Imagining a feminist humanitarian system: reflections from co-organizing a panel on feminist approaches to humanitarian action

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The emergence of feminist analysis and advocacies within the humanitarian field offers opportunities to engage with and reflect on current practices. In this blog article, Gabriela Villacis Izquierdo & Kaira Zoe Cañete explore and consider the wide range of feminist approaches to humanitarian action presented during their panel at the International Humanitarian Studies Association Conference in 2023. They look into the multiple ways in which feminist approaches can lead to more equitable and desirable outcomes whilst also highlighting the potential of embracing these approaches to contribute to reforms within the sector.

 

“Are we trying to turn the humanitarian system into something that it could never become?”

This was a provocation laid down by one of the speakers in a panel that we (Gabriela and Kaira) organized at the 7thInternational Humanitarian Studies Association (IHSA) Conference held in Dhaka in November 2023. The panel, titled “Mapping Feminist Approaches to Humanitarian Action”, invited conceptual, empirical, methodological, and practice-based papers to discuss the significance of feminist approaches to humanitarian action.

As an initiative under the ERC-funded Humanitarian Governance Project, the panel asked: In what ways can humanitarian practices be considered ‘feminist’? How can feminist advocacies, approaches, and research methodologies help address the challenges in contemporary humanitarian practices and governance? This article reflects on the presentations from the panel, which includes our own collaborative work, and highlights emergent themes and opportunities for advancing feminist approaches in humanitarian research and practice.

Constructing instead of extracting knowledge

The panel featured diverse presentations that underscored feminist contributions to addressing the complexities of humanitarian crises, beginning with how feminist methodologies can be useful for constructing knowledge about experiences of crises (to read all abstracts, visit the IHSA website). Vani Bhardwaj for instance presented her work on Bangladesh and how environmental impacts of humanitarian response can have gendered consequences. She problematized how approaches of INGOs working in the field, with their reliance on “traditional” data collection tools, can create and perpetuate (colonial) hierarchies, such as the extraction of knowledge and the reinforcement of power relations between researcher and “subjects” or “beneficiaries”.

Situated designs for mobility justice

Similarly, Emmanuel Kodwo Mensah from social enterprise Includovate introduced a mobility mapping methodology he developed with Dr. Kristie Drucza while studying South Sudanese refugees in Uganda, where mobility justice seems to be a distant possibility, especially for women. Through this approach, they were able to focus on the lived experiences of refugee women and men, who are also dealing with the negative impacts of climate change and could unveil the intricate realities that are behind the categories of “refugee” and “migrant”. This contribution provokes us to explore ways in which humanitarian responses can adopt a more situated design towards the achievement of mobility justice. Moreover, the presenters’ reflections motivated us to further explore the notion of allyship and ‘positive masculinities’ within the feminist approaches inside and outside the humanitarian realm.

At different levels, we could identify with Vani’s and Emmanuel’s analysis, as our own presentation in the panel aimed to share our experiences of doing feminist research in humanitarian and disasters contexts. Based on two different case studies – the Philippines and Colombia – we argued that despite the challenges posed by doing research in settings of crisis, it is important and possible to meaningfully engage with research participants and embody feminist principles of research, such as collaborative knowledge construction, awareness of intersectional identities of participants and researchers, and research as a two-way and relational process. For us, feminist methodologies have the potential to centre the situated and lived experiences of people affected and involve them in processes of knowledge-building.

Alternative forms of humanitarian action

A second set of presentations delved into alternative forms of humanitarian action. Gabrielle Daoust and Synne Dyvik highlighted one of the current humanitarian crises in Europe: the Ukraine war. They focused on the notion of private humanitarian hospitality through the case of the “Homes for Ukraine” scheme in the United Kingdom. The presentation was an invitation for us to reflect on the privatization of humanitarian responses as marked by a virtual outsourcing of government responsibility to private individuals in dealing with refugees.

This type of humanitarian response and the associated shifting of the ‘humanitarian space’ into the private and domestic sphere is enabled by particular gendered and racialised conceptions of the home (especially in relation to traditional notions of care work) and of humanitarian hospitality more broadly. In this case, white women from Ukraine are welcomed in the private spaces of UK citizens due to their perceived “harmless” identities as mothers and caregivers. Such a case would be different for other racialised refugees, especially men.

A critical look at the survivor-centred approach (SCA)

Inspired by their own experiences working on gender-based violence (GBV) during crises, Ilaria Michelis, Jane Makepeace, and Chen Reis presented a critical discourse analysis of the survivor centred approach (SCA) within humanitarian responses. For the presenters, the SCA has moved away from its feminist roots and objectives to become a technocratic tool. Humanitarian actors and service providers retain control while survivors’ choices are limited by rigid models and external assessments of their safety. As feminist practitioners and researchers, Ilaria, Jane and Chen challenged these practices within the humanitarian system and advocated for locally and survivor-led initiatives. Their recently published paper can be found here.

Knowledge extraction and the creation of dependency relations

Finally, María González presented her research about the resistance of the Tal’3at movement in Palestine from a decolonial, feminist, and critical lens. During her collaborative research with members of the Tal’3at movement, they identified how women in Palestine faced three main roots of oppression: occupation, patriarchy, and “the NGOs”. In relation to the theme of the panel, María focused on the ways in which international NGOs in Palestine tended to co-opt resistance efforts of women in Palestine through knowledge extraction and creation of dependency. Importantly, María showed how the Tal’3at movement counteracted these “structures of oppression” through political and anti-colonial engagement to advance freedom of all Palestinians.

Feminist approaches: a big step toward more equitable ways of doing things

By summarizing the different contributions to the panel, we intend to demonstrate the richness and diversity of feminist thinking and initiatives in this space. Over the last few years, feminist organizations have articulated the need to transform the humanitarian system not least of all for its tendency to privilege certain (Northern-centric and patriarchal) values, approaches, and worldviews. They have sought to make humanitarian action more attentive to the gendered, racialized, and lived experiences of crises thereby making aid more accountable, responsive, and accessible to those most affected. The emergence of feminist analysis and advocacies within the humanitarian field offers opportunities to engage with and reflect on current practices.

However, the ideas emanating from this are rarely brought into direct conversation with other (mainstream and non-mainstream) strands of humanitarian research and practice. Attention to context and lived experiences of crises, gendered power relations in humanitarian settings, intersectionality, and forms of care that are vital for survival and recovery are some of the contributions that a feminist perspective can bring to discussions not only on how humanitarian response can be “effective” but also transformative.

Through this panel, we have attempted to highlight some of these opportunities for further thinking and action that would help us address some of the challenges that beset humanitarian practice at present. The themes that arose in the panel discussion are certainly far from exhaustive, but they indicate valuable insights that are enabled through an application of feminist perspectives, ethics, and methodologies.

Going back to our collective concern — are we trying to turn the humanitarian system into something that it could never become? — we are convinced that it is possible, when we see what people on the ground are doing in their everyday practices of humanitarian action. We hope to be able to move further with this initiative and explore if and how feminist approaches can make a difference in the ways we respond to crises.

Acknowledgements

We are deeply grateful to each one of the participants who share their knowledges and work during the panel.

Disclaimer

This blog article is part of the work of the Humanitarian Governance, accountability, advocacy, alternatives project funded by the European Research Council (ERC) under the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation program under grant agreement No. 884139.

About the authors

Gabriela_VillacisGabriela Villacis Izquierdo is a PhD researcher at the International Institute of Social Studies of Erasmus University Rotterdam. Her research focuses on the alternative forms of humanitarian governance in Colombia, with an emphasis on feminist approaches and the potential of collective action, advocacy, and care.

 

 

 

Kaira Zoe Alburo-Cañete is Senior Researcher at the Humanitarian Studies Centre, International Institute of Social Studies of Erasmus University Rotterdam. Her research interests include examining the everyday politics and ethics of living with, responding to, and recovering from disasters and other forms of crises.

Opinions expressed in Bliss posts reflect solely the views of the author of the post in question.

A JOURNEY OF FLUIDITY THROUGH (IM)MOBILITY

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Justice and mobility are intertwined elements of our civilization and affect all of us significantly. Through two blog posts, we discuss affective justice and mobility, drawing on our individual experiences and perceptions. This post reflects on our daily experiences of mobility and how those affect our identity.

Image by Freepik.

Mobility, both physical and social, is a fundamental aspect of our daily lives. Mobility is not only about physical movement but also about freedom and opportunities (Castle et. al, 2020). Mobility has a personal dimension, as it is connected to the individual experiences and aspirations that drive people to move. Its nuances lie in the different demographics seeking what is (imagined for them to be) a better life. Mobility justice, as Mimi Sheller argues in her book Mobility Justice: The Politics of Movement in an Age of Extremes, is crucial in  recognizing the disparities amongst communities in their effort to become mobile, and understanding how to solve them. Mobility justice relates to the vision of a world where social justice prevails. A world where people are entitled to move freely in physical and intellectual spaces, unobstructed by their race, religion, personal background or physical ability. Our unique experiences make us connect to mobility through different lenses related to race, citizenship, education and many others.

‘Race has historically been a factor that has extensively shaped mobility,’ enabling the advantaged and restricting whichever group happens to be  marginalized within a historical social-cultural context (Sheller, 2018). Throughout our personal experiences, we have always felt that white skin has enabled people to move much more freely in social spaces compared to people of  colour. For instance, Yannis does not think twice about walking in the predominantly white neighbourhood of Kralingen. However, a friend of his who is of African descent recently confided in him the exact opposite; he feels uncomfortable strolling in the same area because bystanders often give him weird looks that scare him, thereby making the space uncomfortable for him to occupy, even in transit. Being extremely disturbed by the immobility imposed on his friend, Yannis attempted to initiate discussion around the topic in offline and online networks such as the Open Discussion Forum with the hope that some change in our paradigms would be enacted.

‘I always took for granted that I have an EU passport.’ Cassandra didn’t think twice about the fact that she was allowed to easily travel, work and live in any EU country. However, a few months ago, a friend of hers was going through a phase of desperately trying to find a job in the Netherlands, which was a challenge despite her expertise and experiences. Her friend is originally from India and lived most of her life in the UAE, so the practicalities of her being able to work and live in the Netherlands are quite different and more complicated than Cassandra’s. Through this, Cassandra realized how much effect one’s birthplace has on their international mobility, and the opportunities available within a set of borders different than the one they grew up in. We constructed nations, borders, and all concepts that constitute citizenship, even though none of them have any intrinsic value to us. We find it odd, not to mention unjust, to demobilize certain populations based on mere contingency, such as citizenship.

‘As an international student, the pursuit of education has been both a goal and a challenge.’ Kaitlan has always known that being able to study in the West requires a certain level of privilege, which comes with barriers regarding economic, linguistic and credential factors. Migrating to the West is a huge financial burden that highlights the disparity in educational access. The inherent nature of passport rankings has made her right to work here more difficult, given that she needs a work permit as a non-EU citizen. Despite these barriers, she is still here, mainly because of the global rankings of Erasmus University Rotterdam. With this in mind, we believe that the West has  monopolized educational resources for economic gain. Quality education should not be a privilege, but a fundamental right. Kaitlan’s experience as a non-EU student underscores the need for a more equitable system in order to achieve quality education. Given that many of us lack adequate access to it, we need to ask ourselves; what kind of global society are we living in?

‘Mobility is not a value-neutral noun,’ or a verb simply referring to physical movement. When we talk about mobility, we are essentially discussing justice in environmental, economic and social spaces. Whether it is nationality, race or educational background, our inherent personal characteristics act as enabling or restricting factors concerning how we navigate all kinds of spaces. However, our discussion shows that several questions are yet to be answered before true mobility justice is achieved. We need to understand how enabling or restricting factors are  internalized and, hence, still affect our behaviour even though “formal” equality before the law might already exist. We need to comprehend how to break down systems that control and regulate the movement of  marginalized groups in order to achieve true mobility justice; a situation where socioeconomic and personal mobility does not necessitate physical reallocation.

Image by Freepik.

Bibliography

de Haas, H, Castles, S. and Miller, M. J. (2020). ‘Introduction’ in H. de Haas, S. Castles, M.J.     Miller, The age of migration: international population movements in the modern world. Sixth edn. London: Red Globe Press., p. 1-19

Image by <a href=”https://www.freepik.com/free-vector/hand-drawn-picasso-style-illustration_30116612.htm#query=hand-drawn-picasso-style-illustration&position=4&from_view=search&track=sph&uuid=0552e9d7-89e0-4270-8864-86600a75ea84″>Freepik</a&gt;

Image by https://www.freepik.com/free-ai-image/vintage-encaustic-paint-background_66988485.htm#query=futurism%20paintings&position=26&from_view=search&track=ais&uuid=4298a70c-f788-45e1-b7e7-3c0a6a2b3b68

Sheller, M. (2018). Introduction. Mobility justice: The politics of movement in the age of extremes. Verso.

“SIMPS: Using Sociology for Personal Mobility.” Ieeexplore.ieee.org,                                          ieeexplore.ieee.org/abstract/document/4637903. Accessed 31 Oct. 2023.

“Talking about Race | Open Discussion Forum.” Hello.naeyc.org,        hello.naeyc.org/communities/community      home/digestviewer/viewthread?MessageKey=e7032bb1-24b7-4bf4-8f59-  16b88b563636&CommunityKey=f51f9fd4-47c9-4bfd-aca7-23e9f31b601e&tab=digestviewer. Accessed 31 Oct. 2023.

 

Opinions expressed in Bliss posts reflect solely the views of the author of the post in question.

About the authors:

Kaitlan Adams is a third year Bachelor’s student in Erasmus University College. Majoring in Political Science and International Relations, with a double-minor in International Human Rights Law, as well as Arts, Culture, and Society, Kaitlan has interests in working with NGOs that fight for human-rights and has a background in teaching English to underprivileged Youth.

Cassandra Kamberi is a third year bachelor student majoring in Psychology and Philosophy at EUR. She is a board member of Positive Impact Society Erasmus (PISE), aiming to help students identify how they can have the most positive impact they can with their career and resources. Some of her projects include running a committee alongside other students for Improving Institutional Decision Making,  and writing her philosophy thesis on the mental health crisis. Perhaps her biggest interest lies in understanding what drives suffering in human beings even when all their basic needs are met, and how we can potentially alleviate this suffering through both cultural reform and individual practices.

Yannis Diakantonis is a third year Bachelor’s student and Research Assistant in Erasmus University Rotterdam. Some of his current research projects relate to candidate selection and electoral systems in the context of developing countries. He has worked in several NGOs which, among others, promote Climate Neutrality, Green Finance and Sustainable Digitalization.

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Migration Series | Precarity along the Colombia–Panama border: How providing healthcare services to transit migrants can foster new logics of inclusion and exclusion

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Transit migrants journeying the Americas to North America often pass through Necoclí, a seaside town close to the Colombia–Panama border and the Darien Gap. Upon their arrival, they frequently require medical attention but can only access emergency medical services. In this article, Carolina Aristizabal shows how a limited healthcare provisioning system designed for immobile populations has been reworked by humanitarian organizations to help transit migrants receive the care they need. She argues that new logics of inclusion and exclusion emerge as a result of such reconfigurations — a development that may lead in some cases to xenophobia in local communities.

Image by Author

Traversing the Americas

On their way to Mexico, the United States, and Canada, irregular migrants coming from as near as Venezuela, Haiti, and Ecuador and as far as India and Senegal arrive at Necoclí, a seaside town located near to the Colombia–Panama border. Here, after crossing the Gulf of Urabá, they enter the Darien Gap, a geographic region in the Isthmus of Panama that connects South America with Central America. From there they travel further north. In 2022, around 250,000 migrants arrived in Panama through the Darien Gap; this year, by July 2023, around 252,000 people have already undertaken this journey.[1]

 

Health care provisioning: for whom?

When in Necoclí, transit migrants often require assistance, especially in the form of healthcare services. However, even though they may stay in the town for weeks on end, transit migrants are frequently seen as outsiders of ‘immobile’ social provisioning systems usually underpinned by citizenship. As a result, they have access only to limited medical services, which adds to the precarity they already face. Several humanitarian organizations have stepped in to fill the gap left by a lack of government healthcare services for this group of people. Yet, the local implications of this workaround remain underexplored.

For this reason, I decided to conduct research on the topic in the framework of the research paper for my Master’s degree in Development Studies. I observed and conducted interviews with healthcare providers and inhabitants of Necoclí last year because I wanted to understand the different ways in which the Colombian government and non-governmental actors organize and legitimize the provisioning of healthcare services to these transit migrants, especially in a context in which local communities are living under precarious conditions with unsatisfied basic needs. Some of my findings about precarity, categorization, and humanitarian action are highlighted below.

 

Continued precarity while waiting

When migrants arrive in Necoclí, a lack of reception facilities in the town add to the already existing, often precarious traveling conditions they face when making their way there. For example, while some of them can stay at hotels once they’ve arrived in the town, others have to sleep in tents and hammocks on the beach, close to the two municipal docks.

Staying close to the sea allows them to wash their clothes and bathe in its waters. However, they do not have a roof over their heads or access to running water or sanitary facilities, and they are less safe in public spaces. The border zone between Colombia and Panama is characterized by a weak governmental presence and the dominance of armed groups, especially the Gulf Clan (El Clan del Golfo), which controls drug and arms trafficking routes along this Colombian border (Garzón et al., 2018) as well as the migration dynamics in the territory to a large extent.[2]

Moreover, while some migrants are immediately able to buy boat tickets from a company offering transportation through the Urabá Gulf once they arrive, others must stay in Necoclí as long as needed to gather the necessary money to buy these tickets. This means that hundreds if not thousands of migrants may be stuck in the town for days or weeks on end before being able to travel further.

 

A lack of adequate healthcare services

Transit migrants typically undergo long and arduous journeys and upon their arrival in Necoclí may require medical attention to treat amongst others mental health issues, HIV infections, Covid-19 infections, rabies, and food or water poisoning. Pregnant women also need prenatal care. In 2022, Necoclí had one public hospital where migrants could receive emergency services for free, as well as some ‘low-complexity’ services such as vaccinations and laboratory tests for prioritized populations.

However, many of their health issues remain untreated partly because the government’s Principle of Universality does not apply to non-citizens. According to the Healthcare Law (Law 100 of 1993), under this principle everyone in Colombia has the right to access healthcare services at any moment of their lives, without any type of discrimination. Colombian nationals and migrants with resident permits can access any available public healthcare service. However, given the citizen requirement, migrants in transit can only access emergency services — highlighting the boundaries to the ‘Principle of Universality’.

 

A dual role for humanitarian actors

In 2022, to make up for the gap in the provisioning of healthcare services to transit migrants, non-governmental actors such as the Colombian Red Cross, the Colombian Institute of Tropical Medicine with the International Organization for Migration (IOM), Mercy Corps, UNICEF, and HIAS started providing healthcare services that extend beyond emergency care. These services included 1) psychological assistance, 2) sexual and reproductive health services, 3) children’s growth and development programmes, and 4) dentistry — services that are considered ‘non-essential’ and were therefore not provided to transit migrants by the government.

