Seeking Refuge Research Articles

Contacts between Natives and Migrants in Germany: Perceptions of the Native Population since 1980 and an Examination of the Contact Hypotheses

For decades, migration to Germany has been a relevant social phenomenon resulting in an increasing share of foreigners and Germans with migration background in the German populace. Additionally, since 2015, Germany has experienced a substantial increase in the immigration of people seeking refuge and asylum from civil war, economic and environmental catastrophes, and other adverse living conditions. These developments can be assumed to have led to an increase in intergroup contact between Germans and foreigners. We investigate this phenomenon in a multifaceted fashion by combining a social indicator and monitoring approach using repeated cross-sections over time with a new panel approach using a short-time panel to study causal relations. As a first step, we descriptively analyze the development of intergroup contact experiences of the German population with foreigners in various areas of life using data from the ALLBUS survey collected over 36 years between 1980 and 2016. Specifically, we detail the diverging contact experiences of participants with and without migration background as well as participants in the former Eastern and Western part of Germany. In a second step, based on Allport’s intergroup contact theory that contact with outgroup members may improve attitudes towards these outgroups and other related findings, we examine the longitudinal processes between positive intergroup contact with foreigners and attitudes towards foreigners using four waves of the GESIS Panel collected over approximately one and a half years. We apply special rigor to these analyses by differentiating stable differences in intergroup contact experiences and attitudes between participants from within-person processes and discussing the implications of this differentiation.

Competência lexical e o uso dos dicionários numa abordagem para o ensino da língua portuguesa como língua de acolhimento

O objetivo deste artigo é discutir, através de uma reflexão teórica, sobre o potencial de uma abordagem lexical mais completa e da utilização de dicionários no ensino de Língua Portuguesa como Língua de Acolhimento (PLA), com enfoque no contexto brasileiro, haja vista a importância do aprendizado do português no processo de integração e interação para pessoas em situação de refúgio no Brasil. Com a chegada de imigrantes e refugiados, novas saberes teóricos e práticas são necessárias para o ensino de PLA e devem ser articulados com outras abordagens, levando em consideração as necessidades dos aprendizes. Conclui-se que obras lexicográficas podem ser potenciais instrumentos colaboradores na formação do aprendiz de língua estrangeira e obras de grande importância para entender e se apropriar da maneira como a língua se organiza, além de contribuir no contínuo desenvolvimento da língua e para a cultura do país acolhedor. Além disso, a abordagem pode colaborar para o caráter emancipatório tão desejado no ensino de PLA e para o empoderamento de grupos minoritarizados.

Why Are You Seeking Refuge? Conducting Evaluations of Central American Asylum Seekers

Asylum seekers from the Northern Triangle region in Central America, comprised of Honduras, Guatemala, and El Salvador, many of them unaccompanied minors and families with young children, are arriving at the U.S. border in record high numbers. Many of them have been exposed to trauma and violence in their country of origin and have suffered human rights abuses. Their reception in the USA is increasingly adversarial. Under the Trump administration, there has been a rise in policies that endanger the human rights of Central American immigrants and refugees. Mental health professionals can play an important role in protecting their human rights and helping them in the asylum process. They can assist asylum seekers through conducting culturally informed psychological evaluations and as expert witnesses, testifying in court and producing court reports. This paper includes an overview of the legal and international context of the asylum process and discusses geopolitical factors affecting asylum seekers from Central America. Case examples of evaluations of Central American asylum seekers that were conducted by the author are provided to illustrate key points of how social workers can assist applicants in their asylum applications, thereby supporting their human rights.

The Refugees We Are: Solidarity in the European Constitutional Imagination

The Refugees We Are: Solidarity in the European Constitutional Imagination

Migration Nation: Barriers to integration for asylum-seekers in Ireland

Issues relating to the welfare of asylum-seekers are relatively recent in the Irish context. This is largely due to the historically low numbers of people seeking refuge in Ireland for a variety of geographical and administrative reasons. This piece focuses on one such administrative issue, the continued struggle at national level to design and implement a fair and transparent policy to process and accommodate asylum-seekers. Specifically, this piece looks at the integration strategies of two local authorities to investigate whether the initiatives outlined within these strategies sufficiently address the needs of those within the asylum system. The initiatives were implemented in accordance with a national statement outlining the need for integration strategies for migrants into Ireland. The piece offers a qualitative analysis of two integration strategies in Clare and Limerick with the purpose of ascertaining whether these initiatives sufficiently address the needs of those within the asylum system.

