Categories Of Refugees Research Articles

Antenatal Care Utilization and Obstetric and Newborn Outcomes Among Pregnant Refugees Attending a Specialized Refugee Clinic.

The objective of the study is to characterize the antenatal care utilization and obstetric and newborn outcomes among refugee women at a specialized refugee clinic and determine whether these outcomes varied between refugees (government-assisted or privately-sponsored) and asylum seekers. This retrospective cohort study included women receiving antenatal care at a specialized refugee clinic between 2011 and 2016. Time from arrival to first clinic visit, Adequacy of Prenatal Care Utilization Index, and obstetric and newborn outcomes were examined, stratified by refugee category. Amongst 179 women, median time from arrival to first clinic visit was longer for asylum seekers (2.8months, IQR 12.9) compared to government-assisted and privately-sponsored refugees (0.4months, IQR 0.7, and 1.6months, IQR 3.2, respectively; p < 0.01). A larger proportion of asylum seeking women received inadequate antenatal care. No difference was found in obstetric and newborn outcomes. Differences in antenatal care utilization between refugee categories suggest that barriers may remain for asylum seekers; however, obstetric and newborn outcomes were comparable amongst refugee categories.

Transforming refugees into migrants: institutional change and the politics of international protection

Since the 2015 refugee “crisis,” much has been made of the distinction between the legal category of refugee and migrant. While migration scholars have accounted for the increased blurring of these two categories through explanations of institutional drift and policy layering, we argue that the intentional policies utilized by states and international organizations to minimize legal avenues for refugees to seek protection should also be considered. We identify four practices of policy “conversion” that have also led to the increasingly problematic distinction between migrants and refugees: (1) limiting access to territory through burden-shifting and other practices of extraterritorialization; (2) limiting access to asylum and local integration through procedural and administrative hindrances; (3) the use of group-based criteria as a basis of exclusion; (4) the inclusion of non-Convention criteria within resettlement schemes. Drawing upon a historical institutionalist approach and a wide array of empirical sources—including 3 years of combined primary field research conducted in Egypt, Lebanon, Morocco, Tunisia, and Turkey between 2013 and 2016—we demonstrate that states are actively pursuing a greater degree of control over the selection of refugees, in practice making refugee resettlement closer to another immigration track rather than a unique status that compels state responsibility.

Reification and the refugee: Using a counterposing dialogical analysis to unlock a frozen category

Thousands of individuals each year seek refugee status and the question of who can be accepted requires politicians within democracies to seek a public mandate. Unlike other socio-political categories individuals cannot self-identify as refugee; the category must be bureaucratically conferred. Therefore sustained humanitarian public concern is vital to the acceptance of refugees. This article sets parameters on this public concern. It examines how public narratives reify the refugee category. Showing how this reification constrains the citizenship, integration and opportunities of individuals, now safe, yet continually categorized in everyday public discourse as refugee. Interviews, focus groups (Study 1) and ethnography (Study 2) were conducted in Sweden and the United Kingdom (N = 57). The article introduces a counterposing dialogical analysis where public positioning of refugees is counterposed against dialogue by “refugees” anticipating their positioning. The analysis uncovers an hegemonic social representation of humanitarianism indexing “the refugee” as the passive recipient of help framed by a public narrative diachronically frozen in the initial act of flight. Three objectifying reification processes stabilize the category. “Refugees” in turn employ counter-positional tactics of distancing, compensation and future-orientation. The limited success of these tactics suggest the need to scale up such tactics to collective-level communication strategies. Success of communication strategies requires questioning the underlying function humanitarian-talk serves in creating a sense of European identity. Together these strategies could re-work the temporal features of the refugee category facilitating a repositioning and enabling the emergence of post-refugee narratives.

Refugeetude

Through the concept of refugeetude, this article explores interlinked questions about the temporality of experience, psychic formation, and political possibility. Starting with the premise that lived experiences of refuge(e) constitute a form of subjectivity, and proposing an expansion of the refugee category beyond the legal definition to include a range of times, places, and subjects, this article conceptualizes refugeetude as a coming into consciousness of the social, political, and historical forces that situate refugee subjects and the acts that attempt to know, impact, and transcend this situation. The concept marks a critical reorientation, an epistemological shift in how we think about and understand the category refugee. Redirecting dominant perception of refugee as a temporary legal designation and a condition of social abjection toward refugee as an enduring creative force, refugeetude opens up new ways of conceptualizing refugee subjects and the relationalities that extend beyond the parameters of refugeeness, generating connections to past, present, and future forms of displacement. The author contends that, through the concept of refugeetude, we can comprehend refugee not as an irregularity or disruption of political subjecthood—a crisis to be resolved—but as an experiential resource for developing significant and durable ways of being in and moving through the world.