In this way, humanitarian actors assumed two different roles: on the one hand, they supported the state in its responsibility to provide emergency services, and on the other hand, they complemented this service based on a more dynamic reading of the needs of transit migrants and of the types of health provisioning necessary.

For humanitarian actors, these services were provided based on the Principle of Humanity, which refers to the aim of saving lives “in a manner that respects and restores personal dignity”[3] for any person, as well as the IOM’s mission to promote “humane and orderly migration that benefits migrants and societies”.[4] Moreover, non-governmental actors also made use of the resident/migrant binarity to define their criteria of eligibility, since some of them provide healthcare services just for transit migrants, while others also provide medical attention to permanent residents under particular circumstances.

As an example from my fieldwork, a Colombian child living in Necoclí could not be part of the Red Cross growth and development programme, even though she or he had been insufficiently attended to by the Colombian health system due to a lack of resources. On the other hand, both a Colombian woman living in Necoclí and a transit migrant had access to Mercy Corps’s programme on sexual and reproductive health.

 

The need to maintain a delicate balance

The dynamics of transit migration changed the healthcare system in Necoclí since governmental and non-governmental responses to the needs of transit migrants are based on their principles and their capacities. They made use of the resident/transit migrant duality as an eligibility criterion to define medical attention. The importance of this research lies in the possibility to understand how governmental and non-governmental actors, as well as Necoclí residents, reconfigure and problematize the criterion that is used to define the accessibility of transit migrants to the healthcare provisioning system.

In a context in which inhabitants face big challenges to access basic healthcare services, the use of this criterion requires maintaining a delicate balance between responding to the needs of transit migrants and the needs of residents. The provisioning of medical attention for transit migrants arriving to Necoclí allows us to understand not only how an immobile social system responds to the needs of a mobile population but also to analyze how the precarious conditions of migrants and residents shape and legitimize the eligibility criterion to this system. When non-governmental actors exclude residents from their services, this can lead to perceptions of unfair treatment and acts of xenophobia by residents, which could deteriorate even more the precarious conditions of transit migrants.

In the framework of migration governance, the eligibility criterion that is used by governmental and non-governmental actors to provide healthcare services should go beyond their principles to also consider the imaginaries and relationships that they reinforce in local communities and that end up (de)legitimizing health provisioning for transit migrants.

[1] https://www.migracion.gob.pa/inicio/estadisticas

[2] https://voragine.co/las-victimas-de-la-selva-asi-trafican-con-migrantes-en-necocli/

[3] United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, 2022

[4] International Organization for Migration, 2022

This is part of and concludes the Migration Series. Read the previous topics on the migration series:

How does a place become (less) hostile? Looking at everyday encounters between migrants and non-migrants as acts and processes of bordering.

From caminantes to community builders: how migrants in Ecuador support each other in their journeys.

From branding to bottom-up ‘sheltering’: How CSOs are helping to address migration governance gaps in the shelter city of Granada

“Us Aymara have no borders”: Differentiated mobilities in the Chilean borderlands

Opinions expressed in Bliss posts reflect solely the views of the author of the post in question.

About the author:

Carolina Aristizabal is a Colombian political scientist and holds an master’s degree in Development Studies from the ISS. She has worked with non-governmental organizations and the local government in the city of Medellín, her hometown.

Are you looking for more content about Global Development and Social Justice? Subscribe to Bliss, the official blog of the International Institute of Social Studies, and stay updated about interesting topics our researchers are working on.

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Silence on the Afghan deportation drive from Pakistan reveals hypocrisy; the international community must honour its commitment to human rights

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With the Government of Pakistan’s announced deportation drive, the situation of Afghan refugees in Pakistan has taken a shocking turn. In this post, three women refugee researchers from Afghanistan, writing with ISS researchers Karin Astrid Siegmann and Saba Gul Khattak, state that the international community is looking on as Afghan refugees in Pakistan risk deportation to and persecution in Afghanistan. Rather than deporting them, these refugees, especially vulnerable groups, should be resettled to third countries or granted asylum in Pakistan. The international community has a duty to help them, they write.

Unloading Second Refugee Bus B by Gustavo Montes de Oca

The shadow of Israel’s bombings of Gaza makes other humanitarian crises invisible. While writing this post, as undocumented Afghan refugees in Pakistan, we are in danger of forced deportation to Afghanistan where persecution awaits us.

And we are not alone. Hundreds of thousands of Afghan refugees in Pakistan face a similar threat. At least 1.3 million Afghan nationals live in Pakistan as refugees. In addition, more than 600,000 of us came after the Taliban took over the Afghan government in August 2021.

We see the Pakistan caretaker government’s recent announcement that it will deport all ‘illegal foreign nationals’ after 1 November 2023 as a form of collective punishment. The Pakistan government claims that this deportation is for national security, but it further destabilises our precarious situation.

 

Afghan refugees in Pakistan already face terrible conditions

As undocumented foreigners, securing our livelihood through employment in Pakistan is impossible. A general lack of proficiency in Urdu, Pakistan’s national language, further weakens our bargaining power in our host society. Over and above this, those of us who belong to the ethnic and religious minority of Hazara Shias are easily identifiable among Pakistan’s different ethnic set-up. Our faces are our passport, so to speak. In Afghanistan, Hazara Shias face persecution which has caused hundreds of civilian casualties in unlawful targeted killings. In Pakistan, we and face similar discrimination on ethnic and religious grounds.

 

Deportation plan pits refugees against Pakistani people

The government of Pakistan’s announcement has aggravated this dire situation. While the Pakistani population has long hosted their Afghan neighbours in times of crises, the deportation plan cruelly pits the refugee population against Pakistani people. The government has announced strict legal action against any Pakistani citizen who, for instance, provides accommodation to ‘illegal aliens’. We see how Pakistanis have become even more hostile as a result.

Police harassment has become more pronounced, too. A year ago, the police would just knock at the door; now, they directly enter our homes. A recent fact-finding mission of the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan has found that several Afghan settlements in Islamabad have been demolished by the Capital Development Authority (CDA), ostensibly as part of an anti-encroachment drive. In fact, most residents are registered refugees and said they have been subjected to harassment, intimidation and extortion by the police following the government’s notification on foreigners.

 

In this crisis, we are asking: Where are the international champions of human rights?

The UN Refugee Agency UNHCR, whose stated objective it is to “protect refugees, forcibly displaced communities and stateless people”, has failed Afghan refugees in Pakistan. Following the Taliban takeover, the agency issued a non-refoulment (no forced return) advisory for Afghans outside of their home country. When, in early October, the government of Pakistan announced its plan to deport undocumented foreigners, UNHCR and the International Organisation for Migration (IOM) appealed to Pakistan “to continue its protection of all vulnerable Afghans who have sought safety in the country and could be at imminent risk if forced to return.”

Yet, the fact that the UNHCR has not registered a large portion of Afghan refugees in Pakistan has made them vulnerable in the first place. Hundreds of thousands of undocumented Afghans, especially women refugees, musicians, and social media activists living in Pakistan are now at risk because the registration of Afghan refugees has been stalled by this very UN agency. They now live in terror of deportation to a country that actively enforces gender apartheid and persecutes people based on their ethnicity, religion, and professional work. Instead of citing international customary law, and recent judgments from Pakistani courts that clearly state that Afghan asylum seekers have a right to asylum, UNHCR and IOM have adopted a stoic silence.

 

Western government’s calls to respect women’s rights are hollow

The protestations of western governments to ‘stand up for the rights of women in Afghanistan’ ring hollow in our ears. In 2001, the Taliban’s treatment of women provided the United States (US) with a justification for bombing Afghanistan (see also here). When the US signed the Doha Accord with the Taliban in February 2020 to bring an end to almost twenty years of war, this concern for women’s rights was forgotten, though. Meanwhile, our sisters in Afghanistan who have raised their voices against women’s systematic discrimination through laws and policies that have made women prisoners in their own country by the new Taliban government have been detained and subjected to threats, beatings and electric shocks by the Taliban authorities.

The countries that approved of the Doha Accord, a deal that excluded the Afghan government, share responsibility for the exit of Afghan nationals from their homes and their country. However, they turn a blind eye to the violations of human rights in Afghanistan as they do not wish to accept Afghan refugees.

 

The international community must break the silence — now

To address the ongoing humanitarian crisis that Afghan refugees in Pakistan face, the international community needs to break its silence and increase resettlement quotas immediately. Refugees who have been screened and identified as priority cases for resettlement need to be reassured that they will not be sent back to Afghanistan. The approximately 20,000–25,000 vulnerable Afghans identified by UNHCR need to be resettled abroad as soon as possible. We also call for the UNHCR definition of vulnerable Afghans to include those who worked for the civil bureaucracy, the military and police forces of Afghanistan during the time of the Ashraf Ghani government, but also single women and mothers.

Finally, the right to seek asylum is recognized as an international human right by Article 14 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Pakistan must be persuaded to grant asylum to Afghans in Pakistan rather than deporting us. We contribute to Pakistan’s society and economy in numerous ways. That contribution needs to be recognised.

Picture Credit: “Unloading Second Refugee Bus B” by Gustavo Montes de Oca is licensed under CC BY 2.0.

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Opinions expressed in Bliss posts reflect solely the views of the author of the post in question.

About the authors:

Three women refugee researchers from Afghanistan have fled Afghanistan after the Taliban takeover in August 2021 for fear of detention as human and women rights activists.

Karin Astrid Siegmann is an Associate Professor in Labour and Gender Economics at ISS.

 

 

 

Saba Gul Khattak is a feminist researcher and expert in gender, conflict, and human security.

 

 

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Migration Series | “Us Aymara have no borders”: Differentiated mobilities in the Chilean borderlands

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In Chile, recent initiatives to manage migration have been based on nation-state and sedentary imaginaries. These approaches to migration are challenged by the traditionally mobile and trans-national lives of the Aymara indigenous population residing in Colchane and Pisiga Carpa. Focusing on the Aymara residents of these so-called transit communities and initial reception points for migrants and refugees upsets pre-supposed differences between ‘migrants’ and ‘non-migrants’ and invites us to reconsider approaches to mobility. 

Although ‘migration’ in all its guises is part and parcel of our human condition and world, there has been increasing surveillance of human mobility and normalization of difference between ‘citizens’ and (undocumented) ‘migrant others’ since the inception of nation-states.[1] The focus on difference not only justifies securitization and deterrence approaches to the governance of migration, but it also fails to acknowledge how ‘migrants’ and ‘non-migrants’ co-exist in societies characterized by everyday forms of violence, marginalization, and displacement. Following a de-migranticization approach,[2] my research that took place in 2022 and focused on the traditionally mobile lives of Aymara border residents of Colchane and Pisiga Carpa (villages located close to the Colchane-Pisiga border crossing between Bolivia and Chile) is particularly useful because Aymara narratives and cross-border practices challenge sedentary and nation-state assumptions that underpin mainstream approaches to migration. By juxtaposing a traditionally mobile indigenous population with discourses on the governance of migrants and refugees, this article invites us to reconsider approaches to mobility and the structures that render movement normal for some but ‘abnormal’ for others.

 

Trans-national mobilities in the borderlands

The Aymara are an indigenous community that has historically engaged in mobility practices that seek to take advantage of the variety of ecological floors present in the Andean space, which transcends rigid national borders and includes territories from northern Chile, Argentina, Bolivia, and Peru. As Aymara communities were arbitrarily separated following the establishment of nation-state borders after the War of the Pacific (1879–1884), the Aymara in Chile have historical or familial ties with their neighbouring countries Bolivia and Peru.  Moreover, due to a history of cultural and social exclusion of Aymara indigenous identity and practices, their territorial marginalization from the centres of the Chilean State, and their neglect in terms of infrastructure and public services, Aymara border residents have traditionally been  dependent on their relationships across the border.

Thus, for them, instead of representing concrete and non-negotiable physical demarcations, borderlands are places of interaction and connection: “Us Aymara have no borders,” an Aymara woman working at the health centre of Colchane stated. An example of this dynamic is the bi-national market, which an Aymara woman from Pisiga Carpa described as follows:

“Every other week, here in the border with Bolivia, between Pisiga Bolívar (Bolivia) and Colchane, we have an ancestral market where we barter and exchange things. We also bring things from the Iquique Free Trade Zone, and things also arrive from Ururo that we buy, like pasta, rice, and things, to not have to go down to Iquique.”

Since the 1990s, Chilean central governments have acknowledged the historical and cultural practices of indigenous peoples (with varied ethnicities) and their right to self-determination and maintenance of cross-border practices. The approval of the Indigenous and Tribal Peoples Convention No. 169 in 2008 demonstrates the acceptance of Aymara mobility, as the international system and its actors including the Chilean State recognize their responsibility to facilitate the economic, social, spiritual, and environmental contacts of indigenous groups across borders.[3] However, the lives and traditional practices of highly mobile Aymara residents of Colchane and Pisiga Carpa increasingly co-exist with different migrant populations from outside the Andean region and related Chilean securitization dynamics that create disruptions to indigenous livelihoods.

 

The arrival of increased migration and securitization dynamics

Ongoing displacement (particularly from Venezuela since the late 1990s) and amendments to Chilean legislation on visa policies in 2018 already gradually led to an increase in ‘irregular’ migrant entry, but with the closing of borders due to Covid-19 this reached a new height in 2020. The majority of the unauthorized paths of entry to northern Chile are concentrated near the villages Colchane and Pisiga Carpa, making these towns places of (interrupted) ‘transit’ for people crossing the Colchane-Pisiga border. In a context of local incapacity for reception and limited to no assistance from the central government, the increasing numbers of border crossers initially sparked empathy and acts of solidarity by border residents. However, they soon began to feel disappointment about the role that they felt forced to assume due to limited legal, logistical, and infrastructural preparation by the Chilean government, whom they considered ultimately responsible for border crossers’ fate.

On 18 October 2021, the government provided a response by merging migration and Covid-19 as one ‘crisis’ to be managed to protect the nation-state. The government’s health department moved groups of people camping in Colchane and Pisiga Carpa to a refuge located at the border. People who entered Chile through unauthorized paths were redirected by police officers to the refuge to self-report their ‘irregular’ entry to the Police of Investigations (PDI).[4] This meant that people could only access healthcare, shelter, food, and transportation services by self-reporting themselves as ‘irregular,’ a process that facilitates immediate expulsions that disregard the right to asylum established in international treaties (such as the 1951 Refugee Convention and 1967 Protocol) and Chilean Law (No. 20.430 of 2010). Moreover, expulsions were made legal by the government when it approved the new Migration Law No. 21.325, backed by a state of emergency in 2022 and increased militarization at the Colchane-Pisiga border. The government also financed the construction of a zanja (ditch) at the border to increase barriers for crossing.

This response coincides with the securitization of migration, which considers mobility as threatening.[5] The mobility (of some) becomes synonymous to criminality, and thus the migrant is criminalized due to difference – for being a ‘dangerous other’ in opposition to national citizens. This practice creates perverse consequences, which an NGO worker in migrant reception at Iquique described as follows:

“The focus is set on expulsions, delinquency, security, and at the end we know that [this response] does not deter mobility nor the root of migration. […] There is no commitment to the lives of people who are dying at the desert […]. The government needs to admit that we are allowing the death of women, children, newborns, elderly… Están dejando morir.”

 

Differentiated mobilities, interrupted livelihoods

While migrants are the group most visibly vulnerable to securitization measures, increased militarization and border control directly affect the dynamics and previous agreements of the Aymara living at the border. Several Aymara explained that especially initially, officials policing the border did not understand the traditional practices and exchanges that happen at events like the bi-national markets:

“We couldn’t do our markets, they didn’t let us cross to buy a kilo of rice, vegetables, meat… and nothing po, we have to tell complete stories to the officials and show our identification cards. And we began to think, how is it that Venezuelans are crossing with no documents, and we have Chilean nationality, but they start implementing rules for us?”

Coupled with poverty and exclusion, these controls on mobility exacerbated resentment and hostility particularly towards Venezuelan migrants. Border residents stopped previous acts of solidarity and often reproduced state concerns by portraying migrants as ‘others’ to protect their own belonging to the nation-state and sustain traditional border crossings. Moreover, with time, officials policing the border have become acquainted with Aymara culture and features that distinguish them from supposedly ‘dangerous migrant others,’ effectively creating a border that is marked by differentiated mobilities. While mobility is an essential aspect of human life, government actors define categories, infrastructures, and hierarchies that organize the practices and experiences of (im)mobilities at the borderlands.

Ultimately, while traditional Aymara mobility in the borderlands has been challenged by nation-state and sedentary approaches, enhanced border securitization leads residents to disassociate from other people on the move and subscribe to state and media narratives that criminalize mobility. These narratives reinforce the securitization logics that, paradoxically, disrupt the trans-national practices of Aymara border residents, making their lives, livelihoods, and mobilities less secure.

[1] Malkki, L. (1992) ‘National geographic: The rooting of peoples and the territorialization of national identity among scholars and refugees,’ Cultural Anthropology, 7(1), pp. 24–44. doi: 10.1525/can.1992.7.1.02a00030; Thanh-Dạm, T. and Gasper, D. (2011) ‘Transnational migration, development and human security,’ in Thanh-Dam, T. and Dasper, D. (eds.) Transnational migration and human security: The migration-development-security nexus. Heidelberg: Springer, pp. 3–22.  doi: 10.1007/978-3-642-12757-1.

[2] Dahinden, J. (2016) ‘A Plea for the ‘de-migranticization’ of Research on Migration and Integration,’ Ethnic and Racial Studies, 39(13), pp. 2207-2225. doi: 10.1080/01419870.2015.1124129.

[3] Gundermann Kröll, H. (2018) ‘Los Pueblos Originarios Del Norte De Chile Y El Estado,’ Diálogo andino, 55(55), pp. 93–109.

[4] Leal, R. (2021) COVID-19, the migration crisis and Chile’s new immigration legislation: Chile’s powerful get richer and its poor more outraged. Penrith, N.S.W.: Western Sydney University. doi: 10.26183/0j4y-jy05.

[5] Glick Schiller, N. and Salazar, N.B. (2013) ‘Regimes of mobility across the globe,’ Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies, 39(2), pp. 183–200. doi: 10.1080/1369183X.2013.723253.

Read the other topics on the migration series:

How does a place become (less) hostile? Looking at everyday encounters between migrants and non-migrants as acts and processes of bordering.

From caminantes to community builders: how migrants in Ecuador support each other in their journeys.

From branding to bottom-up ‘sheltering’: How CSOs are helping to address migration governance gaps in the shelter city of Granada

Precarity along the Colombia–Panama border: How providing healthcare services to transit migrants can foster new logics of inclusion and exclusion

Opinions expressed in Bliss posts reflect solely the views of the author of the post in question.

About the author:

Mariela Miranda van Iersel is a social scientist, economist, and researcher dedicated to ethically responsible mixed-methods research and currently working as an Intern at the Division for Gender Affairs of the United Nations Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC) in Santiago, Chile. She graduated in December 2022 from the International Institute of Social Studies (ISS), specializing in Human Rights, Gender and Conflict Studies: Social Justice Perspectives, where she received the Best Research Paper Award of the academic year 2021/2022.

Are you looking for more content about Global Development and Social Justice? Subscribe to Bliss, the official blog of the International Institute of Social Studies, and stay updated about interesting topics our researchers are working on.