Alvydas ŠlepikasIn the Shadow of Wolves

pain and keeping it a secret. Though the pace has quickened here, these scenes establish an important pattern: pain has always been her most intimate partner. On the surface, this is an oppressive book with an underdeveloped plot, but Havelin has successfully illustrated the ways in which pain controls everything that matters . Lives are misshapen, relationships are stunted, thoughts are dominated, and longterm medical advice is reduced to a leaflet. Pain is a lonely place. At one point, Laura asks herself, “Is it even possible for people to accompany each other to the darkest places?” For those who want to understand pain’s physical and emotional toll, and for those isolated by their own pain, this book may provide the answer. Mary E. Adams University of Louisiana Monroe Alvydas Šlepikas In the Shadow of Wolves Trans. Romas Kinka. London. Oneworld. 2019. 197 pages. Thanks to Oneworld, readers of English now have the opportunity to experience the widely successful first novel of the Lithuanian actor, director, and poet Alvydas Šlepikas. In the midst of a resurgence of World War II novels, Šlepikas captures a tragic and previously unexplored element of the conflict, circumventing expectations and nullifying any desensitization that an avid reader of historical fiction may have developed. In the Shadow of Wolves takes place near the end of the war. The Russians are advancing westward and have occupied the German province of East Prussia. Families are removed from their homes to make room for the occupiers and are left to shelter in underpasses, alleyways, and crude constructs of tin or even cardboard. Life on the street is not only dangerous, but as they become increasingly desperate, the starving families are left with no choice but to send any children who are physically able to make the journey to the Lithuanian countryside in search of sustenance. The plight of one small group of these children is the subject of the novel. They risk crossing a heavily guarded border and navigating thick forests in order to scavenge a land of dwindling resources, vicious guard dogs, and war-weary, rifle-wielding civilians . Episodes are presented through stark, sensory details that leave the reader with nowhere to escape. Nationalities and politics become nonissues in a depiction of pure humanity where the division falls not between ideologies but between oppressor and victim. Beautiful and haunting, In the Shadow of Wolves is a mustread for those with a historical interest in World War II but is even more relevant as an exposition of the true casualties of any political turmoil: the helpless “collateral damage” members of a society. It is especially poignant in a twenty-first-century world where fleeing carnage and seeking refuge is so often deemed criminal activity. Šlepikas has shown his skill in conveying universal truth in a transcultural world. The literary community can only wait in anticipation of his next offering. Joy Walsh Butler County Community College Nota Bene STATEMENT OF OWNERSHIP, MANAGEMENT, AND CIRCULATION 1. Publication Title: World Literature Today 2. Publication Number: 060-680 3. Filing Date: October 1, 2019 4. Issue Frequency: Quarterly 5. Number of Issues Published Annually: Four 6. Annual Subscription Price: $30 US, $40 Canada, $60 Elsewhere, $135 US Institution, $205 International Institution 7. Complete Mailing Address of Known Office of Publication: World Literature Today / University of Oklahoma / 630 Parrington Oval, Suite 110 / Norman, OK 73019-4033 8. Complete Mailing Address of Headquarters of General Business Office of Publisher: Same as above. 9. Full Names and Complete Mailing Addresses of: Publisher: Robert Con Davis-Undiano. Assistant Director & Editor in Chief: Daniel Simon / World Literature Today / University of Oklahoma / 630 Parrington Oval, Suite 110 / Norman, OK 73019-4033 10. Owner: University of Oklahoma Board of Regents / 119 Evans Hall / Norman, OK 73019-3074 11. Known Bondholders, Mortgagees, and Other Security Holders: None 12. The purpose, function, and nonprofit status of this organization and the exempt status for federal income-tax purposes have not changed during the preceding twelve months. 13. Publication Title: World Literature Today 14. Issue Date for Circulation Data Below: October 2019 15. Extent and Nature of Circulation: 2850 1540 850 2390 100 10 110 2500 350 2850 95.6% Actual no. copies of single...