Immigration Detention Supervision Urgency

World War II was a war between the Allied Powers and the Axis Powers, both of which had extraordinary military power. Seeing the post-World War II conditions, many people lost their homes and families so that in order to realize human rights, the international community agreed to form the United Nations (UN) or the United Nations (UN) with the aim of strengthening international cooperation and preventing conflicts. upcoming conflict. In terms of protecting refugee rights, the United Nations established the legal basis for the Geneva Convention 1951 which is a guideline for the international community in providing protection for refugees. Australia was one of the countries that took part in ratifying the Geneva convention of 1951, while Indonesia was not one of the countries that ratified the convention. However, due to the geographic location of Indonesia as opposed to Australia, Indonesia has had the impact, namely the number of asylum seekers waiting for their refugee status and some of them are not clear because they are not included in the category of refugees by UNHCR. So that the author will explain how important the supervision of refugees in Indonesia is by the Immigration Detention Center or often referred to as Rudenim. In the Duties and Functions of Rudenim there is already a supervisory function but the subject of such supervision is detainees, while in Presidential Regulation No. 125 of 2016 concerning the Handling of Refugees from Abroad, Rudenim has the duty to supervise refugees in Indonesia, so that there are discrepancies between the regulations of the Rudenim Administration and the legal basis governing the handling of these refugees.

Religious Refugees or Confessional Migrants? Perspectives from Early Modern Ireland

Abstract Early Modern Ireland was a society deeply influenced by contrasting currents of mobility. Indeed, together with the Netherlands, it can be suggested that Ireland was the Western European society most shaped by confessional migration. Uniquely in Europe, the kingdom witnessed the effective replacement of its existing elites by immigrants whose religious affiliation marked them out as distinct from the mass of the inhabitants. As migrants into Ireland, Protestants derived substantial advantages from their religious identity. Ironically, however, it was the moment of their forced flight in 1641–42 which became a touchstone of historical memory and identity for this community, commemorated by an annual church service on 23 October, the date of the outbreak of the original rebellion. Similarly, for the Irish military, merchants and clerics who constituted the backbone of a very significant Irish Catholic diaspora during the Early Modern period, an inheritance of religious persecution became a vital and cherished aspect of identity and a critical aspect of the perception of them by their host societies, thus blurring the lines between the categories of religious refugees and confessional migrants.

A geographical path to integration? Exploring the interplay between regional context and labour market integration among refugees in Sweden

ABSTRACT Migrant integration is an issue at the forefront of political debates in many immigrant-receiving countries. Within academia, a rich body of neighbourhood effects literature examines the significance of the residential environment for the socioeconomic integration of international migrants. Another strand of research explores the associations between immigrants’ initial region of residence and their subsequent socioeconomic integration. Existing research focuses on a single dimension of geographical context and on the neighbourhood scale. Using Swedish longitudinal register data, we estimate discrete-time event history models to assess how regional and neighbourhood contexts influence refugees’ entry into employment. Our study includes all refugees who arrived in Sweden between 2000 and 2009, distinguishing between three categories of refugees: refugees with assigned housing, refugees with self-arranged housing and quota refugees. Our results reveal a clear pattern where the most advantageous regions for finding a first employment are those at the extremes of the population density distribution: the Stockholm region and small city/rural regions. Refugees residing in Malmö have the lowest probability of entering the labour market. Our study also reiterates existing concerns regarding the negative effects of ethnic segregation at the neighbourhood level on labour market participation.

When the refugee status becomes an economic asset: how Malians in a Burkinabé City negotiate the “refugee” category

ABSTRACTSince early 2016, part of the Malian urban refugees living in Bobo-Dioulasso, Burkina Faso, have to “capitalize” on their refugee status to make ends meet. By examining when, why, and how the refugee status transmutes into an economic asset, this article shows how the possibilities to negotiate with the refugee category vary significantly within this group of forced migrants. Indeed, categories are not only imposed on people, but are negotiated by the actors themselves in their interactions and within their social and political economies. My article shows how the refugees’ ability or possibility to participate in the co-construction of their category is shaped by both the social and political context in which they are, as well as by wider intersectional and structural dynamics in which their lives are situated, such as socio-economic class, gender and race.

