic results of this youth work.

Methodologically, in addition to the literature review, field work will be carried out to include firstly, an exploratory observation and secondly, a semi-structured interview on a sample of 20 young Syrian women, on how they see themselves before and after their forced migration, and their future hopes in terms of education, specifically the training that is required.

A qualitative analysis (qualitative approach) will be adopted with regard to data analysis. 

The study will also show changes in their living conditions, education and employment through the adoption of policies that can improve the situation of young women in the future and to propose recommendations and strategies to the concerned collaborators (Ministry, NGO, associations…).

 

Samia Qumri, Independent Researcher

Survival in times of displacement; rethinking resilience and precarity in the case of  Syrian Refugees in Jordan

In a world flooded with information and data influenced by the ever growing migration and demographic changes due to crises, creating robust policy solutions is highly challenging to any state. To change the common perspective of the ‘burden factor’ associated with any displacement requires coming together as participants to identify and address shared issues. Syrian refugees Camps in Jordan have become emblematic of the displacement of Syrians and have contested the idea of burden yet in fact pose as an opportunity for resilience, change and development.

In recognizing the disproportionate impact of the Syria crisis on the economic and market development in Jordan, as well as mitigate any associated tensions by the host community towards the refugees related to employment. As a result, there’s need to prioritizes economic, market development and livelihoods as part of its wider strategy focused on integrating refugee communities and associate them with the development process of the state. Jordan’s economic opportunity and market development programming must be integrated by all relevant stakeholders be it the government, UN/NGO entities and the donor community for better response targeted at the economic, market development and livelihoods sectors.

The aim of this paper is to translate identified possibilities for action into concrete initiatives for dealing constructively with the consequences of migration. And to fostering resilience of local communities is the essence to any recovering economy.

Sena Duygu Topcu, Max Planck for Social Anthropology

Renegotiation of gender and emotions in radical uncertainty: Syrian refugee families in Istanbul

Drawing on recent studies of affect and gender, this paper will focus on refugee family members’ work and socially positioning themselves in the given regional and local specificities in Istanbul. I explore Syrians’ refugeeness from a gendered and emotional perspective where men encounter unemployment, long-working hours, precarity of jobs, or hardship in establishing a status in the market as a tradesman. At the same time, gender roles are re-negotiated as women and children start working, and women take on new bureaucratic and social responsibilities outside and inside home.

This paper draws on ethnographic fieldwork among Syrian refugee families in Istanbul to demonstrate how gender roles and family relations are negotiated at times of crisis, and radical uncertainty. Findings are based on twelve months of research in 2016-2017 in İkitelli, a province in Istanbul which hosts Turkey’s biggest organized industrial zone, attracting refugee families from different backgrounds.

The refugee family members create new boundaries in gender roles in the process of adaptation to their refugeeness in the new social and economic environment. Love and care relations between men and women in the families in the context of the new social and economic pressures in Istanbul go hand in hand with shifts in practices of masculinity and femininity. While Syrian men and women are expected to establish new gender norms, they persist to practice some of the traditionally represented gendered practices. The extent or the presence of these shifts changes across generations.

 

Regional Perspectives: North America, Australia, New Zealand, and the UK

 

Ranjith Kulatilake, York University

Re-Queering the Queer and Benevolent Othering –  On the Frontline with LGBTQ Asylum Seekers in Toronto

LGBTQ asylum seekers take various routes to enter Canada: via agents without an entry visa, or with a visitor or student visa. Substantially coming from Africa, others are from the Middle East, the Caribbean, Eastern Europe and South Asia. Upon arrival, they face extraordinary challenges: strict deadlines, complex system navigation, trauma and grief, abject poverty, homelessness, racism, transphobia and homophobia. They must prove the credibility of their claims, including fitting into one identity as dictated by the North American definitions of the LGBTQ acronym. Often their lawyers label them: for example, if married they become ‘bisexual’, even though the marriage was often forced upon them, or used as a cover up. They are urged to attend and volunteer in programs offered by not-for-profit agencies and there obtain letters of support. This ‘re-queering’ process entails memorising their narratives, familiarising themselves with the LGBTQ definitions and Toronto’s queer scene, about which they may be tested at their refugee hearings. All this while funding for services is being reduced, waiting times for work permits are getting longer, incidences of racism are increasing and jobs are more precarious. And still Canada is portrayed as a safe haven and Toronto is hailed as the world’s most multicultural city. This paradox is called ‘benevolent othering’.