13 Caskets: 13 Chocolate Colonies, and: Buttonwood Agreement, and: Talking to the Bones: Talking, and: Talking to the Bones: Talking, and: Wads: An Attic, and: Maladies

13 Caskets: 13 Chocolate Colonies, and: Buttonwood Agreement, and: Talking to the Bones: Talking, and: Talking to the Bones: Talking, and: Wads: An Attic, and: Maladies David Mills (bio) 13 Caskets: 13 Chocolate Colonies (Joseph Castins the only known enslaved African buried in New York's slave cemetery to have a first and last name that was recorded. A white cabinetmaker, Joseph Delaplaine, made Castins's casket and the caskets of twelve other enslaved Africans whose masters only provided a first name, if any name at all.) Somewhere warps a coffin with yourfirst and sur——————— Joseph Castins.It's rumored Caleb Lawrence gave ityou. Joshua Delaplaine likely inquiredas had not happened with other Negroes swaddled with nail and pine (surely not for hisdozen other unembalmed, coffee colonies).Either Delaplaine cared less to ask or mastersremembered little of the hiss when utteringNegro names. Of the dozen others, three had one: all women, each first: Molly, rozind, and Jane.(Yours the one first and last of over 400.) Twonames: extra letters that might have affordedyou another life. July Seventeen Fifty-Five:proof in a cabinet maker's account book. Between the last letter of your first nameand the first letter of your last name: space(an unetched headstone: mute, dead tooth).White men might have called you Mr. Castinsin life or only murmured that designation in death. Sorrow might have driven CalebLawrence to boldly raise you up as deathinevitably let you down. For we havethe name Joseph Castins but no coffin: thisentry on a page without an entry in the earth. Buttonwood Agreement (May 1792) Located under a Buttonwood Tree, the first New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) was also where New York's slave market was situated. NYSE transactions involved securities on the enslaved, cotton and slave ships. Structured compensation. Standardized commission. Broker, Dealer, Trader, Speculator. Highest bidder. Buy. Sell. Shares. Bonds. Financial. Clients. Transaction. Certificate. Merchants. Securities. (Buttonballs cling to twigs through winter only to find earth's footing come spring) Intermediary/short-term/contract/profit/purchase/negotiate/bargain/distribute. Fluctuate and Hope. Regulate and Market. (Flutter) Fee. Rate. Floor commission. Wall and Water. (Yet again) [End Page 295] Two dozen men fettered by preference (longing to be bound by idea institution and ink) convene at a tree: its crown turns the heaven's brittle; still the sky's blue breaks through. (Shade: an incidental gift.) A single quill. The shaft: hollow collection of wetness. Tips of fingers pinching a feather: its annual shadow shedding on the back of a signer's hand. flight=sky; flow=ink. (feather: bind them both.) Heel first: each hand crosses the document's continent. (Ink is thought's blood. Clotting.) An agreement reached under a buttonwood tree at the foot of 68 Wall. Above those signers' heads, a leaf beetle inching across and conquering an olive continent. (As a toddler the New York Stock Exchange: indifferent to nature's emerald spirit.) Mid-spring is an illness: sticky buds in a petiole's sleeve; heartwood: dim and dense; little give for a trunk coming into its own, for the wood's secret churning world; a chunk of piebald bark sloughs. A man coughs and coughs: seed-ball hair cranky in his throat; a leaf's coat stripped: its itch seeking refuge in the crow's-feet of some of the signer's eyes. That nagging Antebellum shadow adorns shipping, cotton and insurance, covering companies in the trade (breath, shackled black and bought on credit). A document oblivious to the earshot: the insistent Guineamen and illicit phlegmy bidding for Nigras not even a block away. Talking to the Bones: Talking (The spirit of an enslaved African in New York who had been abducted from Ghana) What harbors the pain? My neck: a buckling dock How is one's forearm where the shin should be? Each bone seeks its own uh-uh What have the aches attended? We the ones of two soils/two souls:Coromantee; the filthy glitter of Amsterdam or York Why? Africa: double sustenis—gizzard and spirit—untroubled supper Talking to the Bones: Talking (souls of enslaved, two-year-old New...

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.

Encounters with Difference and the Entangled Enlivening of Being

This essay explores the encounters through which individuals and their communities are territorialized and deterritorialized. Thinking through Henri Bergson's lines of ascent and descent, this article looks at migration and seeking refuge. It makes links between the colonization of New South Wales, Australia, and its people in the late 1700s, and the treatment of present-day refugees caught indefinitely in Australian offshore detention centers. It draws on stories of the author's own territorialization as a child and seeks new ways of understanding encounters with difference, and movement across borders.

