Living in a ‘free jail’: Asylum seekers' and local residents' experiences of discomfort with asylum seeker accommodation

Marielle Zill,Bas Spierings,Ilse Van Liempt

doi:10.1016/j.polgeo.2021.102487

Abstract

This paper shows how asylum seeker accommodation produces a politics of discomfort among both asylum seekers as well as local residents. The paper compares two collective asylum centres located in the city of Augsburg, Germany, one of which is a nationally renowned refugee integration project, the ‘Grandhotel Cosmopolis’, the other, a state-run asylum centre. Data was obtained through participant observation and semi-structured interviews between September 2016 and November 2017. Drawing on carceral geographies, the paper identifies three mechanisms through which the material and institutional standards of asylum accommodation generate discomfort among and between asylum seekers and local residents, which are self-mortification, depersonalization and role-breakdown. Through the sharing of rooms and facilities, asylum accommodation contributes to asylum seekers' self-mortification, referring to changes in the conceptions and beliefs of oneself. The comparison of the two cases highlights how large asylum centres depersonalize asylum seekers by creating images of a homogenized ‘mass’ and contribute to role-breakdown, meaning a reduction of individuals' identities performed with regard to work, home or family life. National discourses of asylum seekers as dangerous merged with the space of asylum accommodation, thereby preventing social interaction ‘as neighbours’ between asylum seekers and local residents. Overall, the paper exposes how a politics of discomfort utilizes affect as a governmental device, thereby turning asylum accommodation into a carceral space by creating social distance and ‘moral closure’.

Highlights

In 2012, long before the so-called refugee crisis of 2015, the ‘Grandhotel Cosmopolis’ (GHC)’ opened its doors, a grassroots project combining asylum accommodation, a tourist hotel, spaces for artists, a cafe and a restaurant in the city of Augsburg, Germany
New restrictions required that social benefits were to be paid in kind, as well as forcing asylum seekers to live in collective asylum accommodation and restricting their right to work (Müller, 2010)
This paper presents an in-depth investigation of the discomforting effects of asylum accommodation on asylum seekers and local residents living in close proximity to an asylum centre

Summary

Introduction

In 2012, long before the so-called refugee crisis of 2015, the ‘Grandhotel Cosmopolis’ (GHC)’ opened its doors, a grassroots project combining asylum accommodation, a tourist hotel, spaces for artists, a cafe and a restaurant in the city of Augsburg, Germany. The GHC’s playful engagement with notions of comfort and luxury, such as its red carpet at the main entrance, can be interpreted as a political statement against a decades-long process of lowering accommodation standards for asylum seekers in Germany (Müller, 2010). Internal deterrence measures exclude asylum seekers already within the destination country through restricting access to socio-economic and political rights or through other legal measures such as safe third country agreements facilitating the detention and depor tation of asylum seekers (Boswell, 2003). New restrictions required that social benefits were to be paid in kind, as well as forcing asylum seekers to live in collective asylum accommodation and restricting their right to work (Müller, 2010). The ASBA of 1993 and its amendment in 2015 include a material reduction in benefits for asylum seekers, but was an important symbolic measure that sought to appease public outcries over the alleged abuse of asylum (Schammann, 2015)

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