‘Pour quelles raisons avez-vous quitté l’Espagne?’ De represaliadas a refugiadas políticas en la Francia de los años 40 y 50

Este estudio se acerca a algunas de las experiencias de las mujeres españolas que a partir de 1945 decidieron abandonar su país para crear una nueva vida en Francia, lejos del contexto de hambre y represión. Especialmente, nos aproximaremos a las nuevas fronteras políticas y de género que las mujeres tuvieron que cruzar una vez en Francia para conseguir el certificado de refugiadas políticas e intentaremos demostrar que, en la mayoría de los casos, sus acciones políticas y sufrimientos cotidianos bajo el franquismo carecieron de valor a ojos de la administración francesa y los organismos españoles del exilio. Para ello, exploraremos su perfil político y social, las razones de su exilio y la relación que entablaron con los organismos susceptibles de proporcionarles la categoría social e institucional de refugiadas políticas.

Ideology and Immigration Patterns in European Union (1988–2015)

ABSTRACT Introduction: The theory points out to the existence of likely links between party ideology and migratory policies, stating that, in principle, values associated with the right, based on nationalism, tend to, restrict immigration dynamics more than those linked to the axiology of the left, anchored in universalism. Does party ideology affect immigration patterns in the European Union? This paper tests the hypothesis that the greater the values in ideology (right-wing governments), the smaller the number of migrants to that specific country. Materials and Methods: The research design replicates secondary data from both a parliament and government database (ParlGov) and the Comparative Manifesto Project. We also use data from the Global Bilateral Migration Database and Bilateral Migration Matrix. Besides the descriptive statistics, we examine the relationship between ideology and migration flows. We estimated two regression models to deal with the following dependent variables: net migration and refugee population by country or territory of asylum. Results: Using data from ParlGov, Manifesto, and QoG, descriptive statistics has stressed a very heterogeneous cartography of political features, ideology, and migration in European Union countries. The first regression analysis using aggregate data suggests that the greater the values of ideology per country (right-wing oriented), the lower the number of people entering that country. However, the findings from our disaggregated statistical analysis, particularly Model 1, indicate no effect of cabinet ideology on net migration. As for the refugee category for immigrants, our results suggest that right-oriented national governments are less receptive to refugees. Model 2 stated that a one-point increase in ideology is associated with a 13% average reduction in the number of refugees entering the country. Discussion: This study advances our current understanding about the relationship between party ideology and immigration patterns. Nonetheless, the results of the regression analysis show limited evidence in favor of our hypothesis that the more to the right of the ideological spectrum governments are, the lower the number of refugees they will accept. However, this analysis is only meant to show a relationship between ideology and migration. Causal claims should be interpreted with caution.

Becoming a refugee. A life-course approach to migration under duress

Abstract This article offers a sociological approach to the ongoing debate about the distinction between refugees and migrants. It adopts a life-course perspective on seeking refuge. Seeking refuge is embedded not only in the legal regimes of refugee protection, but also in other institutional frameworks governing the life-course. Exploring continuities between migrants and refugees allows for a better understanding of whether and under what preconditions the refugee category is applied by administrations and accessed by refugees themselves. With the help of case studies selected strategically from a larger sample of narrative interviews with university educated migrants to Germany, Turkey, and Canada, the article shows how the implementation and administration of the Geneva Refugee Convention in Germany is organized in a manner that often diverges from the empirical reality of fleeing from persecution and lack of protection. On this basis, a broader comparison with migrants in Turkey and Canada who could fall under the Geneva Refugee Convention, but who mostly refrain from claiming asylum, shows that those with better resources and socio-spatial autonomy can, if well informed, find alternative options for gaining protection rather than claiming refugee status. Whether migrants under duress see themselves as refugees and whether they claim asylum does not only result from the persecution they face but also from specificities of legal and administrative frameworks, as well as their position in global structural inequalities and it is related to divergent degrees of socio-spatial autonomy.

El proceso de elegibilidad en argentina: rituales y ambivalencias en el reconocimiento de los refugiados

Resumen La elegibilidad es uno de los procesos centrales en la construcción de las políticas de refugio y en la misma categoría de refugiado. Estos procesos remiten a instancias y mecanismos por medio de los cuales los Estados evalúan las solicitudes de asilo, lo que deriva en el reconocimiento y otorgamiento del Estatuto de refugiado o en el rechazo a dicha solicitud. En este artículo se examinan los discursos sobre los procesos de elegibilidad y el modo en que operan en la determinación de la condición de refugiado en el contexto argentino. El análisis se enmarca en los estudios que apuntan a revelar las dinámicas a través de las cuales se clasifican, y jerarquizan poblaciones. Se plantea que dentro de las categorías de solicitantes de asilo y refugiados es posible observar una heterogeneidad y ambivalencia en el modo en que son percibidos y clasificados los sujetos.