This paper is based on my frontline experiences of working with LGBTQ asylum seekers at a community health centre in Toronto that provides primary health care, community programs and interpreter services for immigrants and refugees.

 

Jessica Darrow, University of Chicago; co-presenter: Jessica Howsam, University of Chicago School of Social Service Administration

How to weather the storm: Implications from the impact of President Trump’s Executive Orders on the U.S. Refugee Resettlement Program

Almost immediately after assuming office, the Trump administration pursued restrictions and reductions to the U.S. refugee program through multiple channels: Executive Orders, amendments to the Refugee Act, restructuring and decreased federal funding, lowered admissions ceilings, and understaffing the Bureau of Population, Refugees, and Migration in the State Department. Against this backdrop of institutional precarity, this study examines the impact of President Trump’s Executive Orders on domestic refugee resettlement organizations. Using a grounded theory approach, this study describes how administrators interpreted, implemented, and responded to the Executive Order within their different roles. Data collected through semi-structured interviews with key informants from relevant federal agencies, National Resettlement Agencies, state offices, local resettlement organizations, and Mutual Assistance Associations was analyzed using content and discourse analysis. Preliminary analysis describes key differences in the ways different institutional actors responded to the organizational conditions created by the Executive actions. While some agencies engaged in innovation, others were unable to move beyond stopgap measures intended to whittle budgets to a bare minimum. Ultimately this study describes the distinct organizational strategies used to “weather the storm” of uncertainty in this unprecedented and highly politicized moment in the history of U.S. refugee resettlement. This study contributes to growing literature on policy implementation, providing insight into the relatively obscure process of refugee policy implementation. Moreover, analysis of these organizational strategies offers vital information for resettlement practitioners and can potentially be adapted to other institutional contexts facing similar constraints.

 

James Simeon, York University

No Refugee Protection for Those Who are Complicit in International Criminality in Canada, USA, UK, Australia and New Zealand

Refugee protection is not granted to all those who are complicit in international crimes under Article 1F of the 1951 Convention related to the Status of Refugees. The underlying moral and legal principle here being that those who are criminally liable for the commission of international crimes, and are responsible often for the forced displacement that produces refugees, should not be the beneficiaries of a Convention intended to protect refugees. This paper will analyze comparatively the leading superior court refugee jurisprudence in five common law jurisdictions: Canada, USA, UK, Australia and New Zealand. It will seek to discern what constitutes complicity under international refugee law based on the superior court refugee law judgements in these five States. This comparative national jurisprudential analysis will be supplemented with the judgements on complicity and exclusion and/or extended criminal liability that are found in a number of international courts such as the European Court of Human Rights, the Court of Justice of the European Union, the Inter-America Court of Human Rights, the Africa Court of Human and Peoples’ Rights, the International Criminal Court, and the International Court of Justice. The comparative national and international jurisprudential analysis on complicity and exclusion will be able to provide a clear ‘snap shot’ of the state of international law with respect to one of the most difficult and contentious areas of criminal liability for the purposes of excluding those who are responsible for serious international crimes from refugee protection.

 

Panel: Temporary & Durable Responses to Displacement Crises: Comparative Perspectives

Chair: Ruvi Ziegler, University of Reading; Co-convenor: Evangelia (Lilian) Tsourdi, Refugee Studies Centre, University of Oxford

 

Christel Querton, Newcastle University

‘New Wars’ Refugees: Revisiting the Refugee Convention to Engender Permanent Responses in the European Union

The number of persons claiming asylum in the European Union has risen dramatically and most now originate from regions experiencing armed conflicts. Contemporary armed conflicts or ‘new wars’ are distinct from traditional warfare and are generally characterised by the rise of non-state actors and fragile states in the context of globalisation. Civilians are increasingly targeted as fighting parties aim to control and terrorise populations in the absence of conventional military power. Although there is wide recognition within conflict and security studies that most conflicts have a gender dimension this is almost entirely overlooked within international refugee law scholarship.