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Migration Series | From branding to bottom-up ‘sheltering’: How CSOs are helping to address migration governance gaps in the shelter city of Granada

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Granada is one of the few Spanish cities that established itself as a ‘shelter city’ for migrants, but despite the city administration’s pledge in 2015 to improve migration governance, bridge divides, and promote community building between migrant and non-migrant communities, selective indifference towards migrants persists. In light of several governance gaps caused by the failure of local authorities in Granada to go beyond the mere branding and enactment of the concept of shelter cities, various civil-society organizations (CSOs) have launched initiatives aimed at alleviating these tensions and are filling the gaps left by local authorities, writes former ISS MA student Christy Gamboa.

Government of Granada shelter city campaign “Granada, ciudad solidaria y de abrazos abiertos” (Granada, city of solidarity and open hugs).

During the ‘refugee crisis’ in 2015, some cities in Spain declared themselves shelter cities, which are supposed to be places in which migrants and refugees can safely reside and receive assistance from the local government. They did so in a bid to counter the restrictive policies on migrants and refugees that the Spanish government had instituted in response to this ‘crisis’. These initiatives besides offering immediate housing and basic support were also aimed at improving the day-to-day governance of migration by addressing governance gaps at the national level and promoting community building between migrant and non-migrant communities at the local level.

Granada, a city in southern Spain with around 230,000 residents, became a ‘shelter city’ following pressure placed on the local government by RedGra (Red Granadina por el Refugio y la Acogida—Granada Network for Shelter and Reception), a network of around 40 CSOs advocating for migrant rights who identified the need to create a safety net for migrants. Because the city’s actions since it started to call itself a ‘shelter city’ have been focused merely on providing temporary support in some cases to migrants and on creating public campaigns focusing on the ‘shelter city’ brand, the various active CSOs in Granada forming part of RedGra provide bottom-up shelter to migrants in different ways.

Research I conducted last year as part of my master’s degree examined the extent of coexistence of solidarity, tensions, and conviviality within Granada as a shelter city, focusing on the actions of CSOs working with migrants. When conducting my fieldwork in Granada as part of my research, I interviewed several organizations within RedGra that help migrants and refugees from primarily Northern Africa. I identified persistent tensions within the city and witnessed bottom-up actions by CSOs to counteract them, such as by providing material support such as food and housing, promoting inclusive spaces, reporting discriminatory actions, and raising awareness among residents of Granada about the challenges that migrants face. These are described in more detail below.

 

Tensions in the ‘shelter city’

The city of Granada has a reputation for peaceful coexistence among people of diverse origins and religions, supposedly due to the harmonious living together of Muslim, Christian, and Jewish communities during the time of Al-Ándalus in medieval Spain. However, the CSO representatives I spoke to revealed that rising racism in the city is a major concern, and that the perceived reputation of enabling peaceful coexistence is nothing but an illusion. Particularly, my interviews with Dar Al Anwar and AMANI revealed that there is significant tension among residents of Granada due to unwelcoming attitudes local residents hold towards migrants who originate from Muslim-majority countries.

During the ‘crisis’, when the number of migrants surged, these tensions grew. Since then, several instances of open discrimination or harassment of migrants could be witnessed. The discontent of some Granadans has repeatedly been expressed publicly in the past few years, with women being kicked out of public swimming pools for wearing full bathing suits (burkinis). However, I was told that there are other examples of conflicts linked to the freedom of religious expression. For example, the respondents mentioned that local authorities resisted the celebration by Muslims of important religious festivities such as Eid Al Adha in public spaces by not granting them permission to do so. Catholic celebrations on the other hand are widely celebrated in public spaces without any issues.

Another issue in Granada is the inadequate support that has been provided by local authorities to migrants. The local government offers only temporary housing, leaving many people on the streets. Furthermore, tensions among migrants themselves are exacerbated by differential treatment based on their country of origin. A former public servant who volunteers at AMANI for example stated that “the public administration has a bureaucratic system that is a little bit racist that makes it difficult for some foreigners,” referring to the existence of differential treatment based on the migrants’ country of origin. This differential treatment is exemplified by the Municipal Council of Migration’s prompt response and activation of the Shelter City Protocol to accommodate asylum seekers from Ukraine, rapidly giving them access to accommodation and legal documentation to stay in the city. In contrast, people coming from conflict zones outside of Europe have been waiting for more than five years to obtain their documentation to reside legally in the city. These examples demonstrate how ongoing tensions—visible in hostile attitudes and inadequate policies alike—infringe on what a shelter city promises to be.

 

How CSOs are helping to alleviate tensions

In the midst of these widespread tensions in Granada, CSOs in Granada have come to play a crucial role in bringing together the local community, government, and newcomers or migrants. Their proximity to these communities gives these organizations first-hand knowledge of the respective needs of the different groups and allows them to facilitate initiatives that help to prevent disunity and foster understanding and tolerance.

All CSO representatives noted the importance of creating spaces where people can safely get to know each other. For example, the CSO Zona Norte facilitates the Verano Abierto Cartuja (Cartuja’s Open Summer) event, which is held each year in a neighbourhood with a high concentration of people with diverse migration backgrounds, with people coming from Morocco, Romania, Senegal, and Bolivia, amongst others. This event is part of an intercultural strategy to promote conviviality between neighbours in the north of Granada. It allows residents of all ages, origins, and religions to leisurely share knowledge through workshops on healthy drinks, dance, sports, and a language exchange.

Several organizations, including Zona Norte and ASPA, also emphasized the importance of listening to the needs and ideas of the people in the community in which they’re active. For example, ASPA’s community-building project involves young migrants serving as intercultural agents by sharing their migration journey experiences with non-migrants while also promoting intercultural dialogue through art therapy and classes on body language. Another initiative ASPA launched was the creation of a manifesto that was directed at the ombudsman of Granada through a rap song to claim their rights to the city.

The CSOs’ approach of facilitating bottom-up initiatives that involve migrants in the setting of agendas and development of activities offers a meaningful and holistic solution to the lack of support from the municipality. By giving migrants a voice in choosing the activities that they perceive would benefit them more, CSOs promote inclusion and reduce alienation. Their activities focus on building relationships based on shared interests, rather than highlighting differences in origin, thereby creating spaces for interaction between migrants and the host society.

 

How CSOs help contribute to improved migration governance

My study of Granada highlights the often-overlooked significance of civil society in addressing governance gaps, both in academic and policy debates. The presence of bottom-up initiatives showcases the essential role and positive impact that civil society can have in effectively addressing the existing gaps in migration governance. The establishment of Granada as a shelter city was a positive step, but tensions and prejudices towards migrants persist. CSOs take a holistic approach that listens to the diverse needs of migrants, promoting their well-being and strengthening their relationship with the host society. In contrast, the municipality’s commitment falls short as it merely labels the city as a shelter without taking further action to address the underlying issues and actively support migrant communities. Moreover, by creating spaces that encourage intercultural exchange and meaningful participation, CSOs aim to prevent conflicts and reduce social polarization. They promote autonomy, equity, and social inclusion for migrants, going beyond basic needs.

Read the other topics on the migration series:

How does a place become (less) hostile? Looking at everyday encounters between migrants and non-migrants as acts and processes of bordering.

From caminantes to community builders: how migrants in Ecuador support each other in their journeys.

“Us Aymara have no borders”: Differentiated mobilities in the Chilean borderlands

Precarity along the Colombia–Panama border: How providing healthcare services to transit migrants can foster new logics of inclusion and exclusion

Opinions expressed in Bliss posts reflect solely the views of the author of the post in question.

About the author:

 

Christy Gamboa holds a MA in Development Studies from the International Institute of Social Studies. She is a recent graduate from the Major in Governance of Migration and Diversity with a specialization in Public Policy and Management. She is currently a Junior Programme Officer in the Rights-Based Justice Team at the Netherlands Helsinki Committee.

Are you looking for more content about Global Development and Social Justice? Subscribe to Bliss, the official blog of the International Institute of Social Studies, and stay updated about interesting topics our researchers are working on.

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Migration Series | From caminantes to community builders: how migrants in Ecuador support each other in their journeys

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With the deep political and socio-economic crisis, a large number of Venezuelans have fled to other countries, including Ecuador. Many people have journeyed on foot, earning them the name caminantes (walkers/hikers), and have encountered various challenges but also forms of solidarity along the way. This blog centres on the experiences of different actors who have provided aid to caminantes as they traverse Ecuador, turning the one-dimensional idea of migrants and refugees as victims on its head.

Picture of a family arriving the shelter in August 2022.

Since 2014, Venezuela has been grappling with a deepening political and socio-economic crisis. The situation has quickly deteriorated to the point where poverty, food, and medicine shortages, violence, and political oppression have caused thousands of Venezuelans to flee the country and seek refuge in other Latin American countries, as well as in the United States and Spain. However, due to the challenging economic circumstances, many migrants cannot afford traditional modes of transportation or access the documents needed to travel. Consequently, walking has become a viable option for low-income families, giving rise to the term ‘caminantes’ to describe them.1

During my fieldwork,2 I had the privilege of meeting both solidarity actors and migrants who were still on their journey. What surprised me the most was the high level of organisation and knowledge-sharing among the solidarity actors, many of whom are migrants themselves, which challenges the commonly held belief that migrants are solely aid recipients. By sharing legal information, food, shelter, and emotional support, they created a safe space for those navigating the uncertainties associated with migration.

 

Venezuelan migration dynamics in Ecuador

Ecuador has become a significant destination for the Venezuelan diaspora, with nearly half a million Venezuelans settling in the country. At the same time, families continue to walk along Ecuadorian roads, seeking a new home in Ecuador or further south. Despite the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic and a weakening economy, migration has persisted – in 2022 alone, more than 250,000 people crossed through Ecuador to reach countries like Peru or Chile, according to the United Nations.3

Notwithstanding Ecuador’s own sizable diaspora in the United States and Europe, the country presents various challenges for and levels of hostility towards migrants. Since 2017, Ecuador has implemented stricter migration policies, which has contributed to the limiting of access to public services and the formal labour market. Moreover, criminal violence in Ecuador has sharply risen by 82.5% since 2021, exacerbating inequalities and instability migrant groups face and contributing to xenophobic acts and attitudes towards Venezuelans.4 Following national protests in June 2022, when Venezuelan citizens were associated with violent criminal activities, xenophobic messaging increased by over 343%.5 These hostilities are not only directed at migrants but also those supporting them, including former migrants themselves. Consequently, approximately 110,000 Venezuelan migrants have left Ecuador in the past two years in search of better opportunities in neighbouring countries.6

 

Exploring solidarity networks among caminantes and solidarity actors in Ecuador

Caminantes played a crucial role in my research, which sought to understand the impact of solidarity initiatives on their journeys. During my fieldwork in four towns in the summer of 2022, I met the Gomez family*, whose members migrated as caminantes in 2017 and settled in a small rural coastal town in Ecuador. They established a shelter to provide food, legal advice, and medical aid to fellow caminantes despite facing extortion, discrimination, and economic instability themselves. Roberto, a member of the Gomez family, emphasised their commitment to helping other migrants, drawing from his own experiences: “I know how it feels to be an emigrant because it is not easy to live that life, to live a life where you do not have a fixed journey or a point of arrival. And that is an intense experience. It really is.”

Although they have limited resources and face numerous challenges, Venezuelan migrants in this part of Ecuador have formed community networks. Eight solidarity actors I encountered during my fieldwork have established foundations that offer legal advice, support for informal businesses and job-seeking efforts, and support accessing social benefits through international organisations. They assist migrants of various nationalities, including Venezuelans, Colombians, Cubans, and Haitians. These actors face physical and legal threats but demonstrate solidarity with those who defy borders in search of a better life, just as they do. Their journey continues as they provide support to countless unknown people, offering shelter and seeking opportunities and safety for their own families. Other migrants with stable jobs or access to services now contribute significantly to the activities of actors like the Gomez family.

Solidarity is also practised among migrants who are walking to reach their new destination. Andres, a 22-year-old Venezuelan migrant, stressed that “we would also help each other on the road. We would sit in a place, a little park to rest … we would share – if I had and you did not, mine was yours. So, we all helped each other”. The interactions that occur during the journey also provide a sense of community and belonging to a network that can be sustained in time, as Martha recalls about her experience with a family they met on the journey: “I met the boy and the family I told you [about]. The man came in a wheelchair. He came with his wife and his child. In fact, my husband was a beacon of light to them. And they were a beacon of light to us. We became a family”.

 

Solidarity and resilience: a common factor in migrant communities

Despite facing significant challenges, the Gomez family and other interviewees dedicate their limited resources to helping others. Their resilience and determination serve as a powerful example of how migrants can come together and support each other to overcome obstacles such as a lack of access to services and high levels of violence. Their strength and resourcefulness allow them to provide crucial assistance to others in similar situations while also trying to start their new life in a different country, creating new opportunities for themselves and their families but also being an essential source of support for thousands who are still on their journey.

*A pseudonym.

Read the other topics on the migration series:

How does a place become (less) hostile? Looking at everyday encounters between migrants and non-migrants as acts and processes of bordering.

From branding to bottom-up ‘sheltering’: How CSOs are helping to address migration governance gaps in the shelter city of Granada

“Us Aymara have no borders”: Differentiated mobilities in the Chilean borderlands

Precarity along the Colombia–Panama border: How providing healthcare services to transit migrants can foster new logics of inclusion and exclusion

Opinions expressed in Bliss posts reflect solely the views of the author of the post in question.

About the author:

Fernanda González Ronquillo is a graduate of ISS, specialising in Human Rights within the Social Justice Perspectives major. Currently, she is interning at a local scale-up that supports women with a migrant background to enter the Dutch labour market.

Are you looking for more content about Global Development and Social Justice? Subscribe to Bliss, the official blog of the International Institute of Social Studies, and stay updated about interesting topics our researchers are working on.

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Migration Series | How does a place become (less) hostile? Looking at everyday encounters between migrants and non-migrants as acts and processes of bordering

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What happens if people on the move encounter others who by means of their everyday actions and interactions can render environments hostile or who actively try to prevent this? What are the effects of these encounters on the places migrants inhabit and traverse? This article introduces a blog series that highlights a diversity of encounters between migrants and non-migrants[1] to put the reader in the shoes of those who are migrating, crossing borders and/or settling in. Through the series, we aim to show how both migrants and non-migrants navigate terrain that becomes hostile through modern manifestations and practices of nation-state borders amidst so-called ‘migration crises’.

Photo Credit: Ain't no Border by Calais Migrant Solidarity

Everyday encounters between migrants and non-migrants in host communities can contribute to or challenge the exclusion and marginalization of people on the move in places they come to inhabit, for instance when both groups simultaneously attempt to access limited social services. Such encounters not only have productive power in terms of reinforcing or resisting the exclusionary mechanisms of migration management – they also expose the different mechanisms that can turn places into hostile terrain through (a lack of) policies, existing marginalizations, and xenophobia.

Moreover, studying these everyday encounters provides insight into experiences of both migrants and non-migrants, how they diverge or may be similar, and what implications their shared experiences may have for taking action on behalf of and/or together with people on the move. A group of recently graduated ISS MA students we supervised looked at such (dis)similar experiences and will share their insights in a series of forthcoming blog articles. In this article, we focus on everyday encounters and bordering to reflect on key links between imaginaries of human mobility, the role of host communities and local implications of migrant presence.

 

How human mobility is imagined affects how migrants are received and places are reconfigured

The productive power of human mobility and attempts to curtail, manage, or stop people from migrating have been at the center of critical migration and border studies that think and write against a supposed or desired “national order of things”[2]. Such national order imaginaries emphasize the prominence of rootedness or staying put and the fixed nature of state borders, and approach migration and migrants as a problem. Acknowledging both the centrality of (cross-border) human mobility for our societies and the inequalities surrounding it, this blog series comprises several reflections by former ISS MA students who have researched multiple forms of mobility and encounters between migrants and other actors, including acts of support and instances of anxiety. In turn, such encounters can make the terrain more, or less, hostile for both residents and those passing through.

They conducted research in various places that are located differently in the ‘geo-bodies’[3] of respective states and emerge as ‘zones of contact’[4] for both local communities and people on the move. While border towns are rather obvious sites for such encounters, involving actors such as INGOs (Aristizábal-Saldarriaga) or mobile border communities (Miranda van Iersel), these field reflections also look at encounters in small rural towns that may be out of sight from a migration management perspective but are situated along key roads for caminantes (González Ronquillo), or in a relatively renowned tourist city that hosts different types of newcomers – including migrants with irregular legal status (Gamboa Bastarrachea). But why do we think these different places and actors should be looked at together? How are they related?

 

Capturing a diversity of border sites, actors, and processes

As part of our ongoing project titled Revisiting the Migration-Development Nexus from a Cross-Border Perspective[5], we are interested in looking closely at encounters that have productive power in terms of reinforcing or resisting the exclusionary mechanisms of migration management. We do so by building on critical scholarship that acknowledges acts and processes of bordering beyond state borders (through concepts such as urban borderscapes[6] or border internalization[7]). This requires us to acknowledge actors beyond those identified as migrants or refugees, as the experiences of migrants and non-migrants are intimately connected[8]. This way, we seek to contribute to the de-migranticization of migration research[9], by questioning a priori categorization of people on the move and nationalist research interests and by reorienting the unit of analysis away from the migrant population to (parts of) the overall population affected.

Previous research we conducted in Greece, Turkey, and Central America shows that everyday encounters in spaces with a bordering function, i.e. spaces that prevent or challenge migrants’ entry and presence physically, legally and/or socially, are instrumental to understanding, on the one hand, how migrant trajectories[10] and translocal livelihoods[11] become illegalized by changing dynamics of border control, and on the other hand, how the geographical location of places where migrants are hosted[12] and the historical and geographical entanglements of neighboring states and communities[13] shape migrant trajectories, translocal livelihoods, and life at the border.

Following this perspective, we suggest turning our gaze to these divisive and connecting aspects of bordering in places beyond territorial nation-state borders. In this series of blog articles, the research of our students illustrates the value of such an approach as they shed light on how particular actors can be instrumental for people on the move as they navigate a diversity of hostile terrains.

These actors are local collectives that are outright supportive of migrants’ rights, as manifested in the CSOs fulfilling the sheltering role that the municipality has formally committed to but is unable to implement in Granada (Spain). They are former migrants taking on the role of hosts for people on the move whereas their own situation remains precarious and their journey unfinished (Ecuador). They can also be the staff of INGOs who need to balance the needs of those on the move with the needs of a local population suffering from chronic disregard by the state (Colombia). Finally, they can be a historically marginalized, mobile indigenous population whose position may shift from solidarity with migrants to suspicion and collaboration with the state as their own mobility and livelihoods are hampered by new migrations and the subsequent militarization of the border (Chile).

 

Acknowledging all those who dwell in a border site

These insights show that while places with very limited resources are fertile grounds for hostilities, exclusion, or indifference towards migrants with irregular legal status, attempts to pass through or stay in these places are experienced quite differently in the presence of people and organizations willing to support newcomers or those on the move. Paying attention to these local encounters and interactions, particularly in spaces with a bordering function, allows us to capture the similarities and convergences between the experiences of migrants and non-migrants. It also invites us to appreciate and learn from these interconnected experiences and take this into account in any further action pertaining to human mobility, be it academia, in policy making processes, or through societal engagement.