A questão dos refugiados e a ideia de pertencimento ao mundo em Hannah Arendt

Ao discorremos sobre o pertencimento ao mundo e a questão dos refugiados em Hannah Arendt, buscamos trazer a lume uma discussão enfrentada pela autora no século passado, mas que se torna atual, haja vista a conjuntura mundial hodierna. Nosso problema focou a seguinte questão: é possível um mundo sem acolhimento dos seres humanos e de suas relações? Ao nos indagarmos sobre isto, enfrentamos o papel do direito internacional frente à questão, sobretudo, no que concerne à tensão entre direitos humanos e soberania. Para Hannah Arendt, ocorreu uma flagrante incapacidade dos direitos humanos e, do direito, como lei para proteger e resguardar os apátridas e os refugiados. Neste contexto, as categorias de mundo e de refugiado emergem como categorias analíticas para compreendermos a ideia de pertencimento. Ainda nessa esteira, buscamos esclarecer o conceito de mundo em Hannah Arendt para melhor construção de nossa argumentação. Elegemos como metodologia a exegese textual, já consagrada nos estudos filosóficos. Destacamos como corpus central de nossa discussão a obra Escritos judaicos e, em especial, os textos Nós os refugiados (1943) e A Condição Humana (1958).

The Sociology of Refugee Migration

Theorization in the sociology of migration and the field of refugee studies has been retarded by a path-dependent division that we argue should be broken down by greater mutual engagement. Excavating the construction of the refugee category reveals how unwarranted assumptions shape contemporary disputes about the scale of refugee crises, appropriate policy responses, and suitable research tools. Empirical studies of how violence interacts with economic and other factors shaping mobility offer lessons for both fields. Adapting existing theories that may not appear immediately applicable, such as household economy approaches, helps explain refugees’ decision-making processes. At a macro level, world systems theory sheds light on the interactive policies around refugees across states of origin, mass hosting, asylum, transit, and resettlement. Finally, focusing on the integration of refugees in the Global South reveals a pattern that poses major challenges to theories of assimilation and citizenship developed in settler states of the Global North.

The Coloniality of Migration and the “Refugee Crisis”: On the Asylum-Migration Nexus, the Transatlantic White European Settler Colonialism-Migration and Racial Capitalism

This article departs from the discussion by Stephen Castles on the migration-asylum nexus by focusing on the political and cultural effects of the summer of immigration in 2015. It argues for a conceptualization of the asylum-migration nexus within the framework of Anibal Quijano’s “coloniality of power” by developing the analytical framework of the “coloniality of migration.” Through the analytical framework of the “coloniality of migration” the connection between racial capitalism and the asylum-migration nexus is explored. It does so by first focusing on the economic and political links between asylum and migration, and how both constitute each other. On these grounds, it discusses how asylum and migration policies produce hierarchical categories of migrants and refugees, producing a nomenclature drawing on an imaginary reminiscent of the orientalist and racialized practices of European colonialism and imperialism. In a second step, it focuses on migration and asylum policies as inherent to a logic of racialization of the workforce. It does so by first exploring the racial coding of immigration policies within the context of settler colonial-ism and transatlantic White European migration to the Américas and Oceania in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, and second, by discussing migration policies in post-1945 Western Europe.

Crisis, What Crisis? Immigrants, Refugees, and Invisible Struggles

Different evocations of “crisis” create distinct categories that in turn evoke certain social reactions. After 2008 Greece became the epicentre of the “financial crisis”; since 2015 with the advent of the “refugee crisis,” it became the “hotspot of Europe.” What are the different vocabularies of crisis? Moreover, how have both representations of crisis facilitated humanitarian crises to become phenomena for European and transnational institutional management? What are the hegemonically constructed subjects of the different crises? The everyday reality in the crisis-ridden hotspot of Europe is invisible in these representations. It is precisely the daily, soft, lived, and unspoken realities of intersecting crises that hegemonic discourses of successive, overlapping, or “nesting crises” render invisible. By shifting the focus from who belongs to which state-devised category to an open-ended, polyvocal account of capitalist oppressions, we aim to question the state’s and supranational efforts to divide the “migrant mob” into discrete juridical categories of citi-zens (emigrants), refugees, and illegal immigrants, thereby undermining coalitional struggles between precaritised groups.