Therefore, this paper contends that international refugee law based on traditional concepts of international law, such as the war/peace or civilian/combatant dichotomies, needs to be reconceptualised to better respond to the realities of ‘new wars’. Drawing on gendered theories of conflict, this paper proposes a framework for the interpretation and application of the Refugee Convention definition to adequately reflect gendered dynamics within particular societies and the role of violence in ‘new wars’. It sets out that gender, understood as a hierarchy of social power, is an essential element to explain the nature, causes and responses to violence. This paper will further discuss the potential contribution of this framework for permanent responses to Afghan, Iraqi and Syrian asylum claims through data collected from appeal instances in several EU Member States.

 

Evangelia (Lilian) Tsourdi, Refugee Studies Centre, University of Oxford

Adding Fuel to the Fire: How emergency-driven solidarity constructed an EU ‘asylum crisis’

Policy makers had conceptualised the Common European Asylum System as a ‘common area of protection and solidarity’. Article 80 TFEU establishes the principle of ‘solidarity and fair-sharing of responsibility’, a principle which is structural to the EU asylum policy, dictates a certain ‘quality’ in the co-operation of the different actors, and nuances the goal of the policy. And yet, the absence of solidarity and fair-sharing in the administrative governance of the policy is glaring. This paper critically assesses how emergency-driven solidarity constructed an EU ‘asylum crisis’. It outlines the main tenets of the initial design for the implementation of the policy. It then focuses on three areas: responsibility-assignation; practical cooperation; and EU funding, examining the scope of solidarity, and efforts to operationalize it. It covers developments catapulted by the 2015 ‘asylum crisis’, such as the emergency intra-EU relocation schemes, the emergence of new funding lines, and the enhancement in the operational role of EU agencies. It argues that despite the rhetoric surrounding the solidarity principle, rather than being structurally embedded in the system’s administration modes, it remains emergency-driven. In this sense, the implementation design fails to attain ‘fair sharing’, as well as to respond to what are essentially structural, rather than exceptional needs, constructing an EU ‘asylum crisis’.

 

Nick Maple, University of London

Regime-shifting in Southern Africa & the Global refugee regime

This paper examines state responses to refugee influxes in Southern Africa and how these interact with the global refugee regime. Taking South Africa and Zambia as case studies, the paper provides a multi-scalar perspective on contemporary refugee policy and practice by analysing how the implementation of the refugee regime is being changed and constrained at the ‘meso-level’ (the state level) and the ‘micro-level’ (the local level such as the municipality). At the national level, drawing on the new South African Green and White Papers on International Migration, the paper suggests via a form of regime shifting, the treatment of refugees in South Africa is rapidly moving from policy and practice founded on the global refugee regime to a new migration management approach whereby refugees are becoming viewed solely as economic migrants. At other levels of analysis, however, for example at the municipality level, the paper shows how new political, economic and social relations are emerging, which allow refugees and asylum-seekers access to regime norms that may bypass or ignore conventional interactions with legal and policy frameworks at the national level.

 

Hugh Tuckfield, University of Sydney

How States Decide: Durable solutions, international norms and protracted refugee situations

This paper investigates the enduring question of how states decide to create and implement durable solutions and to follow or reject the international human rights norms of the international framework of the refugee regime in their decision-making behaviour. It does so in the context of how and why the Himalayan states of Nepal, sandwiched between China and India, in 2006-07, decided to agree to a proposal by Washington to resettle the Bhutanese, but did not agree to accept a similar proposal to resettle the Tibetan refugees. To investigate this paradox my research has developed a conceptual framework grounded in international relations (IR) theory and the concept of socialization to ‘explain how state and non-state actors change their behaviour and embrace new ideas’ to conform to international norms of the refugee regime. This research contributes to understanding how other states decide on modes of protection and durable solutions, whether to follow or reject international human rights norms, and how their decision-making behaviour is shaped by other state (the US, China and India) and non-state actors (UNHCR).  

 

Ruvi Ziegler, University of Reading

A European Protection Space?  ‘Beneficiaries of International Protection’ & Freedom of Movement