[1] We chose these terms for readability though we are aware that this dichotomy does not do justice to the complexity we try to represent here.

[2] Malkki, Liisa. 1992. “National Geographic: The Rooting of Peoples and the Territorialization of National Identity among Scholars and Refugees.” Cultural Anthropology 7 (1) Space, Identity, and the Politics of Difference:  24-44.

[3] Winichakul Thongchai. 1997. Siam Mapped: A History of the Geo-Body of a Nation. Honolulu: Hawaii University Press.

[4] Pratt, Mary Louise (1991). Arts of the Contact Zone. Profession, 33-40. Retrieved October 29, 2020, from http://www.jstor.org/stable/25595469.

[5] This project is supported by the International Institute of Social Studies of Erasmus University Rotterdam (RIF-5/ 18202010.041, year 2020 grant) and runs from January 2021-December 2023. It involves research by both authors, in the Eastern Mediterranean and Central America.

[6] Fauser, Margit. (2019) The Emergence of Urban Border Spaces in Europe, Journal of Borderlands Studies, 34:4, 605-622. doi: 10.1080/08865655.2017.1402195.

[7] Menjívar, Cecilia. (2014). Immigration law beyond borders: Externalizing and internalizing border controls in an era of securitization. Annual Review of Law and Social Science, 10, 353-369. Doi: https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev-lawsocsci-110413-030842.

[8] Çağlar, Ayşe & Glick Schiller, Nina (2018) Migrants and City-Making. Dispossession, Displacement, and Urban Regeneration. Durham and London: Duke University Press.

[9] Dahinden, Janine. 2016. A plea for the ‘de-migranticization’ of research on migration and integration, Ethnic and Racial Studies, 39:13, 2207-2225. doi: 10.1080/01419870.2015.1124129.

[10] Winters, Nanneke. (2023b). Making a Living While on the Move: Migrant Trajectories, Hierarchized Mobilities and Local Labour Landscapes in Central America, in Ilse van Liempt, Joris Schapendonk and Amalia Campos-Delgado (eds), Research Handbook on Irregular Migration. Cheltenham: Elgar, pp. 250–260; Winters, Nanneke. (2021). Following, Othering, Taking Over. Research Participants Redefining the Field through Mobile Communication Technology, Social Analysis, 65:1, 133-142. doi: 10.3167/sa.2020.650109.

[11] Winters, Nanneke. (2023a). Everyday Politics of Mobility: Translocal Livelihoods and Illegalisation in the Global South. Journal of Latin American Studies, 55(1), 77-101. doi: 10.1017/S0022216X23000020.

[12] Ikizoglu Erensu, Aslı, & Kaşlı, Zeynep. (2016). A Tale of Two Cities: Multiple Practices of Bordering and Degrees of ‘Transit’ in and through Turkey, Journal of Refugee Studies, 29(4), 528–548. doi:10.1093/jrs/few037.

[13] Kaşlı, Zeynep. (2023). Migration control entangled with local histories: The case of Greek–Turkish regime of bordering, Environment and Planning D: Society and Space, 41(1), 14–32. doi: https://doi.org/10.1177/02637758221140121.

Read the blogs on the migration series:

How does a place become (less) hostile? Looking at everyday encounters between migrants and non-migrants as acts and processes of bordering.

From caminantes to community builders: how migrants in Ecuador support each other in their journeys.

From branding to bottom-up ‘sheltering’: How CSOs are helping to address migration governance gaps in the shelter city of Granada

“Us Aymara have no borders”: Differentiated mobilities in the Chilean borderlands

Precarity along the Colombia–Panama border: How providing healthcare services to transit migrants can foster new logics of inclusion and exclusion

Opinions expressed in Bliss posts reflect solely the views of the author of the post in question.

About the authors:

Zeynep Kaşlı is Assistant Professor in Migration and Development at ISS, affiliated with the Governance, Law and Social Justice Research Group. Her research interests include mobility, citizenship, borders, transnationalism, power and sovereignty with regional expertise in Turkey, Middle East and Europe.

 

 

Nanneke Winters is an assistant professor in Migration and Development at the International Institute of Social Studies (ISS), Erasmus University Rotterdam. Her research interests include im/mobility, migrant trajectories, and translocal livelihoods in Central America and beyond.

Are you looking for more content about Global Development and Social Justice? Subscribe to Bliss, the official blog of the International Institute of Social Studies, and stay updated about interesting topics our researchers are working on.

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Grappling with unease – together: collective reflections on Migration Studies and Colonialism by Mayblin and Turner

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How can scholars tackle the legacy of colonialism in migration studies? Last year, a small group of critical development studies scholars at ISS sought to reflect on this challenge by collectively reading and discussing the book Migration Studies and Colonialism that explores exactly this issue. In this article, we share our observations and discuss two things that we consider vital in meaningful discussions on the  topic: the need to move beyond simplistic notions of European colonialism and the importance of meaningful engagement with scholars from the ‘Global South’.

Photo Credit: Authors.

While it is difficult to make generalizing claims about the broad field of migration studies that attracts scholars from various disciplines, one can confidently state that we have not yet adequately addressed the colonial legacies that continue to colour research and discussions on migration. It is in light of this that a group of scholars from the ISS got together in November last year to discuss a book that critically explores the issue. We hoped that in discussing colonial histories and migration studies, we could better understand our collective unease with the way in which we may reproduce colonialist harms through our work.

The book we discussed, ‘Migration Studies and Colonialism’ by Lucy Mayblin and Joe Turner (2021), is written as an intervention that is meant to place colonialism and its critique at the centre of discussions in migration studies. Moving beyond a critique of migration studies, the authors echo the call for action to dismantle the field’s contribution to the reproduction of coloniality – one that has been growing louder thanks to contributions by migration scholars engaging with postcolonial and decolonial thought.[1]

Instead of reviewing the book,[2] we chose to highlight our collective reflections on the unease many of us face in trying to engage with decolonial ideals, aspirations, and/or commitments as early-career researchers working on highly polarizing topics. Most of us identify as women of colour who come from the so-called ‘Global South’; we research migration, child sex tourism, or humanitarian intervention within academic institutional structures in the Global North. Coming from these diverse backgrounds, we offer input for the discussion on how to grapple with colonial legacies at the university and beyond through deep, collective, and horizontally organized reading, which is important in itself as a counter-current against fast academia.

These are our insights stemming from our discussions:

 

  1. We need to acknowledge non-European experiences and legacies of colonialism

 Mayblin and Turner argue in their book that colonial histories should be central to understanding migration praxis. They warn against what they call “sanctioned ignorance of histories of colonialism”, which leaves scholars and practitioners with theories that are inadequate in explaining the present state of migration regimes and moreover normalize the use of dehumanizing terms (such as ‘illegals’) that appear to be objective rather than historically and culturally emergent (p.3).

As they attempt to frame their discussions[3]  in a global manner, the authors rely on intellectual legacies from the Americas (North and South) and engagement with scholars from Asian and African traditions (p.4). They acknowledge that as ‘white’ academics working in British higher education institutions, they write from particular perspectives that may result in readers spotting limitations and omissions.

And we did. In our discussions, the tension between appreciating the thematic discussion of colonial histories and the wide brush used to portray international migration studies was consistently present. As we delved into each chapter, we found that the telling of specific colonial histories still placed Europe at the centre of the discussion. One participant for instance remarked during our conversation about Chapter 3 that “[the authors] make a solid case for why race and colonialism are intertwined with and shape migration. I do, however, feel the perspective adopted is still Eurocentric. It’s important to note that colonialism is not only European.”

We concluded that by emphasizing their critique of Eurocentrism reproduced through coloniality, the book showcased not only a tendency to limit and equate colonialism to Europe but also a limited take on Europe as a monolith. Another participant observed, “One Europe – as if there is one Europe, one type of colonialism, no differentiation.”

While we acknowledged the inclusion of geographical contexts and topics that are not commonly discussed in the historicizing of colonialism and migration, such as the mentioning of former colonized nations in the construction of international refugee regimes (Ch. 5), Mayblin and Turner’s focus on Europe’s colonial history reinforces a lack of acknowledgement of non-European experiences and legacies of colonialism.

To offer a more balanced picture, we feel the need to highlight topics important to the diverse contexts we come from or work with. These include South-South migration, indentured labour, and transnational solidarities that were instrumental in the independence of many formerly colonized nations. Otherwise, by limiting ourselves to a critique on a seemingly monolithic Europe and its (lasting) systems of categorization, the ‘Global South’ continues to be present as an ‘object’ in the retelling of the colonial histories (Quijano 2007). Interestingly, this discussion forced participants to reflect on our roles and commitment as researchers to actively unlearn and challenge the ‘subject-object’ relations between the ‘Global North’ and ‘Global South’ prevalent in knowledge production. By centring colonial histories within migration studies, both the authors and the readers should reflect on their positionality, roles, and choices in the retelling of histories.

 

  1. We need to be transparent about our inclusion of ‘voices from the Global South’

 Mayblin and Turner acknowledge that literatures problematizing mainstream migration studies exist but are often still inaccessible or unaccounted for, partly due to structural inequalities within higher academic institutions. They write on pages 4 and 5: “This book seeks to showcase some of this work for people who research migration yet never encounter such perspectives… Our aim is not that you cite this book, but that in the future you cite some of the scholars discussed within it.”

We followed their sound advice. The references to perspectives, approaches, and concepts developed mainly by scholars from the Global South required the reading group participants to read and reflect beyond what was presented in the book. For example, in Chapter 5, Mayblin and Turner’s critical discussion on forced migration brought readers’ attention to Vergara-Figueroa’s (2018) elaboration to the notion of ‘deracination’. While the concept of ‘deracination’ has been widely adopted by scholars and activists in the Latin American and the Caribbean contexts, particularly in Colombia in relation to land dispossession, forced migration, violence, and rupture of communal ties caused by the prolonged armed conflict, it was still unfamiliar to most of the participants.

As an Ecuadorian researcher who was very familiar with the Colombian context was able discuss ‘deracination’ in more detail, the collective reading evolved into a space where thought processes and conversations moved from Mayblin and Turner to concepts and ideas developed in particular localities and historical contexts and their potential applicability elsewhere to reflections by participants on their own identities, voices, and research.  Reflecting on these discussions, one participant said: “I’m not doing research at the moment, but this book and discussion has made me more aware about my own internalized Eurocentric ideas, being more conscious about the spaces I am in and realize how we represent ‘the Global South’.”

However, one question remained after completing the collective reading: how did Mayblin and Turner choose what to include and exclude in the book? While the referencing of scholars from the Global South is important and welcomed by group participants, there is a lack of explanation on how they chose whose work to include.

In addition, Mayblin and Turner’s choice to reference these scholars as opposed to inviting them to contribute directly through an edited volume is also worth noting. While they state early on that they hope the book will lead migration researchers to reference some of the work they included, these decisions still positioned them as gatekeepers of knowledge production. Being more transparent about these choices would have allowed more open accountability towards the power hierarchies in knowledge production that they are critical of.

 

A way forward: the value of collective reading and reflections

We (try to) engage with ‘decoloniality’ and the responsibility to acknowledge the legacies of colonialism in our research to different degrees and in different ways. Most participants are used to applying a critical and historical lens towards the themes raised in the book but are less certain about taking up the responsibility of ‘doing decoloniality’. One participant for example stated that “I often encounter this question [of centring colonialism] in my field when working on development aid. I think we are aware of many of the problems mentioned, such as the topic of race, inequality, etc., but we don’t necessarily know what to do.”

This tension between recognizing ‘problems’ and feeling unsure of what to do and how to position ourselves as researchers from diverse backgrounds is at the heart of our ambivalence and unease when engaging with the book. This tension is also recognized by Mayblin and Turner, who decided against calling their book “Decolonizing Migration Studies”. Instead, they positioned it more broadly to support decolonization agendas within academic institutions. But as we show, tension, ambivalence, and unease can drive critical reflection and prompt change in practice.

While we did not start or end with a common commitment to decolonizing knowledges, there was a general agreement among us, as one participant stated, “… to actively participate and also to allow yourself to listen with discomfort.” Grappling with unease was the starting point for our collective reflections, and we left with concrete clues for conscious historicization and contextualization to avoid the broad brushstrokes that overlook other experiences and legacies.

[1] E.g. Mains et al. 2013; Achiumi 2019; Samaddar 2020; Fiddien-Qasmiyeh 2020

[2] For reviews, see e.g. Favell 2021; Stallone 2022

[3] Mayblin and Turner’s historizing of colonialism provides the starting point to their discussion of migration studies and the thematic exploration of modernity and development (Chapter 2), race and racism (Chapter 3), state sovereignty and citizenship (Chapter 4), asylum seekers and refugee regimes (Chapter 5), national and border security (Chapter 6), and gender and sexuality (Chapter 7).

Opinions expressed in Bliss posts reflect solely the views of the author of the post in question.

About the authors:

Mahardhika Sjamsoe’oed Sadjad is an interdisciplinary scholar in the field of international development and migration. Her research focuses on discursive and affective constructions of identities and belonging in The Netherlands, Indonesia, and broader region of Southeast Asia.

 

Zeynep Kaşlı is Assistant Professor in Migration and Development at ISS, affiliated with the Governance, Law and Social Justice Research Group. Her research interests include mobility, citizenship, borders, transnationalism, power and sovereignty with regional expertise in Turkey, Middle East and Europe.

 

Nanneke Winters is an assistant professor in Migration and Development at the International Institute of Social Studies (ISS), Erasmus University Rotterdam. Her research interests include im/mobility, migrant trajectories, and translocal livelihoods in Central America and beyond.

 

 

Haya Alfarra is a PhD researcher at ISS-EUR. Her research explores the role of diaspora as non-traditional humanitarian actors in protracted humanitarian situations, looking specifically at the role of Palestinian-German diaspora in humanitarian responses in the Gaza Strip, occupied Palestinian territory.

 

 

 

 

Mausumi Chetia is a PhD researcher at ISS-EUR. She researches on meanings of home and lived human (in)securities in context of disaster-related displacements in India. Her research is part of the Erasmus Initiative called Vital Cities and Citizens (VCC), under the theme of Resilient Cities.

 

 

 

 

Xander Creed is a PhD researcher at the ISS. Their work explores migration and asylum governance with a particular focus on the human dimension of (im)mobility, for instance through the lens of human security and feminisms.

 

 

 

Vanessa Ntinu is the Jr. Executive Manager of the Leiden-Delft-Erasmus Centre for Governance of Migration and Diversity. She is interested in notions surrounding race, anti-Blackness, diversity, and migration laws and institutions.

 

 

 

 

Gabriela Villacis Izquierdo is a Ph.D researcher at the International Institute of Social Studies of the Erasmus University Rotterdam in the field of development and humanitarian studies. Her current research is based in Colombia and focuses on the contributions of feminism(s) to humanitarian governance, with an emphasis on the potential of collective action and humanitarian advocacy.

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All Bark, No Bite? The Case for Human Security in European Migration & Asylum Governance

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In order to prioritise the needs of humans over those of the state, migration and asylum governance needs to shift towards utilising a human security framework. A case in point for the urgency to do so can be found in the inhumane conditions within the European ‘refugee camps’ to which migrants are confined under the nomenclature of ‘national security’. Mainstream frameworks for evaluating camps reveal the illegal and inhumane conditions yet remain unable to challenge their structural existence – all bark, no bite. Through human security, these camps can be evaluated and improved (the bark) and ultimately dismantled (the bite). 

In this blog post, I wish to explore what it means to center the human in migration governance. To do so, I draw on the framework and ontology of human security, prioritising the protection, and security of the human over the state. Looking at European asylum governance practices, specifically that of the ‘refugee camp’ or ‘migrant camp’, which can be broadly understood as spaces of containment and practices of detention, reveals the dire need to center the security of humans over national security. In a 2017 briefing, the European Council on Refugees and Exiles argues that while the “existence of robust and dignified reception conditions is a vital precondition for allowing asylum seekers to recover their dignity and to prepare their applications”, provision of such conditions has remained “a key challenge” for many European countries. This begs the question – how can Europe overcome this challenge? Or rather, to follow a human security line of thinking, how can asylum seekers be guaranteed to have dignified, humane reception conditions? Despite the existence of several prominent frameworks and guidelines for migration governance, this question remains unanswered.

As illustrated in a 2022 policy brief entitled Towards Humane and Dignified Living Conditions for Refugees and Other Migrants: A Human Security Framework for Assessing ‘Migration Camps’ in Europe that I published with the Human Development Research Initiative, despite these well-established international standards and frameworks, inhumane conditions remain the norm within European migration and asylum governance. Illustrative of these inhumane reception conditions are that of Camp Mória, and the space between the Polish and Belarusian border, both of which were explored in the policy brief and widely reported elsewhere (e.g., Human Rights Watch, Médecins sans frontières, UNHCR, ECRE).

These conditions call into question to what extent current practices can be viewed as ‘durable’ (to borrow the vernacular of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR)), ‘sustainable’ (in the vernacular of some organizations and academics), and more importantly, humane and dignified. Scholars like Dorothy Estrada-Tanck highlight that within international law, human security “may have the potential to act as a catalyst for the realisation of human rights in the contemporary world”. In this vein, I wish to put forth the argument that human security is capable of evaluating, ‘improving’, and ultimately dismantling the practice of creating camps to hold asylum-seekers.

 

Mainstream Frameworks: All Bark, No Bite.

We can outline three prevalent frameworks applicable in the management of ‘migration camps.’ The SPHERE standards seek to establish a universal minimal baseline for humanitarian action via a rights-based approach. In a 2016 speech calling for humanitarian reform, David Miliband identifies how SPHERE Standards prescribes minimally “what should be provided for water and sanitation, food, shelter, and health… [yet] are often not enforced”. Within migration governance and extending protection and/or assistance to migrants, the International Organisational for Migration (IOM) has developed the “determinants of migrant vulnerability (DoMV) model” to elicit a “programmatic response” across multiple levels and types of relevant actors, assessing the interlinked domains of: 1) individual factors, 2) household and family factors, 3) community factors, and 4) structural factors.

The UNHCR’s official policy seeks to dissuade the provision of migration camps, instead favoring the three ‘durable solutions’ of repatriation, integration, and/or resettlement to a third country. Similarly, alternative arrangements have been proposed by Human Rights Watch and academics for increasing participation or sustainability in camp design. Yet, despite these alternatives, the existence of migrant camps continues, leading to a considerable body of scholarship referring to the practice of camps as the unspoken fourth ‘durable solution’.