Becoming and “Unbecoming” Refugees

This article discusses how Syrian men in Egypt rearranged their lives around the newly imposed label “refugee” and negotiated notions of masculinity during their forced displacement. Drawing upon data collected during fourteen months of ethnographic fieldwork in Cairo from 2014 to 2015, this article shows that in Syrian men’s daily reality, their “refugeeness” was present through several encounters and experiences, such as worries about identity documents or contact with the state authorities. Having articulated men’s various experiences with the refugee category, this article goes on to describe how Syrian men in Cairo distanced themselves from the refugee label and tried to masculinize themselves by erecting boundaries between themselves and other Syrian men in their narratives and engaging in reverse stigmatization of the Egyptian host population.

Política migratória Brasileira e seus reflexos para os estados da UNASUL: Um estudo a partir do tratamento dado pelo Brasil ao caso dos haitianos

This paper aims to analyze how UNASUR Member States are affected by the Brazilian posture to not recognize the status of refugees to Haitian migrants after the earthquake that struck the country in 2010. Then, specific objectives are to analyze the arguments brought by Public Civil Action filed by federal prosecutors of State of Acre, In Brazil, in January 2012, comparatively with the interpretation by UNHCR brought about the concept of a refugee. The methodology used is the deductive method of analysis of the sources and investigative documentary, the method of procedure. The central hypothesis of the study focuses on is shown that new categories of refugees should address the role of international protection conferred by existing instruments, pointing in the Haitian case, the possibility of framing via environmental refuge or “refugees from hunger”. The conclusions are: a) The Brazilian position because data in terms of international security and increased international crimes and violence to bordering with Brazil Member States; b) b) If the Brazilian civil action succeeds, will encourage a rereading of the refuge in the American continent, strengthening regional integration on humanitarian grounds.

PERSPECTIVES ON INTERNATIONAL LEGAL PROTECTION FOR ENVIRONMENTAL REFUGEES

As lacunas normativas de proteção aos migrantes advindos de catástrofes e desastres ambientais demonstram grande resistência da comunidade internacional quanto à criação de uma categoria específica de “refugiados ambientais”. Essas lacunas contrastam com o atual cenário internacional, onde há uma demanda cada vez maior para o reconhecimento dos direitos específicos a esse grupo de pessoas. Esse artigo tem como objetivo demonstrar o panorama geral e as perspectivas de proteção jurídica internacional destinada aos chamados “refugiados ambientais”, bem como os avanços normativos que, embora tímidos, não eximem a necessidade de uma proteção normativa específica. A metodologia utilizada baseou-se nos documentos e relatórios de organizações internacionais e sites especializados, através de uma análise qualitativa associada ao levantamento de dados documentais e referências. Embora o conceito de “refugiados ambientais” não seja reconhecido pelas Nações Unidas, alguns avanços já podem ser observados tanto no âmbito das Organizações Intergovernamentais, como no âmbito da Sociedade Civil. Por outro lado, a necessidade de uma ação internacional efetiva, seja através de medidas adaptativas e temporais, como o uso dos instrumentos de direitos humanos existentes, seja ela específica e consolidada através da criação de um estatuto específico para esta nova categoria de refugiados é urgentes e inevitável.

Redefining refugees: Interpretive control and the bordering work of legal categorization in U.S. asylum law

States engage in a variety of border enforcement practices to reassert control over migration and territory in spite of international human rights obligations. State responses to asylum seeking are illustrative of the subsequent movement and proliferation of borders far from the territorial borderline. While the refugee category delineates to whom states have obligations to protect, less research has examined the bordering work achieved through legal interpretations of the refugee category. Based on an analysis of asylum case law, specifically two foundational cases involving Salvadoran asylum seekers to the U.S. in the 1980s, Matter of Acosta (1985) and Sanchez-Trujillo vs. INS (1986), this paper argues that legal interpretations of the refugee definition are acts of interpretive control, or discursive tactics designed to contain human mobility and circumscribe the human rights of those with access to U.S. territory. The case studies illustrate how defining and redefining the refugee category was critical to constructing Central American “feet people” as illegally present in the U.S. and thus legitimate targets of spatialized tactics of exclusion including deportation and detention. Through analysis of these cases, the paper illustrates that legal definitions are not a static backdrop against which other forms of bordering work occurs, but dynamic sites in which legal discourse both responds to and produces socio-spatial relations, delineating the threshold of humanitarian categories and thus the meaning and consequences of cross border movement for specific groups of people.