This paper probes the mobility space that persons recognised as BIP occupy in the EU legal landscape in contradistinction from (other) third-country nationals. While Article 33 of the Qualification Directive requires MS to allow BIP intra-state freedom of movement under the same conditions that TCNs generally enjoy (cue Article 26 of the 1951 Refugee Convention), the Long-Term Residents Directive (LTRD) which facilitates cross-border mobility after five years of continuous residence (Article 4) has initially excluded BIP. In 2011, the LTRD was amended (2011/51/EU) to encompass BIP. Hitherto, BIP are excluded from the application of the ‘highly qualified employment’ Directive (‘Blue Card’ holders) (Directive 2009/50/EC) (Article 3(2(b)), though the European Commission recently proposed a revision that will extend its application to BIP. It is contended that BIP are the ultimate non-citizen ‘European’: they are granted international protection by a MS based on a uniform status determined by EU law and authoritatively interpreted by the CJEU. The question which MS is responsible for determining eligibility is similarly determined by EU law- (in)famous ‘Dublin’ (Regulation (EU) No 604/2013). Indeed, these features distinguish BIP from other TCNS: MS generally make first admissions decisions regarding the latter based on their (independently determined) immigration policy.  Hence, it could be suggested that, whilst the responsibility for determining the status of an individual as a BIP lies with (one) MS, their mobility ought not be restricted to that MS. BIP are forced migrants; they are unable to return to their country of origin and thus wholly dependent on their state of asylum. The creation of an EU Protection space where BIP can exercise mobility rights could carry an emancipatory potential: one that is not only realised through actual movement, but also liberates the BIP to seek domicile that would better align with their own preferences.

 

Roundtable: Refugeeness and Precarity: Separated Children, Security, Terrorism and Exclusion from Refugee Protection

James Simeon, York University; Yao Li, University of Potsdam; Joseph Rikhof, University of Ottawa; Maarten Bolhuis, VU University Amsterdam; Elspeth Guild, Radboud University; Didier Bigo, King’s College London and Sciences-Po Paris          

This Round Table proposal consists of six paper presentations that will focus on the broad theme of “criminality, precarity and ‘refugeeness’ or, more narrowly, Convention refugee status” and fits very nicely within the IASFM17 International Conference Theme 1: Crises, Precarity and Refugeeness. The first paper will consider the so-called Exclusion Clauses of the 1951 Convention relating to the Status of Refugees, Article 1F, and will focus on the function, objectives, and consequences of exclusion from refugee protection. It will also consider the punitive nature of these clauses in excluding persons for their alleged involvement in criminal activities. The second paper will consider the plight of separated children, which have experienced sharp increases in numbers in recent years, and, will address, specifically, the situation of former child soldiers and how they are exploited by their smugglers/traffickers en route and by the asylum processes in their host countries upon their arrival. Special emphasis will be placed on the former child soldiers’ dual nature, as previous alleged ‘perpetrators’ of serious crimes and as ‘victims’ of persecution. The third paper will consider security screening for refugee claimants. National security concerns have been pre-eminent since 9/11 and States are resorting more and more to security screening. However, a “knowledge gap” exists in relation to the effectiveness of the methods used for identifying people posing a security threat. Moreover, little is known about the possible negative consequences of these methods and more insight into these potential negative consequences is imperative. The fourth paper presentation will interrogate the issue of ‘refugees and security,’ which are at the top of the political agendas in a number of European states. Not surprisingly, this issue has been picked up by the UN in the New York Declaration that calls for two compacts: one on safe, orderly and regular migration; and, the other on refugees. This paper will focus on the linkages between ‘refugees and security’ and how the UN will address this overriding concern in the negotiations on the new Global Compact. The fifth paper will consider the question posed (again) by many policy makers after the arrival of substantial numbers of refugees, principally by means of perilous journeys by sea, in Europe in 2015-16 and the resurgence of terrorist attacks, “Is there a link between these recent refugee arrivals and terrorism?” If this is a false continuum, then, what kind of analysis assists in understanding it? The sixth paper will examine the exclusion of “terrorists” from refugee protection in three common law jurisdictions: Canada, the United States, and the United Kingdom. It will comparatively analyze, in particular, the legal definition of terrorism in each of these jurisdictions as well as whether there is a convergence or divergence in the leading jurisprudence on terrorism in and across these three jurisdictions. The comparative analysis will also consider asylum seekers’ exclusion from refugee protection for their alleged direct or indirect involvement and participation in terrorist activities. Together, these six paper presentations will provide a detailed cross section of the state of “criminality, precarity and refugeeness” in both national and international refugee law and practice, and public policy today.

