Departures: An Introduction to Critical Refugee Studies (original) (raw)
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Introduction: Refugee Literatures
Journal of Narrative Theory, 2020
Modern refugee literature is about a century old. It emerged in the early twentieth century as the product of and response to a new kind of European nation state, what Karl Polanyi called the "crustacean type of nation" with a "hard shell" and a form of "sovereignty more jealous and absolute than anything known before" (202). Refugees, as the anthropologist Liisa Malkki has noted, exist only because of the specific ways of belonging and not belonging induced by modern nationhood. And this historical coemergence of the nation and the refugee tells us at least one very important thing: refugee writers have always been special witnesses to the shifting grounds of political life. These acts of witnessing have been present from the very beginning of modern refugee writing. In B. Traven's novel The Death Ship (1922), for instance, the stateless protagonist, turned away at every European border, comes to understand that "the passport. .. and not the sun, is the center of the universe" (42). For Traven, who lived stateless for nearly two decades, the introduction of the passport-a "most egregious little modernism," in Paul Fussell's words-was tantamount to a new political order of things, about which refugees became reluctant but vocal experts (26). A decade later, Bertolt Brecht, another stateless German, began to sketch a universal script in the margins of his notebooks that would become the fictional dialogues, Refugee Conversations.
The Making of the Modern Refugee
This conference matters. It matters to me and it should matter to a wide range of scholars in the humanities and social sciences and indeed to any citizen interested in how and to what ends society arranges itself. This conference matters to me because it deals with a subject that is close to my heart and because it brings together some of the people from whose work I have learned a great deal. It has a wider significance because historians are beginning to take more seriously than hitherto the origins and consequences of global population displacement. Yet although we may agree on the chief sites and episodes of displacement, it is more of a challenge to delineate the agenda for discussion. Are we trying to explain the genesis of today's refugee regime, in order to draw conclusions that might inform the policies of governments, non-governmental organisations (NGOs) and international organisations such as the United Nations High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR)? If so, there is much work to be done in order to convince these organisations that they ought to be interested in past practices and outcomes. They operate mainly in the present and show scant or superficial interest in their history, which is why current efforts to organise and utilise more thoroughly the rich archives of UNHCR are so important. Or are our efforts are directed elsewhere, towards providing a history that might satisfy refugees and their descendants who negotiate the consequences of displacement? Here what is at stake is not the agenda of governments and international organisations but the complex experiences of refugees. But such are the constraints faced by refugees and historians alike that it would be foolish to claim that this project is at all straightforward. Perhaps neither the institutional-political approach nor the refugeecentred approach fully captures the purpose of this conference, in so far as we are also trying to understand the discursive realm in which displacement is invested with meanings of one kind or another. These approaches are of course not mutually exclusive. They comprise related elements of a 'refugee history' whose possibilities and pitfalls I consider at the end of my presentation.
Refuge, 2021
In Refuge in a Moving World, Elena FiddianQasmiyeh brings together over thirty authors from different disciplines to discuss the idea of refuge. Originating from the academic network called Refuge in a Moving World at University College London, this edited volume challenges the monolithic representations of refugees and displacement and proposes a more nuanced understanding of the history, causes, experiences, and responses to refugeehood. Set against the notion of “crisis”, this book challenges representations that have dominated the public humanitarian narrative in the past decades. Indeed, to counteract widespread xenophobic responses to migrants and refugees around the world, humanitarian actors have often created “pro-refugee” narratives that have “securitized” displaced people (p. 2) and limited their agency. They have portrayed refugees as victims and passive recipients of aid, as “ideal refugees” “worthy” of humanitarian assistance, or placed them into categories of exceptionalism—such as what Fiddian-Qasmiyeh calls the “super refugee”. These narratives generate inclusion and exclusion and keep displaced people “in their place” within a framework of epistemic violence (p. 3). To challenge these representations, this volume presents displacement and forced migration not as something that people simply experience, but as experiences to which people respond.
Book Review, 2022
Recently, with the activity of refugees and asylum-seekers in Europe, there has been a conceptional or terminological confusion, both in Europe and far beyond. While the lifeless body of Alan Kurdi, photographed beside a capsized boat, and the danger of the migration journey can be understood through news stories, in the 21st century, the term “asylum seeker” has become as common as “refuge”. The book titled, What is a refugee? written by William Maley, clearly explains in detail the concept of refugee and offers a guide to understanding migration.