Understanding Children's Resources in the Context of Family Violence through a Collaborative Songwriting Method

The majority of literature about children experiencing family violence focuses on reporting ‘problems’ and highlighting detrimental outcomes for children. In contrast, there is little acknowledgement of children's personal resources and capacities in times of crisis.This article describes a participatory arts-based research project involving 10 pre-adolescent children. The research aimed to explore children's individual resources and to highlight the value of giving voice to children through participatory processes. A collaborative songwriting method sought to co-construct knowledge with children about what helped them to ‘do well’ in their lives. An illustrative example demonstrates the collaborative process of engaging children throughout the data generation, collaborative analysis and presentation of the findings. The children described a range of resources and supports in their lives, such as friends, family, sport, pets, journaling, hope and creativity. Five themes explore the role these resources play in children's lives: seeking refuge, wanting to feel safe, hoping for a better future, feeling cared for and being self-determined. The results emphasise the ongoing need to build upon existing resources in children's lives and to support them to navigate access to additional resources. We advocate for participatory approaches that provide opportunities for children's voices to be heard, fostered and responded to.

“Seeking Refuge in God against God”: The Hidden God in Lutheran Theology and the Postmodern Weakening of God

Abstract Martin Luther emphasizes the affective experience of the living God rather than God as an abstract, metaphysical idea. Luther explains this experience of God by distinguishing between God as Deus absconditus in his hidden majesty and God as Deus revelatus suffering on the cross. According to Luther, sinners experience the hidden God as a terrifying presence causing them to suffer. Through faith, however, sinners are able to recognize that this wrathful God is one with the God of love and mercy revealed in Christ. Based on this paradoxical understanding of God, Luther admonishes Christians to seek refuge in God against God. In recent decades, Luther’s accentuation of the revealed God has inspired postmodern philosophers and theologians in their efforts to recast the notion of God in light of the Nietzschean outcry on the death of God and Heidegger’s critique of ontotheology. Hence, John D. Caputo and Gianni Vattimo have weakened the notion of an omnipotent God in favour of an anti-metaphysical understanding of “god” kenotically denouncing his power and occurring as an ethically obliging event. Conversely, postmodern thinking have inspired contemporary Lutheran theologians to reinterpret the notion of God. In this article, Luther’s theology serves as a resource for critiquing these postmodern attempts at post-metaphysically rethinking God the central claim being that they are unable to proclaim the saving promise of a reconciliatory union between God hidden and revealed and between sinful human beings and Christ. As a result, theology is reduced to an ethical manifesto or to compassionate anthropology leaving despairing humans without a language with which to express their sufferings.

The role of teacher agency in refugee education

Civil unrest and forced displacement have seen historical numbers of people seeking refuge in countries, such as Australia, with many being children of school age. As schools continue to respond to students from refugee backgrounds, the role of teacher agency in such responses is an important, yet understudied area of research. In taking an ecological view of teacher agency, the ability for teachers to achieve agency in refugee education is largely the result of an interplay of conditions such as school leadership and state funding models. As such the aim of this paper is to explore the experiences of school leaders in supporting refugee education, with a view to enhance how teacher agency can be used to support refugee students and the staff who work with them. In using Biesta et al. (Teach Teach, 21(6):624–640, 2015) practical-evaluative dimension of teacher agency as a theoretical framework, this exploratory study revealed the significant role of teacher agency in providing education and support for refugee students.

Main challenges in the control of zoonoses and related foodborne diseases in the South Mediterranean and Middle East region.

In the South Mediterranean and Middle East region, interactions between humans, animals, and the surrounding environment are frequently close. This fact is mainly manifested in traditional farming settings (by sedentary, semi-sedentary, and nomadic communities) as well as where livestock intensification has been introduced. A combination of complex factors in these settings (e.g. challenges in country infrastructures and cross-sectoral collaboration/ coordination, traditional habits, poor social information, etc.) contribute to the emergence and, occasionally, to the endemic pattern of zoonoses. The phenomenal growth of international travel and trade, population displacement, and unhygienic settlements has increased the speed and ease with which pathogens and vectors can cross continents and cause outbreaks and epidemics. Programmes for the prevention and control of zoonoses have been implemented in several countries in this region; however, the expected results have not always been realised. The conflicts and civil unrest affecting certain countries in this region during the last decade, together with the mass displacement of people seeking refuge, have resulted in serious epidemiological and social impacts. Zoonoses and related food-borne diseases are, indeed, a worldwide challenge, whose prevention and control mainly depend on the actions of national authorities. Once peace has been established in this region, authorities need to address the burden of these diseases through resource mobilisation, the implementation of international agencies’ technical guidance, and inter-country collaboration.