 

Regional Perspectives: Greece

 

Olga Demetriou, PRIO

Forced migration and citizenship in post-conflict settings

This paper will explore the links between citizenship regimes in post-conflict settings and the regulation of refugeehood. Taking as examples the cases of Greece and Cyprus, it will argue that local conflict contexts matter to the governance of refugeehood today. The paper will build on Voutira’s analysis of –emic and –etic concepts guiding such governance to argue that in the context of multiple crises this intersection becomes ever more relevant. The focus of the analysis are the legal regimes guiding ‘refugee’ identification, their connections to the Greco-Turkish conflict, and their effects on different refugee populations. The paper is an additional submission to the panel proposed by Cindy Horst on “The good citizen in refugee settings: displacement, hospitality and citizenship”.

 

Jovana Mastilovic, Griffith Law School

The Impact of Securitisation on Access to Asylum in the European Union: A Case Study of the Closure of the Western Balkans Route

The European Union (EU) has implemented many policy developments in the field of asylum due to the arrival of more than one million people seeking international protection in 2015. Conflict was the primary reason people arrived on the Greek islands from Turkey and continued their journey to northern European countries via the Western Balkans route. The EU response to this influx of people was increased co-operation with Turkey and the Western Balkans countries in the field of border management. This presentation will first describe the policies implemented on behalf of the EU Member States to ‘better manage migration’. It will then present the results of empirical data collection conducted with non-governmental organisations assisting people seeking asylum and policy-makers on the Greek island; Lesvos, the countries of the Western Balkans, and Hungary. The intention of empirical research was to find out whether the intentions of the EU – Turkey Statement and the closure of the Western Balkans route have been achieved, what impacts they have on people seeking asylum, and whether they have elevated security (and for whom). There are currently tens of thousands of people seeking asylum restricted in movement in the Western Balkans countries and Greece as a result of border closures and more people lost their lives trying to reach the EU to seek asylum in 2016 than they did in 2015. This presentation will address the consequences of EU policies and their impact on people seeking asylum.

 

Vasiliki Kakosimou, Head officer of the Asylum Unit in Piraeus

Dealing with Unaccompanied Children Seeking Asylum – the case of Greece

In the asylum procedure, separated children form a special sub-group of children among the unaccompanied ones that requires specialized protection.

The law allows separated children to apply for asylum, by themselves or through a guardian or legal representative, independently from the accompanying adult. Separated children are not clearly informed about asylum procedures, the possibility of applying independently for asylum, and the consequences of the different choices.

Appropriate legal advice and representation throughout the asylum procedure is essential to ensure that separated children receive a fair treatment of their claim. However, legal representatives are not appointed systematically in the case of separated children seeking asylum.

The recognition rate for separated children in Greece is considerably lower than for the general asylum seeking population. It is important to note, however, that most separated children whose asylum application is rejected obtain permission to stay temporarily or permanently on humanitarian or other grounds.

The estimated number of UaMs in Greece is 2.450 (31th August 2017) according to EKKA. In 2017 (31th of August) the Greek Asylum Service received 1.725 asylum applications from UaMs but only 160 of them (0,4% of the general asylum seeking population) were given a form of international protection. In 2016, 2.352 applications from UaMs were received, from which 103 (0,2% of the general asylum seeking population) were recognized as beneficiaries of international protection (Greek Asylum Service Statistical Data- September 2017).

 

Roundtable: Mediated Greek family: The transformation of refugee families through crisis

Larissa Noel, York University

Crisis is an experience that in some cases cannot be erased. It is an experience that is absorbed, and creates a strong imprint. What happens if crisis influences a collective group, household, or in this case a family? The notion of crisis for many instances is overlooked and not properly understood. What does crisis mean, and what does it evoke? This ethnography will closely analyze how Syrian refugees encounter crisis, during their transition into Athens, Greece. The ethnographic context will be focused in Athens at a family day center, for refugees. The ideology of transformation, primarily towards families and kinship will be critically analyzed in the context of the Athenian society. The idea of family and kinship was originally recognized as “distinctly European”, within Athens. This paper will analytically view how this idea is detrimental, towards refugees who are settling in Greece. The anthropological methods which have been applied to this research were informal interviews with several families throughout the day center, participatory observation, and reflexivity with an emic perspective, through qualitative analysis. Multi-sited analysis, has been applied to identify what particular groups of individuals are classified as “the other” from the perspective of the Greek population, and why? Inventively, the Greek orthodox is highly incorporated with the Greek identity, which becomes problematic towards the emergence of a new form of a Greek family. Evidently, this ethnography will draw attention to the oppressive experience that several refugee families have encountered. Furthermore, the notion of austerity will be closely analyzes, in order to understand how the lack of certain resources affects the development of the refugee family units, transitioning into the Greek society.