This paper aims to reflect from an anthropological perspective on the fact that, by taking the category of ‘refugees’ as both the primary focus and the boundary for its research, Refugee Studies is underpinned by definitions that originate from policy. It contends that the definitions of categories of people (such as “refugees”, “migrants”, “IDPs”, etc.) arising from the refugee and humanitarian regime are not necessarily meaningful in the academic field from an analytical point of view. Empirical research has demonstrated that in practice it is not possible to apply these definitions to separate discrete classes of migrants. They are policy related labels, designed to meet the needs of policy rather than of scientific enquiry. Moreover, as products of a specific system, they bear assumptions which reflect the principles underlying the system itself. For these reasons Refugee Studies needs to maintain analytical independence from the refugee regime. This would require inter alia disentangling the analysis from policy categories and including policy as one of the objects of study. The first section argues that in the context of academic research the descriptive scope of the term “refugee” is limited; in fact, empirical research shows that the refugee label does not define a sociological relevant group. The second section turns to the policy arena and to the shaping of labels by international actors. Two moments are analysed: the creation of a refugee regime separate from the one of migration after the Second World War and the current debate on the “asylum-migration nexus”. The third section presents the main assumptions conveyed by the refugee label as a product of the international refugee regime, that is a state centred and sedentary bias.
Reflections on Refugee Studies and the study of refugees: Implications for policy analysts
Journal of Management & Public Policy, 2014
The United Nations (UN, 2010) reports that 25.2 million people, an overwhelming majority from the Global South, are displaced: 10.55 million refugees and 14.7 million internally displaced people (IDP). The phenomenon of Refugee Studies as a field of academic inquiry is a main focus of this paper. This paper makes a case for more critical analysis in – and of – refugee studies in order to better protect displaced people and to assist government in creating policies which respect the dignity of individuals. Based on a review of academic literature, first this paper discusses key concepts, labels, and theories in refugee studies. Second it traces the emergence of the field of refugee studies. Following it discusses the dilemma within the study of refugee policy research in regards to our ability to remain critical while maintaining a close relationship with government funding agencies. Finally, the conclusion makes a case for studying asylum seekers as a distinct phenomenological group. Implications for the management of refugee claims administration, researchers and policy analysts are brought forward while arguing that theoretically a separate space for asylum studies is required.
Intersectionality and Other Critical Approaches in Refugee Research An Annotated Bibliography
2019
This literature review highlights migration and refugee research engaged with intersectionality as a critical framework that challenges homogenizing experiences and categories in the global refugee context. Intersectionality seeks to enable the analysis of multiple experiences, recognize multiple and fluid identities that are context dependent, and demonstrate how such identities intersect to create disadvantages as well as privileges for different individuals. An intersectionality framework has the potential reveal the systematic discrimination in refugee and migration policies and systems, point to disparities in accessing durable solutions, highlight oppression as well as emancipation due to refugee-ness, and challenge rigid labels and categories. After recognizing the gender blindness in the 1951 Refugee Convention, a growing number of international and domestic policies began paying more attention to refugee women and gender-based violence. One prominent example is the UNHCR's Age, Gender and Diversity policy, which aims to consider the implications of policies and programs for male and female refugees of different ages and from different social groups. Feminist scholarship has offered important insights into the lived experiences of refugee women. Critical literature within refugee studies has questioned the ability of the "refugee" label and other categories to capture the complex social realities of the people on the move, instead engaging with how refugees self-identify and define their own situations. Decolonial approaches explore new methodologies (such as community-based participatory research) and the power dynamics inherent in North-South research partnerships that often reproduce hierarchies. Overall, an intersectional approach highlights that "refugees" are a diverse group and refugee experiences are shaped by multiple identities such as gender, race, national origin, class, age, (dis)ability and sexual orientation. Refugee policies and programs must be flexible to take into account this diversity of experiences instead of applying a singular universal approach for all refugees.
(2013) Refugee Review: Social Movements
Refugee Review Volume 1, 2013
We welcome readers to the e-publication of the New Scholars Network's inaugural issue of the Refugee Review. This open-source, peer-reviewed journal—based at no particular institution and tied to no particular location—is the product of collaboration between a growing and global group of new scholars, practitioners, policymakers and activists in the field of forced migration and refugee studies. We are proud not only to introduce practice and theory being undertaken and considered in this field, but to do so in a way that is fully supportive of shared knowledge production.
(2015) Refugee Review: Reconceptualizing Refugees and Forced Migration in the 21st Century
Refugee Review is the open access, multidisciplinary, multimedia, and peer-reviewed journal of the ESPMI Network. We are delighted to be able to showcase an edition of varied and challenging articles, opinion pieces, practitioner reports, discussions, and interviews from emerging scholars and practitioners around the world.The journal encompasses many themes that can contribute to the places we can look to re-conceptualize forced migration and refugeehood: environmental displacement, citizenship and integration, international law conventions accessions and exceptions, protracted situations of displacement or lack of access to services once settled, statelessness, seaborne migration and state response, domestic and international policy, the recognition of agency, the importance of education, and ignorance of state, regional and ethnic histories. The journal is available in two forms - an online interactive open source version, and a hyperlinked PDF.