Costs, needs, and integration efforts shape helping behavior toward refugees

Recent political instabilities and conflicts around the world have drastically increased the number of people seeking refuge. The challenges associated with the large number of arriving refugees have revealed a deep divide among the citizens of host countries: one group welcomes refugees, whereas another rejects them. Our research aim is to identify factors that help us understand host citizens' (un)willingness to help refugees. We devise an economic game that captures the basic structural properties of the refugee situation. We use it to investigate both economic and psychological determinants of citizens' prosocial behavior toward refugees. In three controlled laboratory studies, we find that helping refugees becomes less likely when it is individually costly to the citizens. At the same time, helping becomes more likely with the refugees' neediness: helping increases when it prevents a loss rather than generates a gain for the refugees. Moreover, particularly citizens with higher degrees of prosocial orientation are willing to provide help at a personal cost. When refugees have to exert a minimum level of effort to be eligible for support by the citizens, these mandatory "integration efforts" further increase prosocial citizens' willingness to help. Our results underscore that economic factors play a key role in shaping individual refugee helping behavior but also show that psychological factors modulate how individuals respond to them. Moreover, our economic game is a useful complement to correlational survey measures and can be used for pretesting policy measures aimed at promoting prosocial behavior toward refugees.

Seeking refuge in Europe: spaces of transit and the violence of migration management

ABSTRACTIn the past few years, spaces of transit have become prominent sites for people seeking refuge in Europe. From railway stations and parks in European cities, to informal settlements around Calais, to the hotspots in Italy and Greece, the movements of people and the techniques that govern them are at the heart of what has been misnamed the ‘European refugee crisis’. Drawing on qualitative fieldwork, this article takes spaces of transit as a vantage point for interrogating the relationship between mobility, migration management and violence, focusing on the fracturing of journeys due to forced and obstructed mobility both outside and within the EU. We develop the notion of ‘politics of exhaustion’ to highlight the impact and protracted character of these forms of migration management – its accumulated effects over time and across spaces – yet without reducing people seeking refuge to passive victims. Struggles for mobility are closely related to the existence and continued adaptation of migration management practices. The notion of fracturing can thus be employed not only to make sense of the violent effects of migration management but also the ways in which conventional conceptions of state and citizenship are challenged by the emergence of alternative living spaces, communities and politics.

Syria: To Bomb Again or Not?

The conflict in Syria is one of the worst humanitarian crisis in the world today. Since December 2017, over 5.4 million people have fled the war in Syria seeking refuge in neighboring countries such as Lebanon, Turkey, and Jordan. Another 6.3 million people have been forcefully displaced inside Syria (IDPs). News broke out suspecting that President Bashar al-Assad's regime had used chemical attacks to strike the rebel-held suburb of Douma, east of Damascus. This prompted western governments' outrage and pressure began to mount for a forceful response despite lack of a convincing that the chemical strike was carried out by the Syrian government. Nonetheless, the French President, Emmanuel Macron, asserts proof that last week the Syrian government attacked with chemical weapons. President Trump, who recently said he wants to pull the United States out of Syria, has more recently declared that the missiles 'will be coming towards Syria. On April 13th he ordered strikes on Syrian targets. As was the case with Iraq, Libya, and now Syria, major western news agencies have fill the papers with justifications for bombing Syria. The enthusiasm for advocating for war wrapped in a moral need for violence, masks obvious consequences, an overt attack on Syria can provoke a greater war in the Middle East and bring the U.S. into direct confrontation with Russia or even China. It is expected that Russia and China will veto any Security Council resolution authorizing force in Syria. Wars that lack UN authorization are illegal under international law. Where does that leave western powers? The double standard whereby international law is only useful when it legitimizes intervention but an obstacle when it restrains intervention is frustratingly evident.