 

Unaccompanied children

 

Océane Uzureau, Marina Rota, Ilse Derluyn, Ghent University

Analysis of the transit experiences of unaccompanied refugee minors travelling into Europe

Travelling to and through Europe alone or separated from their parent(s) and caregiver(s) for various reasons, unaccompanied refugee minors (URM) are highly exposed to risk of abuse, exploitation and other traumatic experiences during their journey.

In this presentation, we present findings of the CHILDMOVE project, which intends to document the psychological impact of various transit experiences of URM who travel along the Central and Eastern Mediterranean Route. Based on semi-structured interviews with URM in different transit and destination countries (Greece, Italy and Belgium), various aspects of the minors’ journeys will be investigated and analyzed such as, the decision-making process to leave their home country, their living circumstances while being on the move and their negotiations about and changes within their trajectory. The accounts of the young people will also provide valuable knowledge on their perceived dependency on smugglers, experiences of abuse from different actors and the detrimental living conditions in first reception and detention centres or informal camps in certain settings. Based on these findings, we aim to increase the insight into the risk factors encountered by URM and contribute to a better identification of their material, social and psychological needs along their migratory journey which might be valuable for support services dedicated to this population.

 

Jovana Arsenijevic, Médecins Sans Frontières

Violence inflicted on minors attending MSF mental health clinics – “caught in limbo” by Europe’s restrictive migration policies

Background and Objectives: In response to the so-called “European Migration Crisis”, the European Union (EU) has introduced restrictive migration policies with aim to deter migration and close migration routes towards the EU, most significantly the closure of the Balkan Route and the EU-Turkey Deal in 2016. Border closure policies have resulted in the most vulnerable migrants often unaccompanied minors and separated children pushed into more dangerous and marginalized conditions, experiencing violence often perpetuated by state authorities. 

Among migrants/refugees who were under 18 years of age (minors) attending mental health clinics operated by Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) in Serbia assessed a) their presenting mental health symptoms and b) the trend of traumatic events and physical injuries and alleged perpetrators.

Method: A cross-sectional study (September 2016 to February 2017) of routinely collected retrospective data from MSF mental health clinics.

Results: Of 143 minors interviewed, the majority (n=117, 82%) were unaccompanied, 26% were children (<15 years) and 9% were female. The most frequent mental health symptoms included: adjustment/acute reactions (30%), anxiety (29%) and depression (13%).

Of all minors (n-143), 84(59%) experienced traumatic events with 67(80%) having accompanying physical injuries. Electrocutions, sensory deprivation and cigarettes burns were also seen. There were 19 child victims of physical violence, the youngest being 10 years. The most frequent alleged perpetrator of physical injuries was state authorities in the EU namely Bulgaria, Hungary and Croatia, responsible for 97% of such injuries. Traumatic events standardized by 100 mental health consultations were high and sustained (44%-73%) over the study period.

 

Simon Goodman, Coventry University; Kayleigh Brown, Coventry University; Helen Liebling, Coventry University

A culture of disbelief: Demonstrating how asylum interviews with separated children are interrogations

Unaccompanied minors or ‘separated children’ are refugees travelling alone. In the UK, if they can convince the Home Office in an asylum interview that they are refugees, they will be given refugee status. Existing analyses of the asylum system in the UK point to the existence of ‘a culture of disbelief’ whereby refugees are assumed to be lying about their cases, which may explain the high rate of rejection (and also successful appeals) in refugee decisions. However, until now, no detailed analysis of the interviews refugees have with the Home Office, which determine their status, have been conducted. Therefore, this paper uses the discursive psychological approach, which addresses how arguments are made and responded to, to assess these decision-making interviews. Five transcripts of asylum interviews conducted between Home Office staff and unaccompanied minors were obtained, with consent. Discourse analysis identified three features of the asylum interview which functioned in distinct and overlapping ways to interrogate and discredit the child’s account. These are: (1) speculation by interviewers about the child’s fear (‘fear versus fact’); (2) highlighting inconsistencies in accounts (‘you didn’t say that before’); and (3) use of unanswerable and unverifiable questions (‘tell me exactly what happened’). Analysis revealed that, contrary to safeguarding policy, children are often exposed to an adversarial system, which inhibits narration of their story in a safe and comfortable way and may reduce their likelihood of being granted refugee status. Suggestions for improving the asylum system for separated children are offered based on these findings.