In this way, I argue that the three outlined frameworks fall into the idiom, all bark, no bite – interesting ways for states and NGOs to conceive of and assess the problem at hand, or standards to aspire towards when implementing humanitarian support. Despite these well-established frameworks, there remains a wide sweeping consensus that the previous and current implementation of European refugee camps has failed migrants. To exemplify this, one can think of how the conditions at Camp Mória were found by Human Rights Watch to be blatantly in violation of both “EU and Greek laws”. Thus, while these frameworks provide relevant ways of informing humanitarian action, inhumane conditions persist (a whole lot of bark), yet are ineffective to temper the state’s capacity to confine migrants in order to protect ‘national security’. Importantly, these frameworks do not challenge or hinder the pursuit of the state’s interest over that of the migrant’s – giving them no bite. In other words, none of the three frameworks challenge a state-centric approach toward migration governance, and thus are unable to provide an answer to the key challenge of providing newly arrived refugees and other migrants with dignified, humane reception conditions.

 

From the bark: Human Security as Evaluating & ‘Improving’.

Similar to the other frameworks, human security is capable of evaluating and identifying ways to improve the conditions within refugee camps. Human security highlights the conditions necessary for a truly human life, inclusive of material and immaterial conditions, physical and psychological health, and other necessary human capabilities. From the outset, the United Nations Development Programme identified seven dimensions of human security, namely: 1) economic, 2) food, 3) health, 4) environmental, 5) personal, 6) community, and 7) political security. The re-orientation from nation state to human is accompanied by mandating a reliable, minimum degree enjoyment of basic human needs in a manner that links to both human rights and human development. All of this to say, the barking stays – by pursuing a human security approach, all the strengths from the mainstream frameworks remain well articulated. Additionally, the ontology of human security centers on ensuring the dignity and rights of migrants themselves as humans, rather than presenting guidelines for professionals to solve problems.

Theoretically, secure and dignified conditions can occur within a camp structure – but previous and current practice shows that the EU and member states have continually been either unable or unwilling to do so. Médecins sans frontières posits that policies such as the EU-Turkey deal promote confining migrants “in awful and unsafe conditions… further traumatising an already extremely vulnerable population”.

 

To the bite: Human Security as Dismantling Migrant Camps.

To conclude, while human security encompasses mainstream assessments of living conditions within refugee camps, I would like to put forth the argument that it goes even further – both barking and biting. Adopting a human security framework and ontology towards migration governance fundamentally challenges harsh exclusionary practices of detention and confinement pursued in the interest of the state, and the continual framing of migrants as threats to national security – the so-called “European strategy of containing those fleeing conflict and persecution”, as ECRE puts it. Human security articulates both the everyday experience of (in)security, while also drawing attention to the social, political and economic structures which contribute to this (in)security.

Assessing conditions through the lens of human security presents a hopeful way forward – beginning with improving the (im)material conditions which refugees and other migrants find themselves upon their entry in Europe and going beyond that to inevitably dismantle policies of confinement – doing so also empowers and engages migrants themselves, guaranteeing them agency over their situation. Thus, human security is necessary in migration governance to explicitly challenge and temper the interest of the state, reverting the focus to that of human beings themselves rather than nation-states.

Opinions expressed in Bliss posts reflect solely the views of the author of the post in question.

About the author:

Xander Creed holds a MA Development Studies degree from the ISS, within the track Governance of Migration & Diversity and a specialization in Conflict & Peace Studies. Currently, Xander is a PhD candidate at the ISS, where their research interests include human centric ways of approaching migration studies and policy, as well as the relationships between (im)mobility and (in)security.

 

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The EU’s new pact on migration: what’s next after all the shock, sadness, and solidarity talk?

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Several shocking events that transpired in Greece last year have not been met by truly humane solutions, showing that the performative moments of ‘refugee crises’ are not enough to move EU leaders into adopting a different approach toward refugees. The EU’s long-awaited New Pact on Migration and Asylum is supposed to change how refugees are treated, but with the European Commission set to promote ‘a European way of life’ through the pact, harsh practices are bound to continue, writes Zeynep Kaşlı.

It has been almost half a year since the catastrophic fire razed the Moria refugee camp on the Greek island of Lesvos in September last year, leaving around 13,000 residents without shelter in the midst of a COVID-19 lockdown. Some were immediately relocated to mainland Greece; however, over 7,000 refugees had no choice but to move to another makeshift camp, awaiting the processing of their asylum applications through ‘accelerated’ procedures. In this context, the question arises: will the EU change its approach toward refugees by introducing the New Pact on Migration and Asylum, and will anything change this year for refugees themselves?

A worrying development that almost went unnoticed

In March last year, at the time when the first COVID-19 cases appeared in most countries across the globe, Greek and EU authorities had to take immediate action at the Greek-Turkish land border when Turkish authorities announced they would not stop passage to Europe and allowed thousands of refugees to pass the Turkish side of the Kastanies-Karaağaç Border Gate in Edirne. In response, the Greek government suspended the submission of asylum applications for one month, and the European border and coastguard agency Frontex deployed 100 additional border guards from 22 EU member states to halt the influx of refugees. Their ardent resistance to forced migration ended with the killing of refugee Muhammad Gulzar, leaving others wounded. Many thousands of other refugees who could not enter Greece were left with no place to go, stuck in limbo between fleeing and surviving.

What do these events tell us about the EU border and migration regime? Do they have any transformative role to play in EU-level policy making, and, if so, what is that role?

The news of these rather shocking and extraordinary events quickly spread across Europe, evoking strong emotions and triggering actions, from deep empathy to suspicion of the intentions of displaced people waiting at the borders. Under these circumstances, the long-awaited New Pact on Migration and Asylum was launched by the European Commission on September 23, 2020 as a “fresh start on migration: building confidence through more effective procedures and striking a new balance between responsibility and solidarity.”

The initial assessment by civil society organizations of the legislative and non-legislative proposals clearly show that the New Pact is considered far from a novel approach in terms of the guarantees put in place for compliance with international and EU legal standards, in promoting the fairer sharing of responsibility for asylum in Europe and globally, or in terms of the kind of migration management practices it is likely to accelerate. These include ‘return sponsorship’ and the increasing use of detention, as well as the restriction and criminalization of all sorts of humanitarian activities.

Meanwhile, the aforementioned ‘shocking’ events are about to become (from a European gaze) an intermezzo of what van Reekum calls a routinized emergency visualized through images of migration by boat. I agree with van Reekum that as manifested in ongoing rescue operations in the Aegean Sea, emergencies gain a routine character due to the unresolved ethical questions that the New Pact seems to be far from solving.

Really ‘shocking’, or history repeating itself?

The events at the Greek-Turkish land border were not new. We witnessed a similar ‘shock’ back in mid-September 2015 when over 3,000 people marched to the Turkish border province of Edirne asking for safe passage to Europe. At that time, they were forcefully stopped a few kilometers before the Kastanies-Karaağaç Border Gate and were allowed to wait until the EU heads of state had an informal meeting on September 23 to discuss the implementation of the European Agenda on Migration and how to increase collaboration with third countries like Turkey to alleviate the migratory pressure on the EU’s frontline member states. Just like in 2020, they were put in buses and transferred to other Turkish cities, while quite a number of them were detained and forcefully expelled to Syria without due procedure.

Hence, what we can call the first intermezzo in 2015 led to the EU-Turkey Statement aiming for a fast-track return of the rejected asylum seekers from Greece to Turkey as a “safe third country.” Five years after this first intermezzo, we can confidently say that the EU’s hotspot approach combined with the EU-Turkey Statement proved to be a highly ineffective policy at best, demonstrated by the low number of returns under the deal, the declaration of the suspension of the deal by the Turkish government, and the order of the Court of Justice of the European Union questioning the authorship and responsibility of the deal.

The second intermezzo in 2020 coinciding with the launch of the long-awaited New Pact further revealed two things. First, the EU has become more dependent on the willingness of its neighbours near and far to continue hosting millions of displaced people. Second, the only action plan the EU and its member states are able to come up with is greater militarization at the border and fewer rights for thousands of people who have already survived different forms of violence throughout their journey to and in Turkey and are in search for a life with dignity and peace.

Going back to the question posed above, the performative moments of the crises seem to play only a reproductive, rather than a transformative, role in shaping the EU-level migration and asylum policy. While the violent encounters at the land border further strengthen what van Houtum and Bueno Lacy call the ‘iron borders’ of fortress Europe, the burning down of camps such as Moria and ‘compassion fatigue’ in the Greek islands are the epitome of the ‘camp border’ within Europe that basically brings home the EU’s decades-old externalization policy. Seen from this perspective, the extraordinary events we witness at the land borders, hotspots and camps described above are only a byproduct what Jeandesboz and Pallister-Wilkins also call part of the routine work of bordering to order politics.

This routine work of bordering already became crystal clear in the discussions on the title of Commissioner-Designate Schinas’ portfolio on migration, security, employment and education. Even though the portfolio title was soon changed from ‘Protection’ to the ‘Promotion of the European Way of Life’ due to sharp criticism, even the changed title remains symbolic of the failure of the EU to transform its refugee policy. This is particularly visible in its reference to a singular European way of life that is to be promoted across Europe. While the EU means different things to different sides of the European public, from the populist right to the green left, it remains a union of free mobility for the lucky few, whereas it has also become a deportation union for many.

As the relatively shocking news from Greece has slowly turned into an intermezzo of routinized emergency, in the face of allegations against the EU agency Frontex, a deeper discussion is necessary on what a ‘European way of life’ entails in the face of EU member states’ responsibility for displaced people arriving at their borders or in the neighbourhood of Europe.

About the author:

Zeynep Kaşlı is Assistant Professor in Migration and Development at ISS, affiliated with the Governance, Law and Social Justice Research Group. Her research interests include mobility, citizenship, borders, transnationalism, power and sovereignty with regional expertise in Turkey, Middle East and Europe.

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The asylum procedure as a hope-generating machine

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Eu refugee policy migrant

Over the past few years, the European Union has used deterrence as its main strategy to prevent an influx of refugees, becoming more hard-handed as the number of refugees has increased. A faulty asylum procedure creates false hope to those who are then met by an untimely death or horrific conditions upon reaching Europe instead of ‘making it’ as a handful of refugees before them did. This hope-generating machine divides instead of unites, diminishing the collective power of refugees to challenge the EU’s migration policy.

Eu refugee policy migrant
Activists have taken to the streets in Amsterdam and Utrecht in the Netherlands to protest conditions in refugee camps, particularly Moria, and the EUs migration policy. Pictured here are protesters at Neude Utrecht. Photo: Dorothea Hilhorst.

Some days ago I reread Power, Community and the State[1], a book by former colleague at Wageningen University Monique Nuijten, to contribute to a publication celebrating the author’s work on the occasion of her retirement. Back in 2003, Nuijten described how the Mexican state acted as hope-generating machine that disciplined and divided poor peasant communities. While rereading the book 17 years after it first appeared, I was reminded how much the world has changed in the last two decades. I also realized how appropriately the idea of a hope-generating machine describes the asylum system in Europe.

Power, Community and the State is written in a time when arguments that we had entered a deterritorialized and transnationalized world seemed compelling. The book quotes Hardt and Negri’s view[2] that ‘sovereignty has taken a new form, composed of a series of national and supranational organisms united under a single logic of rule’.

How dreamily naïve such a quotation sounds today. In contrast to what was then hoped would be a move toward greater global unity, today’s world manifests itself as reterritorialized and renationalized, especially when seen through the eyes of migrants. Most passports in the world do not travel far. Borders that seemed to have disappeared have been reinstated as real physical borders, paper borders, iron borders, or even—when we read about the plans for barriers miles away from coastlines or hear of surveillant ships shooting at migrant boats at open sea—borders of death[3]. As Linda Polman accurately remarked, ‘[t]he Human Rights Commission of the United Nations stated in 2018 that Europe has developed a refugee policy that implicitly and explicitly accepts death as an effective anti-migration instrument.’[4]

Yet the core idea of Nuijten’s book about the state as a hope-generating machine is more relevant than ever —certainly for the millions of migrants seeking entry into inaccessible states. Oliver Bakewell noted how prospective migrants in East Africa are completely devoted to collecting papers and building a portfolio for an envisioned migration. During his presentation at the Forced Migration Studies Association Conference in Thessaloniki in 2018, Bakewell echoed Monique Nuijten, who said that ‘[t]he culture of the state is central to the operation of the bureaucracy as a hope-generating machine. The hope-generating bureaucratic machine gives the message that everything is possible, that cases are never closed […]’ (p. 196). With reference to the migration policy in East Africa, Bakewell seemed to expand on her argument that ‘[s]tate intervention in Mexico tends to have a divisive effect on the population, and to frustrate independent collective organising efforts “from below”’ (p. 198).

What the example of East Africa shows is that, rather than seeking out their brothers in fate and rising to protest, migrants are driven by the hope of becoming one of the lucky chosen few, doing everything in their power to mould their individual behaviour and attitudes to the requirements imposed or favoured by the migration machines. The annual lottery that hands out 55,000 Green Cards to hopefuls wishing to enter the United States—with a 1.33% chance of people in the most eligible countries getting one—is indeed the ultimate hope-generating machine, steering millions of people away from engaging in protests and activism in their own countries against conditions they are fleeing from, and instead motivating them to be left at the hands of ‘fate’ in the form of a lottery, as in the US Green Card Lottery, and to maintain immaculate track records and build their individual case files to be considered ‘good citizens’.

Stories of refugees ‘slipping through the cracks’ of Europe’s asylum system and starting afresh continue to fire the continent’s hope-generating machine.

It is widely acknowledged that Europe’s policies towards migration can be summarized by the word ‘deterrence’. The European Union as well as its individual member states, perhaps with the exception of Germany, seem united in their determined aggression in seeking to expose and render as visible as possible the cases of failed migration that result in tragic and horrifying death by drowning when crossing the Mediterranean Sea or being stuck in a horrific limbo in refugee camps such as Moria. In these camps, refugees seem to have the same function as the shrivelled human heads on stakes that used to decorate the walls of medieval European cities to deter vagabonds from passing through the gates. The purpose of these efforts is similarly to deter would-be migrants from trying to reach Europe. Nonetheless, there are always a number of people who manage to slip through the cracks of the system and are granted asylum, and so the hope-generating machine continues to churn out hope, fed by ‘success stories’.

For a long time, I thought maintaining the appearance of a just system of asylum was a concession to the many Europeans who are supportive of refugees. In the Netherlands, for example, the government insists that there is no social support base for migrants. This, however, is far from the truth. Recent research[5] from the University of Groningen found that, although the support base for migration is shrinking in the Netherlands, 45% of the population still supports government assistance to refugees. Another 25% of the population is willing to support such assistance to refugees provided that strict measures are taken to protect society from asylum seekers who ‘misbehave’. Thirty Dutch municipalities have declared their willingness to receive refugees from Moria.

The bold statement of the right-wing Dutch government that there is no support base for refugees is no more than a malicious manipulation of the truth by a government that plays to the populist far right, where it fears it is losing votes. I always assumed that the small numbers of successful asylum cases in Europe were a triumph of the countless refugee-friendly lawyers, volunteers, and left-wing politicians making noise on behalf of refugees. I assumed that they occasionally managed to beat the system.

Upon closer inspection, and after rereading Power, Community and the State, I realize more clearly that those asylum seekers who successfully slip through the system are not a mistake or a failure of the deterrence machine. It is much more likely that the machine is built in such a way that, once in a while, a lucky individual comes out with a residence permit. Thus, refugees that slip through the cracks, and are granted a residence permit to continue their life in Europe—are also the symbols of hope that keep inspiring migrants to bet on obtaining a residence permit. .

It may very well be that the machine is designed in this way to discipline the migrants in Moria and other places where they are living a non-life.

When stuck in these camps, they continue to hope that they can eventually ‘move on’ and start the asylum procedure, and so they continue to wait, and to hope. And those that reach a country where their asylum procedures are started are told by their friendly lawyers to keep their heads down, behave well, and do whatever they can to enhance their chances of being granted a residence permit. Knowing one or two people who succeeded before you further feeds that hope. And as long as migrants have this hope, they are prevented from being united to fight the cruel reception they get in Europe.

[1] Nuijten, M. C. M. (2003). Power, Community and the State: The Political Anthropology of Organisation in Mexico. London, UK and Sterling, VA: Pluto Press.

[2] Hardt, M., and Negri, A. (2000). Empire. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

[3] Henk van Houtum & Rodrigo Bueno Lacy (2020) The Autoimmunity of the EU’s Deadly B/ordering Regime; Overcoming its Paradoxical Paper, Iron and Camp Borders, Geopolitics, 25:3, 706-733, DOI: 10.1080/14650045.2020.1728743

[4] Linda Polman Tegen Elke Prijs. Essay Vluchtelingen en Europa. Groene Amsterdammer, 01-10-2020.

[5] Toon Kuppens et al. (2019). Ongenoegen, migratie, gastvrijheid en maatschappelijke onrust. Onderzoek Rijksuniversiteit Groningen, in opdracht van het Wetenschappelijk Onderzoek- en Documentatiecentrum. https://www.wodc.nl/binaries/2742%20Volledige%20Tekst_tcm28-425017.pdf

About the author:

 

Thea Hilhorst

Dorothea Hilhorst is Professor of Humanitarian Aid and Reconstruction at the International Institute of Social Studies of Erasmus University Rotterdam.

This article is based on a contribution of the author to the Liber Amicorum for Monique Nuijten of Wageningen University.

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Germany is a deeply racist country―stop pretending otherwise

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Antirassismus Demo Berlin

While Germany has been lauded for agreeing to take in 1,700 refugees from refugee camp Moria that recently burned to the ground, the country has been cited as a role model for its rational, yet humane stance toward refugees ever since it took in more than one million people in a single year during Europe’s so-called ‘refugee crisis’. However, within the country a different type of crisis is brewing—one characterized by deep structural and societal racism. Only if Germany and international observers shake the deceptive perception of the country as ‘welcoming’, change can finally happen, writes Josephine Valeske.

Antirassismus Demo Berlin
Anti-racism demonstration in Berlin, September 2018. The banner reads 'Refugees welcome! Against racism and right-wing violence'. Credit: Uwe Hiksch on Flickr

Two weeks ago, only days after a ring of right-wing extremists was discovered in the German police force in the state of North Rhine-Westphalia, the police in what can be seen as a PR campaign asked Twitter users to use the hashtag #dankepolizei (‘thank you, police’) to tweet why they are grateful to the German police. The campaign backfired spectacularly. Within hours, there were hundreds of tweets using the hashtag to recount horrific instances of police violence, racial profiling, and verbal and physical abuse, many of them with an explicit focus on racism.

These instances are likely just the tip of the iceberg. Since the Black Lives Matter movement has put racism and police brutality on the public agenda in the USA, police violence has become a hotly debated topic also in Germany and elsewhere in Europe. Left-leaning voices argue that racism in the German police force consists not, as leading police officials and politicians insist, of ‘Einzelfälle’ ―individual cases, exceptions to the rule―but that it is a structural problem. Despite mounting pressure on the ministry for interior affairs to gauge the extent and urgency of the problem, the German home minister, seen as one of the most right-leaning figures in Merkel’s cabinet, has repeatedly refused to conduct a study enabling a better understanding.