Afghan migration through Turkey to Europe: seeking refuge, forming diaspora, and becoming citizens

ABSTRACTThis paper aims to investigate the Afghan-Turkish-European region migration system in light of migration system theory, which provides a comprehensive framework by asking the question of how a set of linkages including some macro-, meso- and micro-level variables relate to the larger context of migratory settings. Relating the roles of various structures, institutions and networks to the operation of the social, political and economic relationships, it seeks to analyze the dynamics of Afghan migration heading to Turkey and Europe in a historically contextualized way. The paper argues that one must focus on the root causes of flows, which are related to the presence of fragility of the Afghan state together with the continuation of flows via networks enabling the maintenance of migrants’ links to home, transit and destination countries.

Repellency of Naturally Occurring or Related Compounds, DEET, and Para-Menthane-3,8-Diol to Bed Bugs (Hemiptera: Cimicidae).

Bed bugs, Cimex lectularius L. (Hemiptera: Cimicidae), have become a major health nuisance in the past 20 ysin cities and elsewhere throughout many areas of the world. Few studies have reported on repellent compounds that could reduce their transport in luggage. We evaluated the repellency of six naturally occurring or related compounds used in flavor/fragrance applications or structurally related compounds, para-menthane-3,8-diol, and N,N-diethyl-meta-toluamide (DEET) to bed bugs in a 183 × 183-cm arena . Repellency was assessed using soft-sided polyester lunch bags serving as surrogates of luggage and barrier cloth towels upon which rested untreated lunch bags. We report for the first time repellency of delta dodecalactone, 2-(3, 7-dimethyl-2, 6-nonadien-1-yl)-cyclopentanone (a.k.a. 'methyl apritone'), gamma dodecalactone, and para-menthane-3,8-diol to bed bugs. Propyl dihydrojasmonate, 3-methyl-5-hexyl-2-cyclohexenone, gamma methyl tridecalactone, and DEET are also documented to be repellent to bed bugs. These compounds provided relatively long-term protection. Propyl dihydrojasmonate prevented bed bugs from seeking refuge in treated lunch bags 27 d after treatment, and when applied to cloth towels repelled harborage-seeking bed bugs for 146 d. Methyl apritone blended with 3-methyl-5-hexyl-2-cyclohexenone and delta dodecalactone as an individual compound applied to cloth towels repelled bed bugs for 190 and 276 d, respectively. The above-mentioned compounds, either individually or as blends, may reduce risk of bed bugs seeking harborage in treated suitcases or towels upon which untreated luggage is placed.

El rechazo religioso de lo contemporáneo

El sujeto es nuestro contemporáneo cuando no cesa de usar su poder de creación —lo que lo hace “inactual” por estructura—. Ese proceso de creación lo ha llevado a enfrentarse con el problema intrínseco de la representación, que no puede hacer otra cosa que representar, es decir, reparar en el enigma de lo real. Lo transcendente religioso es una respuesta a lo impensable del sujeto. El psicoanálisis ha acogido a los sujetos privados de la neurosis obsesiva universal (la religión) por la modernidad. A su turno, la postmodernidad objeta la religión privada, la neurosis, lo que obliga al sujeto a escoger entre refugiarse en un radicalismo religioso de aspecto paranoico, o apostar por un cambio radicalmente novedoso. El psicoanálisis, profano, parece abrir la posibilidad de una trascendencia laica.

Containment through mobility: migrants’ spatial disobediences and the reshaping of control through the hotspot system

ABSTRACTThis article deals with the modes of (contested) control that are at play at the Mediterranean frontier for containing, dividing and discipling unruly mobility. Building on ethnographic research conducted on the island of Lesvos and of Lampedusa, it focuses on the implementation and the functioning of the Hotspot System in Greece and in Italy, analysing beyond the fences of detention centres and by looking at the broader logistics of channels, infrastructures and governmental measures deployed for regaining control over migration movements. The article argues that more than control in terms of surveillance and tracking, the Hotspot System contributes to enforce forms of containment through mobility that consists in controlling migration by obstructing, decelerating and troubling migrants’ geographies – more than in fully blocking them. The article takes into account migrants’ refusals of being fingerprinted, showing how migrants radically unsettle the association between seeking refuge and lack of choice, enacting their right to choose where to go and claim asylum.