 

Katharina Schaur, International Centre for Migration Policy Development, Almut Bachinger, International Centre for Migration Policy Development

Building a good life: How separated children and youths navigate labour market policies and their own aspirations in Austria

Separated minor refugees are affected by the ongoing re-shaping of welfare and labour market policies in a particular way, as they are situated within workfare discourses which demand young people’s staying in school and education lest they become jobless “burdens”; and the perceived “refugee crisis” with an increasingly charged Austrian discourse, which puts them under the general suspicion of having immigrated for economic reasons or to enjoy social benefits. As young people, they are on the one hand framed as being particularly deserving of support, but on the other hand, they are the target of racist fears and clichés. Within academic discussions, the situation of young separated minors is still mainly analysed in the context of their particular vulnerability and psychological distress. What is less discussed is young people’s ingenuity in forging their own path in a difficult environment.

Based on qualitative interviews and group discussions conducted in several Austrian provinces in July – October 2017, we will analyse how separated minor refugees navigate this charged situation. We add to a growing body of research that focuses on young refugees’ agency, as they find their way through a jungle of regulations, and covert or overt discrimination; negotiate sometimes contradictory expectations of their friends, teachers, caregivers, families, and (potential) employers; and develop their own perspectives against the in many ways restricted framework of opportunities provided to them.

 

Refugees, migrants, and education

 

Rebecca Murray, University of Sheffield

 ‘Access as Belonging’, what does access to higher education mean for forced migrants?

Going beyond asylum seeker-led calls for access to higher education, this paper analyses the challenges faced by forced migrants who have accessed higher education and face both immigration and academic pressures. Drawing upon over a decade’s experience as a practitioner and campaigner, as well as recent PhD fieldwork data, I will present my framework of ‘shared characteristics’. This framework relates to forced migrants who not only seek asylum but also opportunities in HE (higher education); to commence, continue or validate existing HE qualifications. In doing so, I argue that from the unique and individual experiences of forced migrants, a shared understanding of the challenges encountered can be garnered. It also endeavours to critically reflect upon current HE initiatives (UK & Sweden) and the extent to which they facilitate the reclamation of agency, often lost as the result of displacement.

In 2005, led by a group of forced migrants determined to access HE, I began to lobby UK HEIs to provide scholarships for individuals forcibly displaced from their country of origin.  In 2010, the success of this campaign led to the development of the ‘Article 26’ project, which works in partnership with HEIs to deliver scholarships targeted at forced migrant students. Academic year 2015/16 there were 28 scholarships, however the number of scholarships more than doubled in academic year 206/17. Alongside this, I have undertaken doctoral research to explore HE policy and practice in relation forced migrant access, participation and success in opportunities created. This comparative case study research focuses on two countries within the EU, one a familiar (UK) and the other an unfamiliar (Sweden) context. Analysis of interviews with 26 forced migrant research participants, supported by the direct and indirect implementation of opportunities for forced migrant students across the UK, provided the foundations upon which to develop the framework of ‘shared characteristics’.

 

Dina Batshoun, University College London – Institute of Education

Experiences of Access to Higher Education for Gazan Refugee Youth in Jordan: Exploring Perceptions, Pathways, and Issues

This research explores the experiences of access to higher education for Gazan refugee youth in Jordan. Gazans are Palestinians whose families took refuge to Jordan from the Gaza strip in 1967 or after.  In spite of higher education moving closer to being universal in Jordan, thousands of Gazan youth are today still unable to access opportunities as easily as their Jordanian peers. Gazan refugees do not have a Jordanian citizenship or identification number, and are viewed as foreign residents, meaning that when applying for public universities they are treated as ‘international’ students, having to pay much higher fees in comparison to Jordanian peers and to other Palestinian refugees in Jordan.

This research is a qualitative research, and is interpretivist and critical in its epistemology. The theoretical framework this research is built around is complexity. One-to-one semi-structured interviews were undertaken with six male and female Gazan refugee youth in their twenties, all of which managed to access higher education, here defined to be a first degree at university.