Meanwhile, the ‘Einzelfälle’ keep piling up. As far back as 2011, it became known that a right-wing group calling itself ‘NSU’ (National Socialist Underground) had murdered 10 people between 2000 and 2007, nine of them with Turkish roots. The crimes had been covered up for years by regional police forces and German secret services, partially by blaming the murders on the victims’ families while making use of racist stereotypes. The extent of the state’s involvement in the NSU and the cover up is yet unknown. Last year saw at least 1,664 attacks on refugees or refugee shelters in Germany, as visualised on this map. And on 20 February this year, a right-wing extremist gunman murdered nine people with a migration background and his mother in the town of Hanau.

This is just one form of direct violence driven by racism. Several less visible forms of racism plague Germany society. The question then arises: How come such multi-dimensional racism that has persisted throughout Germany has not been in the spotlight until now?

In White Innocence, Gloria Wekker in a fascinating dissection of racism in the Netherlands argues that the Dutch self-perception as an open, tolerant culture has led to many Dutch people ignoring racism even if it is staring them in the face. In a societal equivalent of “I have a black friend, so I cannot be racist”, instances of day-to-day racism are written off by referring to the Netherlands’ multicultural society. Although Germany’s culture and history are quite different, this observation struck a chord with me. Germany is often praised for how it remembers and deals with the crimes committed under Nazi rule, and a large share of the population likes to believe that it is anti-fascist. We all spent at least a year in high school studying and condemning the Holocaust, reading Anne Frank’s diary, and visiting former concentration camps―so we are obviously enlightened and anti-racist Germans!

This self-perception is wrong and incredibly dangerous. It takes the knowledge about a historical period and its atrocities as proof of a general ‘immunity’ to racist thought and behaviour. Because we know very well what happened in the past, we surely won’t repeat this, this logic goes. But while German education and commemorative culture emphasizes this historical period, others are completely erased. Perhaps only a few German students are aware of Germany’s colonial past and the genocide of the Herero and Nama in what was once German South West Africa (today’s Namibia), for example. This intentional forgetting has been labelled ‘colonial amnesia’. The German government has yet to answer to Namibia’s call for an official apology and reparations. The point is that Germany is selectively anti-racist and that racism in fact pervades everyday life, rooted in a ‘colonial amnesia’ and denial of structural racism and islamophobia that has persisted, albeit less visibly, after the Second World War.

When it comes to Germany’s supposedly humane refugee policy, Merkel is either lauded or hated for temporarily suspending the Dublin Agreement in 2015 and granting around one million refugees the possibility to apply for asylum in Germany. Whether her decision was indeed fuelled by humanitarian motives or simply a calculated move to combat Germany’s skilled worker shortage, we will never know. The Guardian recently called this Merkel’s “great migrant gamble”, as if the lives of a million people were no more than stakes in a game that could yield positive returns.

German government officials have time and time again emphasised they want to “fight the causes of flight”, leading to dubious development assistance deals that typically benefit the German economy more than the receiving countries – and to the death of thousands. In March 2016, Germany was the driving force behind a deal with Turkey in which the latter country gets paid to keep refugees out of Europe, after which the number of refugees entering Germany decreased considerably. Several such deals have since been made with North African countries like Libya even after full awareness that refugees are being tortured in Libyan detention camps financed with German and EU money. Germany is also a major contributor to Frontex, the European border ‘protection’ and coast guard agency that forces refugees to rely on ever-harder routes to Europe and has reportedly pushed back refugees, which makes it indirectly responsible for the deaths of thousands of people every year in the Mediterranean Sea.

Ironically, if Germany was serious about “fighting the causes of flight”, it should probably shut down its ministry of foreign affairs and its many weapons manufacturing companies first. Looking at the number of persons driven from their homes by wars in which the US and its allies, including Germany, are involved, and at the havoc Germany’s economic policies are wreaking in the Global South, the handful of refugees Germany has ‘accepted’ from Moria seem to be no more than a tool to keep up the country’s appearance as humanitarian and welcoming. Finally, it must be acknowledged that Germany is profiting from and supporting the global division of labour that is at the root cause of systemic poverty and thus causes many forms of migration in the first place.

The first step we can take as Germans is to stop pretending that we’re doing enough and that we’re doing it well, and to critically look at and address the myriad forms of racism originating in the country. We are failing spectacularly at making Germany a safe haven for those who need safety most―and we have the moral obligation to change that.

Josephine Valeske
About the author:

Josephine Valeske holds a MA degree in Development Studies from the ISS and a BA degree in Philosophy and Economics. She currently works for the Transnational Institute and is the manager of the ISS Blog Bliss. She can be found on Twitter @josephine_on_tw.

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Moria’s male refugees need help just as much as anyone else

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The recent fire that razed refugee camp Moria in Greece has left around 13,000 refugees homeless and fleeing once again—this time to an unknown destination where they hope to find safety at most, or temporary shelter at the least. While humanitarian aid organizations have scrambled to provide aid to the destitute refugees and Europe’s leaders have assumed a cold and calculating approach, it seems that refugee men are being forgotten. Dorothea Hilhorst argues that all refugees, regardless of age or gender, should be helped and that the plight of young men, who are often not considered ‘real’ refugees, should also be highlighted.

Camp Moria, housing 13,000 refugees mainly from Afghanistan, burnt down on 8 September. The tragedy has been long in the making—Europe has failed the migrants in Moria for years, forsaking them to a sub-human non-life in overcrowded refugee camps. Those of us who hoped that the dramatic fire would act as a wake-up call have seen little progress this past week in the wake of the fire. Europe, except for Germany, has so far responded in a cold and calculating way.

The little response we have seen has mainly focused on unaccompanied children and to a lesser extent on families. The Netherlands, for example, has offered to receive a few hundred families from Moria. The ‘offer’ is even less generous than it appears, as their number will be deducted from the total number of vulnerable refugees to be received by the Netherlands on the basis of a standing agreement with UN refugee agency UNHCR, much to the dismay of the agency.

The focus on unaccompanied children plays into the primary feelings of sympathy of many Europeans. A Dutch woman who started a campaign to collect sleeping bags for Lesbos told a reporter from the national news agency in the Netherlands: “I am a mother. When I see children sleep on the streets, I must do something, no matter what”. It may be natural for people to respond more to suffering children than to adolescents and adults, but surely politics should not only be dictated by motherly instincts alone?

It remains important to unpack the thin policy response to the fire in Moria. The focus on children and families makes a false distinction among refugees that makes it seem as if only children are vulnerable. It is a cheap, yet effective trick that puts 400 child refugees in the spotlight to distract the attention from the almost 13,000 others that live in similar squalid conditions.

Unfortunately, we have landed ourselves in a time where official politics are not guided by cherished and shared institutions like the refugee convention, which stipulates that people fleeing from war are entitled to be heard in an asylum procedure and, while the procedure is pending, received in dignified circumstances. Instead, policies seem cynically oriented towards one goal only: deterrence. The underlying idea of policy comes across as something along the lines of “[l]et 13,000 people suffer in front of as many cameras as possible so that desperate people will refrain from crossing the Mediterranean to seek shelter and asylum in the affluent countries of Europe”.

While 13,000 people suffer, the gaze of Europe singles out several hundred children for our solidarity. The distinction between these children and the other refugees rests on two equally weak arguments.

Firstly, it is implied that children are more vulnerable than other refugees. Whereas this is true in some respects, the level of despair and hopelessness experienced by all people in Moria is shocking. During my visit to Lesbos last year, aid workers told me that many refugees in Moria—children, adolescents and adults—suffer from a triple trauma. The first one was caused by the violence that triggered their escape, the second by the long passage to Europe and the crossing of the sea, and, finally, new trauma arising from the dismal conditions in the camp, the permanent state of insecurity, and the lack of future prospects. A vast majority of the people in Moria qualify to be seriously considered in asylum procedures because they fled from the violence of war and are extremely vulnerable.

Secondly, the focus on children leans on an idea of ‘deserving’ versus ‘undeserving’ refugees. Children cannot be blamed for their situation and are presumed innocent. The same applies to women in the eyes of most people. Adult men, and especially single (young) men, on the other hand, are looked at with a multitude of suspicions. Men are associated with violence and often suspected to be culprits rather than victims of war. They are also distrusted as they may be associated with sexual violence against women that is indeed widespread, but certainly does not hold true for all men. Finally, they don’t solicit feelings of sympathy because they are considered strong and capable of managing their own survival. Or worse, they are considered fortune seekers instead of bare survivors of war.

However, it is a myth that men should not deserve our sympathy! In situations of war, men are more likely than women to be exposed to violence – killing, torture, arbitrary arrest, or forced subscription in a regular or rebel army. Traumatized and destitute, they find themselves in a situation where they do not qualify for many of the aid programmes that are based on the same gender biases and reserve their resources for women and children. Quite a lot of young men see no other option than to prostitute themselves in order to survive.

Singling out unaccompanied children therefore is delusional. It seems to be designed to placate the large numbers of Europeans who want to act in solidarity with refugees. Our politicians keep telling us that social support for refugees has dried up, but while they listen in fear to right-wing populists, they are blind to the wish of equally large constituencies that want to welcome refugees.

As we are left in anger and shame, let us not step into the false dichotomy of deserving/undeserving refugees. Policy should be guided by legislation, not by false distinctions that are based on and reinforce popular sentiments. All refugees in Moria, irrespective of their gender or age, should be able to tell their story while being sheltered in dignity. All these stories need to be heard in proper asylum procedures—without prejudice.

About the author:

Dorothea HilhorstDorothea Hilhorst is Professor of Humanitarian Aid and Reconstruction at the International Institute of Social Studies of Erasmus University Rotterdam. She is a regular author for Bliss. Read all her posts here.

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Prioritising ‘well-being’ amongst refugees living in fragile settings through the framework of culture and inclusion

Posted on 0 min read
Somalian Refugees in the park

A focus on improving the well-being of vulnerable groups such as refugees and migrants is crucial for at least two reasons: managing the trauma of crisis and disruption that has severely affected the lives of such groups, and confronting new challenges arising in displacement, including ‘social and cultural barriers to integration, low socio-economic status, acculturation stress, exclusion and discrimination’.[i] This blog explores how a project run by Holly Ritchie in a fringe area of Nairobi, Kenya seeks to counter the precarious position of Somali refugee women by placing their well-being first, with particular emphasis on the role of culture and inclusion.

Somalian Refugees in the park
Credit: Holly A. Ritchie

Well-being is considered a vital component of human mental and physical health. Whilst a universally accepted definition is still lacking[2], from a social science perspective, well-being may be understood as a multidimensional concept of ‘living well’, combining notions of objective and subjective well-being[3].

Typically, refugee well-being has been approached from a mental health angle, with aid responses including counseling and community-based psychosocial services. Increasingly, however, there is emphasis on more practical interventions to coping with life in displacement. Social support is viewed as instrumental to refugee well-being, including formal social support from institutions and organisations, as well as informal advice and guidance from family, friends and networks[4]. There is also a growing focus on the economic well-being of refugees and immigrants, i.e. ensuring that basic survival needs are met, and facilitating access to sustainable incomes and assets to prosper through livelihoods assistance; this has been particularly highlighted during the current Covid-19 pandemic. Yet there is still a lack of understanding about the impact of such support on refugee lives, and particularly the influence of culture, i.e. in how they access and receive support, and how this shapes socio-economic life.

In a recent blog post, I drew attention to my research with female refugees and enterprise[5] and emerging links to Information Communication Technologies (ICTs). I shared empirical insights from a small self-funded project that I set up in 2018 with a group of Somali refugee women[6] living in Eastleigh on the outskirts of Nairobi in Kenya, in particular the influence of mobile technology on women’s self-reliance and protection. Known as ‘Little Mogadishu’[7], Eastleigh is a commercial hub for Somali business and home to high numbers of Somali refugees. Poor Somali refugee women in Eastleigh tend to work as petty traders although they face restrictions in their daily work without business licenses and suffer local intimidation due to (Somali) cultural norms.

Motivated by my studies, the refugee project was conceived to promote the ‘well-being’ and leadership skills of Somali refugee women as a foundation to building resilient livelihoods and promoting community inclusion. Drawing on an integrated perspective of ‘wellness’ in contrast to Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs[8], I adopted a holistic approach to developing different facets of human well-being. This incorporated five core dimensions[9] in a ‘wheel of well-being’, including physical well-being, social well-being, financial well-being, environmental/community well-being, and a sense of purpose.[10]

In addition to well-being training, the project has sought to organise cultural community initiatives, including women’s poetry circles building on Somali oral traditions and a love for poetry[11], to commemorate important days such as Women’s Day, 16 Days of Activism and World Refugee Day. The group has also participated in short courses on ‘Trauma-informed Yoga and Healing’ by visiting yoga instructors. In addition, the project has supported the active involvement of the refugee women in city cultural events, including refugee runs and forest walks. With a strong focus on stimulating livelihood opportunities on the back of the various ‘well-being’ trainings, a savings scheme was introduced, and with technical support, the group has now set up a small, collective tie-dye business.

Using insights from my doctoral thesis into transforming norms and habits[12], the project aimed to engender shifts in various dimensions of well-being through drawing on progressive cultural ideas and beliefs and constructive narratives that could promote behavioural change, particularly in less educated and conservative settings. An innovative training methodology was developed that aimed to explore and carefully unpack each well-being theme through the prism of positive traditional and modern cultural and religious sayings, proverbs or passages, including from Somalia and the Koran where possible, but also from broader cultures from around the world.[13] Such an approach was intended to permit cognitive and ideological depth to the creation of new daily habits and practices.

For example, in exploring the importance of exercise and physical fitness in ‘physical well-being’, an old simple saying in Somali was offered by a member of the group: ‘If you do not know your responsibilities and your body, you will die before your clothes are old’. The facilitator also shared key Islamic references and mainstream quotes from the well-being industry, for example, ‘Movement is a medicine for creating change in a person’s physical, emotional, and mental states’.

Meanwhile, to support women’s work and economic inclusion as part of ‘financial well-being’, we discussed the role of Khadija, the wife of Prophet Mohamed, as a businesswoman, and the importance of work permitting ‘zakah’, or almsgiving, that is considered one of the five pillars of Islam.

Somali poem
https://sahrakoshin.wordpress.com/2016/03/08/my-dear-somali-sister-use-the-power-within-you/

Adding momentum to the religious and cultural dialogue and encouraging storytelling and reflection, the women’s poetry events have provided a further platform to exchange and share Somali songs (and dance), and traditional and contemporary poetry, especially as a means of feminist inspiration. At a more profound level, the poetry sessions have endeavoured to strengthen the women’s personal and cultural identity, enhance female solidarity and networks, and help make sense of life as Somali women, as Muslims and as refugees in a challenging environment.

Whilst subtle, the development and practice of cultural well-being in particular may boost refugee women’s confidence, solidarity and initiative and can have knock-on effects to other dimensions of well-being and dynamics of inclusion. For example, a stronger sense of cultural identity and self-assertiveness may further enhance informal social support between the refugee women, e.g. through improved local exchange, information and guidance, and can strengthen emerging social relations and networks, thus fostering social well-being. This may provide a platform for improved economic well-being and even collective enterprise. An increase in women’s social networks may also lead to increased technological participation[14] towards improved digital well-being.

Yet, ultimately, to facilitate broader processes of community integration in turbulent contexts such as Eastleigh in Nairobi, it is clear that cultural and religious diversity needs to be recognised and embraced with institutional-level support to promote greater acceptance of marginalised groups, including refugees. This may then permit the development of cross-community well-being that can allow its members to collectively thrive and prosper.

[1] https://www.euro.who.int/__data/assets/pdf_file/0004/388363/tc-health-promotion-eng.pdf?ua=1

[2] Dodge, R., Daly, A., Huyton, J., & Sanders, L. (2012). The challenge of defining wellbeing. International Journal of Wellbeing, 2(3), 222-235.

[3] McGregor, J.A. and Pouw, N. (2017) ‘Towards an economics of well-being’, Cambridge Journal of Economics 2017, 41, 1123–1142

[4] Social support may pertain to three forms of social assistance, including basic compassion and warmth, information and good advice, or more practical everyday life support. Knoll N, & Schwarzer, R. (2005) Soziale Unterstützung. Göttingen: Hogrefe.

[5] Ritchie, H.A. (2018a). Gender and enterprise in fragile refugee settings: female empowerment amidst male emasculation—a challenge to local integration? Disasters, 42(S1), S40−S60.

[6] The immediate group includes 20-25 women, but the project aims to reach at least 100 refugee women, with participating women encouraged to pass on basic summary messages to at least three other women in their households or neighbours (through tea parties).

[7] An estimated 100,000 refugees reside in Eastleigh.

[8] McGregor, S.  L. T.  (2010). Well-being, wellness and basic human needs in  home economics [McGregor Monograph Series No. 201003]. Seabright, NS: McGregor Consulting Group. Retrieved from     http://www.consultmcgregor.com/documents/publications/well-being_wellness_and_basic_human_needs_in_home_economics.pdf

[9] This is not exhaustive and further dimensions of wellbeing have been conceived, including spiritual wellbeing and emotional wellbeing.

[10] To date, the group has looked at the first four components. Physical wellbeing incorporated physical and mental wellbeing, with an emphasis on diet and complementary ‘healthy’ spices and herbs, fitness and relaxation/meditation. Financial wellbeing incorporated work and income, savings and budgeting. Social wellbeing included family relations, friends and networks. Environmental wellbeing has explored the physical nature of homes and living spaces, neighbourhood and community, and the importance of green spaces.

[11] Kapchits G. (1998) The Somali Oral Traditions: a Call for Salvation. In: Heissig W., Schott R. (eds) Die heutige Bedeutung oraler Traditionen / The Present-Day Importance of Oral Traditions. Abhandlungen der Nordrhein-Westfälischen Akademie der Wissenchaften, vol 102. VS Verlag für Sozialwissenschaften. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-322-83676-2_17

[12] Ritchie, H.A. (2016) Institutional Innovation and Change in Value Chain Development: Negotiating Tradition, Power and Fragility in Afghanistan, London: Routledge

[13] Whilst many of the women were illiterate, a flipchart was used to aid discussion and brainstorming, and create as visual focal point for attention (with a translator).

[14] Ritchie, H.A. (forthcoming) ‘ICTs as frugal innovations: Enabling new pathways towards refugee self-reliance and resilience in fragile contexts?’ in Saradindu Bhaduri, Peter Knorringa, Andre Leliveld Cees van Beers, Handbook on Frugal Innovations and the Sustainable Development Goals. Edward Elgar Publishers.

About the author:

Holly A Ritchie is a post-doc Research Fellow at the ISS and a CFIA Research Affiliate.

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When outright racism triggers migrant precarity: Britain’s Windrush Scandal and the need to move beyond arguments on legality by Anna Cáceres

Posted on 11 min read
Windrush Protesters 2018

[Versión en español abajo]

In 2018 Britain once again made news headlines, this time for the Windrush scandal that saw scores of British citizens with migration backgrounds wrongly detained and deported. Almost all were migrants from Commonwealth countries who had migrated to Britain after the Second World War and because of a series of policy changes starting in 2012 were no longer recognized as citizens by 2018. The scandal is important for two reasons. First, it demonstrates the importance of viewing ‘citizenship’ as a fluid, and indeed socially constructed, category, rather than a binary legal designation. Second, it shows how racism, when coupled with racially exclusive constructions of national identity, can be a more important trigger for migrant precarity than legal status.

The UK’s increasing flirtation over the last decade with right-wing populist discourses on migration has been well-documented and came to a legislative climax with the passing of a migration policy package known as the Hostile Environment (HE) by the Conservative-Liberal Democrat coalition in 2012. HE policies ostensibly sought to increase the ‘voluntary return’ rate of undocumented migrants in the UK, but in effect acted to flip the burden of proof in migration cases. Whereas previously it was up to migration enforcement officials to prove the undocumented status of an individual, HE ensured that it was now up to an increasingly random array of non-specialist civil society actors to police the migration status of their fellow residents. Such actors came to include employers, benefit officers, healthcare providers, and landlords.

It was not until 2018, when The Guardian exposed the treatment of legal migrants under HE, that criticism started to gain real traction and several internal investigations were launched. Central to this coverage was a portion of British residents known as Windrush Migrants (WM)—Commonwealth citizens who migrated to the UK between 1948 and 1973. This group was severely and systematically swept up in the HE despite having the legal right to reside in the UK.

In essence, the HE acted to reintroduce migration-related precarity into the lives of WMs, individuals who had lived in the UK for decades and no longer viewed themselves as ‘migrants’. In the literature on precarity, it is emphasised that migrants experience both traditional socioeconomic precarity—i.e. low-pay, inherently unstable work—and migration-specific forms by virtue of being non-citizens. Problems with legal status, ‘deportability’, and everyday discrimination are all common examples. However, the focus on ‘citizenship’ is limiting, as it is typically defined as a binary legal construct: one either is, or is not, a citizen.

WMs pose a unique example of a group who were citizens and then became non-citizens. Here, the history of Windrush migration is exceedingly important: most WMs had equal citizenship status to British-born residents at the time of their arrival. The passage of the British Nationality Act of 1948 had granted citizenship status, including permanent residency rights, to all subjects of the Commonwealth. These rights were progressively stripped back with the passage of several immigration acts in the 1960s and 1970s, which began differentiating between Brits born on mainland Britain and those born outside of it.  By the time the Immigration Act of 1971 came into force in 1973, individuals from the Commonwealth had been downgraded from ‘British citizens’ to ‘foreign immigrants’. The case of WMs thus shows that citizenship is a fluid category, which can and is reconstructed as suits the needs of the politics of the day.

Even more importantly, citizenship as experienced by WMs was in the eyes of the beholder: white British residents. All of the WMs who were swept up in HE policies had a legal right to reside in the UK, and indeed would have been eligible for full British citizenship, had they even been aware that they didn’t have it already. Many individuals reported feeling stunned by their sudden designation as ‘undocumented migrants’ and indeed even felt betrayed by a country they perceived to be their own. Thus, Paulette Wilson, born in Jamaica but resident in the UK since 1968, had the following to say:

“I don’t feel British. I am British. I’ve been raised here, all I know is Britain. What the hell can I call myself except British […] I’m still angry that I have to prove it. I feel angry that I have to go through this”.[1]

Two things were at play in facilitating the reclassification of WMs as illegal outsiders under the HE. First was a shocking ignorance of the history of migration to Britain and the policies that governed it. Whilst this is not surprising when discussing the myriad members of the public who were being asked to police migration, specialists at the Home Office itself appeared to be blissfully unaware as well.

This collective amnesia about the legal rights and cultural significance of WMs was facilitated by the second factor: structural racism. By asking British residents to trigger immigration checks of their fellow residents, HE opened the floodgates for the harassment of ethnic minorities based entirely on non-specialist judgements of who ‘looks foreign’. That WMs were systematically perceived as ‘foreign’, despite having all the trappings of long-term residents—cultural knowledge, fluency in English, local accents etc.—is a reflection of racially exclusive construction of the British identity in popular memory.

This is to say that in cultural discourses, the historic presence of, and indeed significant impact made by non-white individuals in Britain has been written out at a systematic level. We see this in the all-white casts of British WWII films. We see it, too, in the violent hostility to Britain’s first black female MP, Dianne Abbott, who in a parliamentary career spanning over 30 years has been on the receiving end of the most abuse received by any female parliamentarian. Finally, we see it in a national History curriculum, which in the limited areas where migration is even mentioned does so in the context of ‘race relations’, effectively glossing over the agency of these individuals in favour of reconstructing the perpetually foreign migrant victim.

Windrush migrants present a uniquely fertile case study for migration scholars of all disciplines because of what it reveals about the interplay between citizenship and racism. More importantly however, the injustices of HE have flourished in a climate of wilful ignorance. The more scrutiny this case receives, the better.

[1] Amelia Gentleman, The Windrush Betrayal: Exposing the Hostile Environment (London: Guardian Faber, 2019), P.40.

Selected literature:

Gentleman, Amelia, The Windrush Betrayal: Exposing the Hostile Environment (London: Guardian Faber, 2019).

Olusuga, David, Black and British: A Forgotten History (London: Pan Macmillan, 2016).

Paret, Marcel and Gleeson, Shannon, ‘Precarity and agency through a migration lens’, Citizenship Studies (2016), Vol.20, issues 3-4, pp.277-294. 

Williams, Wendy, ‘Windrush Lessons Learned Review’, Independent Review for the House of Commons (March 19, 2020) [online] Available from: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/windrush-lessons-learned-review [Accessed on, April 1, 2020].

Anna CarceresAbout the author:

Anna Cáceres is currently finishing her ResMA in Migration History at Leiden University. Her research focuses on migration and the British public healthcare system since WWII. She is particularly interested in the historic roots of contemporary migration discourses and the role – or lack thereof – of history in national identity.

 

Title Image Credit: Steve Eason on Flickr. The image has been cropped.

Cuando el racismo abierto produce la precariedad de inmigrantes: el escándalo de Windrush en el Reino Unido y la necesidad de sobrepasar el enfoque sobre legalidad por Anna Cáceres

En el 2018 el Reino Unido estaba de nuevo en los medios, esta vez por el escándalo de Windrush que vio a cientos de ciudadanos Británicos con antecedentes migratorios incorrectamente detenidos y hasta deportados. Casi todos eran inmigrantes de países de la Mancomunidad[1] que habían inmigrado al Reino Unido en los años siguientes a la segunda guerra mundial, pero que en 2018, bajo nuevas políticas introducidas a partir del 2012, no eran más reconocidos como ciudadanos Británicos. El escándalo es importante por dos razones. Primero, demuestra la importancia de concebir al “ciudadano” como una categoría fluida y construida socialmente, en vez de una designación binaria legal. Segundo, demuestra cómo el racismo, cuando se encuentra mezclado con construcciones de la identidad nacional que son racialmente exclusivas, puede ser un catalizador para la precariedad de inmigrantes más importante que el estatus legal.

En la última década, el creciente alineamiento del Reino Unido (RU) con los discursos populistas de derecha sobre la inmigración ha sido ampliamente documentados, y llegando a su clímax legislativo con la aprobación de políticas sobre la inmigración llamado el Ambiente Hostil (AH) por la coalición Conservadora- Liberal Demócrata en el 2012. Las políticas del AH aparentemente buscaban aumentar la tasa de ‘retorno voluntario’ por los indocumentados, pero en actualidad sirvieron para invertir la carga de prueba en casos de migración. Mientras antes era la responsabilidad del oficial migraciones aprobar el estatus indocumentado de las personas, AH aseguró que ahora una jurado aleatoria y no especialistas de miembros del público,   estaban a cargo de vigilar el estatus migratorio de sus compañeros residentes. Este jurado llegó a incluir empleadores, oficiales a cargo de subsidios estatales, proveedores de servicios médicos, y propietarios.

No fue hasta el 2018, cuando The Guardian expuso el tratamiento de inmigrantes legales bajo el AH que las críticas ganaron verdadero apoyo y varias investigaciones internas fueron iniciadas. Una de las piezas centrales de esta cobertura mediática fue una porción de residentes Británicos conocidos como los Inmigrantes del Windrush (IW) – ciudadanos de la Mancomunidad que llegaron al RU entre el 1948 y el 1973. Este grupo fue severa y sistemáticamente marginalizados por el AH, aunque tenían el derecho legal de permanecer en el RU.

Esencialmente, el AH sirvió para reintroducir una situación de precariedad de inmigrante a las vidas de los IW, personas que llevaban décadas viviendo en el RU y ya no se veían como ‘inmigrantes’. En la literatura sobre la precariedad, se pone énfasis en que los inmigrantes sufren una forma de precariedad atada al estatus de ser inmigrantes, además de la precariedad tradicional, económica – es decir sueldos bajos, y empleo inestable –  a causa de no ser ciudadanos. Dificultades legales, la posibilidad de ser deportados, y la discriminación cotidiana son todos ejemplos comunes de la precariedad de los inmigrantes. Sin embargo, el enfoque sobre la ‘ciudadanía’ es limitante, porque en general la ciudadanía está definida como una designación binaria y legal: uno es, o no es, un ciudadano/a.

Los IW son un ejemplo único de ciudadanos que fueron convertidos en no-ciudadanos. Aquí, la historia de la inmigración del Windrush es sumamente importante: El Acto de la Nacionalidad Británica del 1948 dió estatus legal equivalente a los residentes natales del RU, incluyendo derechos de residencia, a todos los sujetos de la Mancomunidad, y entonces también a la mayor parte de los IW. Estos derechos fueron poco a poco revocados con el paso de varias políticas de inmigración en los años 1960s y 1970s, que empezaron a diferenciar entre británicos nacidos en RU y los nacidos afuera. Cuando llegó a promulgarse el Acto de Inmigración del 1971 en el 1973, las personas de la Mancomunidad ya habían sido degradadas de ‘ciudadano Británico’ a ‘inmigrante extranjero’. El caso de los IW demuestra que la ciudadanía es una categoría fluida, que se puede y es reconstruida para servir los intereses políticos del día.

Aún más importante, la ciudadanía experimentada por los IW era condicional y dependía de la aprobación del observador: en este case los residentes blancos del RU. Todos los IW afectados por las políticas del AH tenían un derecho legal a permanecer en el RU, y hasta hubiesen sido aptos para solicitar la ciudadanía británica completa, si se hubieran enterado que ya no la tenían. Muchos de ellos reportaron un shock terrible al darse cuenta que de repente estaban designados como indocumentados, y hasta se sentían traicionados por un país que percibían como el suyo. Así, Paulette Wilson, nacida en Jamaica pero residente en el RU desde el 1968 dijo lo siguiente:

“No me siento británica. Soy británica. Fui criada acá, todo lo que conozco es Gran Bretaña ¿Qué diablos puedo decir que soy sino Británica? […] Todavía estoy enojada que lo tengo que demostrar. Me siento enojada que tengo que pasar por esto” .[2]

Dos factores facilitaron la reclasificación de los IW como extranjeros ilegales bajo el AH. El primero fue una escandalosa ignorancia sobre la historia de la inmigración al RU y las políticas que la rigieron. Mientras esto no es sorprendente cuando consideramos la miríada de miembros del público que fueron reclutados para vigilar la inmigración, miembros del ministerio del interior también aparentaron estar felices con su ignorancia en el tema.

La amnesia colectiva sobre los derechos legales y la significancia cultural de los IW estaba facilitada por un segundo factor: el racismo estructural. En pedir que los residentes Británicos inicien investigaciones migratorias contra sus compañeros residentes, el AH abrió las puertas al acoso de minorías étnicas basado exclusivamente en el juicio de no-especialistas en quien “parecía extranjero”. Que los IW estaban sistemáticamente percibidos como “extranjeros”, aunque tenían todas las características de residentes de largo plazo – conocimiento cultural, fluidez en el inglés, acentos locales etc. – es un reflejo de la construcción popular de una identidad Británica que es racialmente exclusiva.

En los discursos culturales en Gran Bretaña, existe una amnesia colectiva sobre la presencia histórica, y el impacto significante creado por personas no blancas. Esto los vemos en los repartos completamente blancos de las películas Británicas de la segunda guerra mundial.  También lo vemos en la hostilidad violenta dirigida a la primera parlamentaria negra del país, Dianne Abbott, que en una carrera que ha durado más de 30 años ha recibido más abuso que cualquier otra mujer parlamentaria. Finalmente, lo vemos en un currículo nacional de historia, que en los pocos lugares donde se menciona la inmigración, se hace solo en el contexto de las “relaciones raciales”, efectivamente encubriendo la voluntad de estas personas en favor de reconstruir un inmigrante perpetuamente victimizado.

Los IW presentan un caso únicamente fecundo para investigadores de la inmigración de todas disciplinas por lo que demuestran sobre el intercambio entre ciudadanía y racismo. Aún más importante, las injusticias del AH han florecido en un ámbito de ignorancia intencional. La mayor atención que se le dé a este caso, mejor.

[1] La Mancomunidad de Naciones es una asociación de países que formaban la mayor parte del imperio Británico. Se inauguro en el 1926, cuando empezaron las primeras holas de descolonización y ha sido una forma de mantener influencia británica en estos territorios.

[2] Amelia Gentleman, The Windrush Betrayal: Exposing the Hostile Environment (London: Guardian Faber, 2019), P.40.

Literatura Seleccionada

Gentleman, Amelia, The Windrush Betrayal: Exposing the Hostile Environment (London: Guardian Faber, 2019).

Olusuga, David, Black and British: A Forgotten History (London: Pan Macmillan, 2016).

Paret, Marcel and Gleeson, Shannon, ‘Precarity and agency through a migration lens’, Citizenship Studies (2016), Vol.20, issues 3-4, pp.277-294. 

Williams, Wendy, ‘Windrush Lessons Learned Review’, Independent Review for the House of Commons (March 19, 2020) [online] Available from: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/windrush-lessons-learned-review [Accessed on, April 1, 2020].

Anna CarceresBio de la autora:

Anna Cáceres está terminando su  ResMA en Historia de Inmigracion en la Universidad de Leiden. Su investigación se concentra sobre la inmigración y el sistema de salud pública en el Reino Unido a partir de la segunda guerra mundial. Está particularmente interesada en las raíces históricas de los discursos actuales sobre la inmigración y el rol – o no, como sea el caso – de la historia en construir la identidad nacional.

 

Crédito de la imagen del título: Steve Eason en Flickr. La imagen ha sido recortada.

‘I will not return unless the regime of Assad falls’ by Nawras Al Husein and Natascha Wagner

Posted on 5 min read
Berlin pro-refugee demonstration

The award-winning documentary film ‘For Sama’ tells the story of a mother who filmed her life in war-torn Aleppo for her newborn, Sama. The mother documented her daughter’s first moments, but also the context in which they tried to live, including the regular bombing of the hospital, the blood-covered victims, dead people and, by and by, the destruction of the city. A recent study by ISS researcher Natascha Wagner and Nawras Al Husein highlighting the voices, fears and perceptions of Syrian refugees who fled to Turkey and Germany shows that decisions by refugees to return to their country of origin are complex; the general assumption that Syrian refugees wish to return to Syria after the war has ended should not be taken as a given. The research shows the necessity of engaging with refugees to inform decisions on their future.

With the recent spread of the COVID-19 pandemic across the globe, leading to lockdowns and causing thousands of deaths, our attention has been diverted from other ongoing crises. June 20 is International Refugee Day, and amidst the many other crises we find ourselves in, we are experiencing one of the biggest refugee crises of our time. In March 2020, the Syrian civil war entered into its 10th year. While the war is still ongoing, the future of Syrian refugees—victims of the civil war forced to flee their home country and temporarily residing in neighbouring countries and beyond—is already heavily debated.

The Syrian civil war has resulted in more than 5.9 million internally displaced people and more than 5.6 million refugees as of 1 July 2019. The majority of Syrian refugees are concentrated in the countries that border Syria, particularly Turkey, but a significant number are also hosted in EU countries, mainly Germany. Turkey hosts almost two-thirds of the Syrian refugees, while Germany had 568,785 officially registered Syrian asylum applicants by December 2019, making it the host country with the largest Syrian refugee population in Europe.

For the UN, a number of European countries hosting refugees, as well as the Syrian government, the return of Syrian refugees to their country of origin is the desired solution. The unprecedented influx of Syrian refugees over the last years has resulted in political, social, and economic challenges for host countries, with social tension rising in the wake of the mass migration in 2015. The discourse of the alleged threat that refugees pose to host communities is used by right-wing populist parties to win votes. Thus, host governments are under pressure to consider return migration scenarios given the political challenges they experience. But do Syrian refugees feel the same?

Inclusivity for informed and data-driven decision-making

The voices of Syrian refugees have seldom entered the debate on refugee policy. Therefore, in 2018, we interviewed 577 Syrian refugees in Germany (241) and Turkey (336) and explored whether they consider return migration an option, and, if so, when. We wanted to highlight the needs, aspirations, and agency of Syrian refugees in deciding upon their future. Understanding decision-making about return migration, particularly in the case of refugees, is not an easy task. Yet, for this very reason it is important to provide informed and data-driven information from the refugees themselves to host-country policy-makers.

Some of the main considerations or views informing the decision to return to Syria include:

Regime Al-Assad. We found that of the interviewed refugees in Turkey, 76% want to go back home. Among the Syrian refugees in Germany, only 55% wanted to go back. The current political regime under Al-Assad plays an important role concerning their desire to return to Syria. For the majority of refugees, an end to the current regime is needed to ensure their eventual return. For the German group, the likelihood of intended return increases by 21% if the Al-Assad regime is to be discontinued. Given that Al-Assad is still in power and the Western world is to a large extent inactively watching the conflict, host countries should not count on a speedy return of Syrian refugees, at least not voluntarily.

Civil and Political Rights. We also inquired whether other institutional preferences affected intentions to return. While refugees appreciate the democratic values of freedom of speech and belief, the data suggest that the existence of these liberties does not feed into the return migration decision in either of the host countries. Thus, simply imposing these values on the Syrian regime is unlikely to trigger mass return movements.

On-the-spot Information. Our research further analyzed whether exposure to positive or negative information regarding return migration impacted refugees’ intentions to return. The negative news item shown to respondents presented the latest facts about numerous challenges faced by Syrian refugees who returned home from Lebanon. The positive news item consisted of a leaflet with encouraging information on support for returnees, including relevant links and addresses in case of interest. We found no systematic impact on the decision to migrate back. This suggests that host governments cannot expect (rapid) information disseminated by refugee agencies—even if it is positive and provides support—to impact refugees’ decision making about their return.

Infographic Syrian Refugees returning home
The infographic can be downloaded here: https://www.iss.nl/en/news/return-migration-syria-voices-refugees-germany-and-turkey

Moving beyond repatriation agendas

 If large-scale return migration is desired, we should try to better understand the preferences and concerns of the refugees themselves. We would do well to listen to the voices of the refugees themselves, since they have very clear ideas about what would make returning worth the effort. The situation in Syria continues to be unstable and it remains to be seen whether the country can find a way back to peace in the near future.

As our research shows, the end of the war and even political change would not be enough for all refugees to consider returning. Consequently, host countries should already start investing in the integration of those refugees who stay on. Taking the stance that the presence of the Syrian refugees is entirely temporary is not what the data suggest. The integration of the Syrian refugees within the host countries, regardless of how long they intend to stay, is an opportunity that can also support return migration, as it will give visibility to the refugees and their concerns.