The research presents the different pathways of access available to Gazan refugees and suggests that these pathways are limited, not accessible or known to all, and do not fit the needs of all Gazan youth. Furthermore, the findings highlight 2 major issues, that a. access to higher education both affects and is affected by Gazans legal status, socio-economic status, opportunities for work, and more, and b. access to higher education is highly affected by communication and the dissemination of information. Findings argue that Gazan youth face inequity, social injustice, and systematic violence with regards to their experiences of access to higher education in Jordan.

 

Maha Shuayb, Lebanese American University

An education ‘for’ exile: a comparative study of education experiences of Syrian refugee in Lebanon and Grmany

In the introduction of her essay ‘We Refugees’, Hannah Arendt states:

“In the first place, we don’t like to be called ‘refugees.’ We ourselves call each other ‘newcomers’ or ‘immigrants.’ […]In order to rebuild one’s life one has to be strong and an optimist […]. Since everybody plans and wishes and hopes, so do we. […] After so much bad luck we want a course as sure as a gun.”

While ‘Newcomers’ as Arendt states leave in the hope of a new life and the possibility of a better future, they are often sentenced to life imprisonment in what the international community defines as ‘refugee’. This ‘imagined community’ has been ‘imagined’ and is defined by everyone but ‘them’. They are assigned a legal, moral and physical status of which they can hardly ever break free or seek self-actualisation. Refugees or ‘new comers’ are perceived as the object of fear and threat by the local community, or the object of pity by philanthropists. They feel either humiliated and left behind with an uncertain future, or they feel degraded and unrecognised for their individual qualities, earnestness and determination to rebuild their social positions and cultural identities in destination countries often unfamiliar and hostile for newcomers.

As the number of refugees are increasing worldwide, their perceived threat is also on the rise manifested in the unwavering determination of most developing countries to keep them away shunned in camps or what is known as ‘unintended settlements’ in developing countries while throwing money to the local community to contain them. At the same time, we see the efforts of most UN agencies as well as INGO, the EU and the World Bank etc. is being focused on the micro and meso level of the crisis while removing structural barriers has been a far-fetched objective. In fact, most countries have introduced policy restrictions to deter the potential influx and settlement of refugees.

The objectification of refugees is not the only impediment facing them in their attempt to seek a better future. ‘The emergency’ paradigm dominating the response to refugee crisis negates the reality that most refugee crisis are protracted. Studies show that the average time a refugee spend in exile is 20 years. The ‘emergency’ approach reflects the unwillingness of these agencies to foresee let alone plan for a future. These are some issues facing new comers in their attempt to live a decent and a more prosperous life than that in their country of origin.

Against this background, this study focuses on education one of the fundamental means for aspiring for a better future. Through case studies of schools in both countries, it compares the education provisions in Germany and Lebanon for integrating the Syrian refugee children. Syrian refugee children in both countries face a myriad of challenges when accessing education including schools’ capacity, language, being out of school for over two years, integration, and bullying. The study will compare the different approaches adopted in these two countries for the integration of Syrian refugees in education. It also examines examples of good practice on the policy level as well as school practices that can support ‘new comers’ to ‘re-imagine’ the refugee community.

 

Tanja Fendel, Institute for Employment Research Germany

Legal Discrimination within Integration Policies? The Paradigm of Activation and Educational and Work Experiences of Female Refugees in Germany

Activating integration policies with the paradigm of being challenging but also supportive have been enforced in several European countries. The Integration Act for forced migrants, introduced in Germany in 2016, is based on this principle. Before the law came into force, accepted refugees in Germany received a residence permit for three years and afterwards a permanent permit. Due to the paradigm of activation, today a permanent residence permit is only granted if refugees have sufficient German language skills and are able to secure most of their own livelihood.

The study addresses the question whether for female compared to male refugees it is on average more challenging to meet the new requirements. We give empirical evidence about gender differences in educational and employment participation as well as in language skills. The used data is based on qualitative interviews with 123 and quantitative Interviews with 4.800 adult forced migrants who came to Germany between 2013 and 2016. Theoretically, we refer to concepts of legal discrimination and civic stratification.

Due to human rights violations, women have often been excluded from education or paid work in their home countries. In Germany their labor market participation is on average lower than the male one’s and working conditions are more often precarious. Thus we argue that female refugees have a higher risk to fulfill the new requirements for a permanent residence permit only together with a partner, only later or not at all. Their chances to move up within the hierarchy of civic stratification are lower.