Source: This blog is based on Nawras Al Husein & Natascha Wagner, “Determinants of intended return migration among refugees: A comparison of Syrian refugees staying in Germany and Turkey“, June 2020.

About the authors:

Nawras Al HuseinNawras Al Husein is an ISS alumnus and currently works for CARE Netherlands as project manager and cash advisor. He is a humanitarian and development practitioner who has been managing complex emergency responses in Syria and Turkey for the last 8 years as well as early recovery and development projects in Syria and Yemen. His most recent research focuses on identifying the determinants of intended return migration among Syrian refugees hosted in Germany and Turkey.

 

Natascha WagnerNatascha Wagner is associate professor of Development Economics at the Institute of Social Studies (ISS), Erasmus University Rotterdam (Netherlands). Her research interests lie in international economics/ development, ICT for development and health. A recurring theme in her research is gender and female empowerment as well as social exclusion. Natascha has published articles in, among others, Health Economics, Economics of Education Review, Journal of Development Studies and World Development.

 

Title Image Credit: ekvidi on Flickr. The image has been cropped.

 

Fleeing the farms: the devastating effect of conflict on youth involvement in small-scale agriculture in Pakistan by Hassan Turi

Posted on 5 min read

[Ελληνική έκδοση παρακάτω]

Rural youth unemployment is a serious crisis facing countries of the Global South. Small-scale agriculture, which has long been the single biggest employer of the developing world, has the potential to be ecologically rational, socially just, and capable of absorbing unemployed youth. However, contemporary agrarian research has increasingly found that young people are not attracted to agricultural work. While a global urbanization trend is leading to exodus from rural areas, Hassan Turi shows the devastating impact of protracted regional and local conflicts on agricultural practices in Kurram District in Pakistan that further diminish the youth’s willingness to engage in small-scale agriculture.

With a global land rush triggered by rising food prices, the consolidation of large-scale industrial agriculture is not only dispossessing people from their lands, but also bringing energy-intensive and climate-warming practices. Small-scale agriculture, which has long been the single biggest employer of the developing world, has the potential to be ecologically rational, socially just, and capable of absorbing unemployed youth. However, contemporary agrarian research has increasingly found that young people are not attracted to agricultural work. Understanding the causes behind youth flight and unemployment is a key priority for developing a long-term youth policy and strengthening the agricultural economy.

According to a 2018 UNDP report, Pakistan currently has the largest youth population in the world, with 64% of the population less than 30 years of age. While there is a labour shortage in Pakistan and elsewhere, small-scale agriculture is no longer en vogue as youths leave their families to pursue careers in cities. But unlike the rest of Pakistan, where rural labour is migrating to cities, the rural youth from Kurram is increasingly migrating outside of Pakistan and becoming vulnerable to wider geopolitical conflicts. The conflict in the region has played a significant role in shaping Pakistan’s agricultural landscape, driving youths away from farms and changing agriculture in a way that makes it unattractive.

Conflict on the frontier

The village of Bilayamin, where I conducted my fieldwork, is located in the Kurram District of Khyber Pakthunkhwa Province that borders Afghanistan. This region has been affected by severe violence for decades. An ugly proxy war with the US lasting for years and a wider regional war have had a profound impact on people’s livelihoods, especially on agriculture, which had been the primary source of income for decades.

Before, most households employed family labour for agriculture, except during peak stages of farming. These patterns changed after the arrival of Afghan refugees in the 1980s (from the first Afghan war) to refugee camps in Kurram. With the launch of the War on Terror in 2001 and subsequent conflict in Kurram, farming practices took another hit. Land remained uncultivated during the war, and many people died, suffered injuries, or were displaced. Farmers could not bring their products to markets or buy new farming inputs. The conflict also forced many people, especially the youth, to flee from the villages in search of safety and better livelihoods. Those remaining behind were less interested in farming, seeking jobs related to their education, but without much success. Despite the sharp need for agricultural labour, young people were massively un- or underemployed and preferred to leave the country as migrant workers abroad.

Effects on farming practices

This labour shortage pushed farmers to change cropping patterns. Many have stopped growing rice. More farmers are planting plums and apricot orchards or rearing livestock. The proliferation of wild boars has stopped the cultivation of groundnuts and crops like rice or beans near the riverbanks and mountains. Young farmers are now tasked by their families with guarding their crops, often staying awake all night for the last two months of the harvest. In addition, there is an emerging trend of wage labour hired daily from villages with smaller landholdings. Remittances have also acquired increasing importance. Households with income from remittances are successfully reproducing themselves by spending money on better farming inputs and hiring labour on time. Families without remittance incomes are either decreasing the cultivation of labour-intensive crops or involving more household members to bring prices down.

Changing preferences

Farming in Kurram, as in many places in the world, used to be a familial responsibility, but preferences have changed. Children traditionally would be involved in farming practices from an early age. Accompanying the adults to farms, children would fetch water, tea, food, and farming tools when the elders are busy. They would graze cattle and cut firewood or complete tasks reserved for children, such as weeding onions. Research suggests that exposure from an early age is crucial to engage interest in farming. But rural children who go to school are not exposed to these practices and consequently begin to lose interest in farming.

After the conflict in Kurram, households foisted more farming responsibilities onto those youths who remained in the region to compensate for labour shortages due to the war. For instance, before the conflict, children were not involved in difficult labour. However, this changed after the conflict, which seems to create an aversion for farming as the youth feels overworked. Most who are still engaged in farming see it as a transitory phase before securing a future in the cities. Yet some continue to wait and never make it to the cities, wondering if this temporary phase will ever end and despising the growing burden placed on them.

The effects of the multiple conflicts facing the Kurram District in Pakistan have been profound, exacerbating a global move away from small-scale agriculture towards cities or towards industrial agriculture. Small-scale agriculture, which can address the growing youth unemployment problem, needs to be made more attractive for the youth, who should see it as a viable enterprise instead of as a familial responsibility.

This is a shortened and edited version of an article that was originally published by Jamhoor.

About the author:

Sibth ul Hassan Turi is an Orange Knowledge Programme Fellow who studies at the ISS in 2016/2017. He comes from the Kurram district of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and is a member of the Awami Workers Party Islamabad/Rawalpindi.

Εγκαταλείποντας τη γη: οι καταστροφικές συνέπειες του πολέμου στην συμμετοχή των νέων στην καλλιέργεια γης στο Πακιστάν του άρθρου τoυ Hassan Turi 

Τα υψηλά ποσοστά ανεργίας των νέων που ζουν στην περιφέρεια, αποτελούν ένα από τα ουσιαστικότερα προβλήματα που αντιμετωπίζουν οι χώρες του Παγκόσμιου Νότου. Η καλλιέργεια μικρών εκτάσεων γης, η οποία αποτελούσα και συνεχίζει να αποτελεί τον μεγαλύτερο παροχέας εργασίας των αναπτυσσόμενων χωρών , έχει μια δυναμική προοπτική στο να παράγει με οικολογικό τρόπο, κοινωνικά μη-άδικο και ικανό να απορροφά μεγάλο πληθυσμό αναξιοποίητου, νέου σε ηλικία, ανθρωπίνου δυναμικού που αντιμετωπίζει την ανεργία στην περιφέρεια. Παρόλο, που η σύγχρονη έρευνα στον τομέα της γεωργίας και της αναπτυξιακής οικονομικής υποδεικνύει την ολοένα και μειούμενη τάση των νέων να ασχολούνται με την καλλιέργεια γης. Την ίδια ώρα που ένα παγκόσμια -κινούμενο από τις δυνάμεις του καπιταλισμού- κύμα αστικοποίησής προωθεί την ‘’μεγάλη έξοδο’’ από την περιφέρεια στα αστικά κέντρα , Ο Hassan Turi μνημονεύει σε αυτό το άρθρο το καταστροφικό πλήγμα των παρατεταμένων περιφερειακών και τοπικών συγκρούσεων στις γεωργικές εργασίες στην περιοχή Kurram του Πακιστάν. Αυτές οι συγκρούσεις ασκούν περαιτέρω πιέσεις και  μειώνουν την προθυμία των νέων να ασχοληθούν με τη μικρής-κλίμακας γεωργία.

Με μια παγκόσμια τάση προσφυγής στην καλλιέργεια γης, που έχει προκληθεί  από την άνοδο των τιμών των τροφίμων και την ενοποίηση της βιομηχανικής γεωργίας μεγάλης κλίμακας , που όχι μόνο εκτοπίζει τους ανθρώπους από τη γη τους, αλλά οδηγεί  επίσης στην υιοθέτηση πρακτικών αυξημένης εντάσεως-ενέργειας και πρακτικών, που οδηγούν στην περεταίρω επιδείνωση του φαινομένου της υπερθέρμανσης του πλανήτη. Η γεωργία μικρής κλίμακας, που εδώ και πολλά χρόνια είναι ο μοναδικός και ο  μεγαλύτερος εργοδότης του αναπτυσσόμενου κόσμου, έχει τη δυνατότητα να παρέχει μια ορθολογικά οικολογική παραγωγή αγαθών, κοινωνικά δίκαιη και ικανή να απορροφήσει άνεργους -νέους που ζουν στην περιφέρεια- και είναι δύσκολο να βρούνε εργασία σε άλλους τομείς. Ωστόσο, η σύγχρονες έρευνες έχουν διαπιστώσει  ότι όλο και περισσότερο ότι οι νέοι δεν θεωρούν τη γεωργική εργασία ως μια   προτιμητέα εναλλακτική μορφή απασχόλησης. Η κατανόηση των αιτίων πίσω από τη ‘’φυγή των νέων’’ και την  ‘νεανική’ ανεργία αποτελεί βασική προτεραιότητα για την ανάπτυξη μιας μακροπρόθεσμης πολιτικής για τη νεολαία και την ενίσχυση της γεωργικής οικονομίας.

Σύμφωνα με μια έκθεση του UNDP του 2018, το Πακιστάν έχει τον μεγαλύτερο πληθυσμό νέων στον κόσμο, με το 64% του πληθυσμού να σε έχει ηλικία μικρότερη των 30 ετών. Ενώ υπάρχει έλλειψη εργατικού δυναμικού στο Πακιστάν και αλλού, η γεωργία μικρής κλίμακας δεν αξιοποιείται πλέον, καθώς οι νέοι αφήνουν τις οικογένειές τους για να αναζητήσουν δουλειά στα κέντρα των πόλεων. Αλλά σε αντίθεση με το υπόλοιπο Πακιστάν, όπου η αγροτιά μεταναστεύει σε πόλεις, οι νέοι που είναι υποψήφιοι εργάτες γης από το Kurram, μεταναστεύουν όλο και περισσότερο έξω από το Πακιστάν και γίνονται ευάλωτοι σε ευρύτερες γεωπολιτικές συγκρούσεις. Η σύγκρουση στην περιοχή έχει διαδραματίσει σημαντικό ρόλο στη διαμόρφωση του γεωργικού τοπίου και της αγοράς γεωργικής εργασίας του Πακιστάν, στην απομάκρυνση των νέων από τα αγροκτήματα και στην αλλαγή της γεωργίας με τρόπο που την καθιστά πλέον μη ελκυστική εργασία.

Σύγκρουση στα σύνορα

Το χωριό Bilayamin, όπου διεξήγαγα την έρευνα μου για την πτυχιακή εργασία, βρίσκεται στην περιοχή Kurram της επαρχίας Khyber Pakthhwa που συνορεύει με το Αφγανιστάν. Αυτή η περιοχή έχει πληγεί από σοβαρά φαινόμενα βίας και συγκρούσεις εδώ και δεκαετίες. Ένας άσχημος  πόλεμος «δι’ αντιπροσώπων»  με τις ΗΠΑ που διήρκησε για χρόνια και ένας ευρύτερος περιφερειακός πόλεμος είχε σοβαρό αντίκτυπο στην επιβίωση των ανθρώπων, ειδικά στη γεωργία, η οποία ήταν η κύρια πηγή εισοδήματος εδώ και δεκαετίες.

Αρχικά, τα περισσότερα νοικοκυριά απασχολούσαν μέλη της οικογένειας στη γεωργία, εκτός από τις  θαλερές γεωργικές περιόδους. Αυτά τα μοτίβα συνηθειών άλλαξαν σταδιακά μετά την άφιξη των Αφγανών προσφύγων τη δεκαετία του 1980 (από τον πρώτο Αφγανικό πόλεμο) σε στρατόπεδα προσφύγων στο Kurram. Με την έναρξη του Πολέμου κατά της Τρομοκρατίας το 2001 και την επακόλουθη σύγκρουση στο Kurram, οι γεωργικές πρακτικές δέχτηκαν ένα ακόμη πλήγμα. Η γη παρέμεινε ακαλλιέργητη κατά τη διάρκεια του πολέμου και πολλοί άνθρωποι πέθαναν, υπέστησαν τραυματισμούς ή εκτοπίστηκαν. Οι αγρότες δεν μπορούσαν να διοχετεύσουν τα προϊόντα τους στις αγορές ή να αγοράσουν νέες γεωργικές εισροές. Η  πολεμική σύγκρουση ανάγκασε επίσης πολλούς ανθρώπους, ιδίως τους νέους, να εγκαταλείψουν τα χωριά αναζητώντας ασφάλεια και μια καλύτερη μοίρα. Όσοι έμειναν πίσω ενδιαφέρονταν λιγότερο για τη γεωργία, αναζητούσαν θέσεις εργασίας που σχετίζονται με την εκπαίδευσή τους, αλλά χωρίς μεγάλη επιτυχία. Παρά την αυξημένη  ζήτηση για γεωργική εργασία, η ανεργία των νέων ήταν υψηλή σε ποσοστιαίους όρους  ή οι νέοι υποαπασχολούνταν και προτιμούσαν να εγκαταλείψουν τη χώρα ως μετανάστες εργαζόμενοι στο εξωτερικό.

Επιδράσεις στις γεωργικές πρακτικές

Η έλλειψη εργασίας ώθησε τους αγρότες να αλλάξουν τα πρότυπα καλλιέργειας και τις ποικιλίες που καλλιεργούν. Πολλοί έχουν σταματήσει να καλλιεργούν ρύζι. Περισσότεροι αγρότες πλέον φυτεύουν δαμάσκηνα και οπωρώνες βερίκοκων ή εκτρέφουν ζώα. Ο πολλαπλασιασμός των αγριόχοιρων έχει εμποδίσει την καλλιέργεια αραχίδων και καλλιεργειών όπως ρύζι ή φασόλια κοντά στις όχθες του ποταμού και στα βουνά. Οι νέοι αγρότες έχουν τώρα επιφορτιστεί από τις οικογένειές τους με τη φύλαξη των καλλιεργειών τους, και συχνά μένουν ξύπνιοι όλη τη νύχτα τους τελευταίους δύο μήνες της συγκομιδής. Επιπλέον, υπάρχει μια αναδυόμενη τάση μισθωτής εργασίας με άτομα που προσλαμβάνονται καθημερινά από χωριά με μικρότερες εκτάσεις γης. Τα εμβάσματα έχουν αποκτήσει επίσης αυξανόμενη σημασία. Τα νοικοκυριά με εισόδημα από εμβάσματα αναπαράγονται επιτυχώς ξοδεύοντας χρήματα για καλύτερες γεωργικές εισροές και προσλαμβάνοντας εργασία την κατάλληλη περίοδο. Οι οικογένειες χωρίς εισόδημα από εμβάσματα, μειώνουν είτε την καλλιέργεια καλλιεργειών υψηλής έντασης εργασίας είτε εμπλέκουν περισσότερα μέλη του νοικοκυριού για μείωση των τιμών.

Αλλαγή προτιμήσεων

Η καλλιέργεια στο Kurram, όπως σε πολλά μέρη του κόσμου, αποτελούσε οικογενειακή ευθύνη, αλλά οι προτιμήσεις έχουν αλλάξει. Τα παιδιά παραδοσιακά εμπλέκονταν σε γεωργικές πρακτικές από μικρή ηλικία. Συνοδεύοντας τους ενήλικες σε αγροκτήματα, τα παιδιά συνήθιζαν να μαζεύουν νερό, τσάι, φαγητό και εργαλεία καλλιέργειας όταν οι ενήλικες ήταν απασχολημένοι. Επίσης, συνήθως θα έβοσκαν βοοειδή και θα ‘έκοβαν καυσόξυλα ή θα ολοκλήρωναν εργασίες που προορίζονται για παιδιά, όπως το ξεχορτάριασμα κρεμμυδιών. Οι έρευνες υποδεικνύουν, ότι η έκθεση των παιδιών  από μικρή ηλικία σε αγροτικές δραστηριότητες είναι εξαιρετικής  σημασίας παράγοντας που καθορίζει την ενασχόληση τους με τη γεωργία. Όμως τα παιδιά της υπαίθρου που πηγαίνουν στο σχολείο δεν εκτίθενται σε αυτές τις πρακτικές και κατά συνέπεια αρχίζουν να χάνουν το ενδιαφέρον τους για την αγροτική καλλιέργεια.

Μετά τη σύγκρουση στο Kurram, τα νοικοκυριά επιφορτίστηκαν με περισσότερες γεωργικές ευθύνες, εκείνους τους νέους που παρέμειναν στην περιοχή για να αντισταθμίσουν τις ελλείψεις εργατικού δυναμικού, λόγω του πολέμου. Για παράδειγμα, πριν από τη σύρραξη, τα παιδιά δεν συμμετείχαν σε επίμοχθη εργασία. Ωστόσο, αυτό άλλαξε μετά την  σύγκρουση, η οποία φαίνεται να δημιούργησε μια αποστροφή για τη γεωργία καθώς η νεολαία άρχισε να αισθάνεται ότι έχει δουλέψει υπερβολικά πολύ. Οι περισσότεροι που εξακολουθούν να ασχολούνται με τη γεωργία το βλέπουν ως μεταβατική φάση πριν ένα εξασφαλισμένο μέλλον  στις πόλεις. Ωστόσο, ορισμένοι συνεχίζουν να περιμένουν και να μην φτάνουν ποτέ στην ‘’γη της επαγγελίας’’ που γι’ αυτούς είναι η πόλη, και  αναρωτιούνται εάν αυτή η προσωρινή φάση θα τελειώσει ποτέ έχοντας  απαυδήσει από το αυξανόμενο βάρος που έχουν φορτωθεί στις πλάτες τους.

Τα αποτελέσματα των πολλαπλών συγκρούσεων που αντιμετωπίζει η περιοχή Kurram στο Πακιστάν είχαν ισχυρό αντίκτυπο στις ζωές αυτών των ανθρώπων, επιδεινώνοντας μια παγκόσμια απομάκρυνση από τη γεωργία μικρής κλίμακας προς τις πόλεις ή προς τη βιομηχανική γεωργία. Η γεωργία μικρής κλίμακας, η οποία μπορεί να αντιμετωπίσει το αυξανόμενο πρόβλημα της ανεργίας των νέων στις περιφέρειες, είναι  αναγκαίο να καταστεί πιο ελκυστική για τους νέους, οι οποίοι θα πρέπει να την αντιμετωπίσουν ως μια βιώσιμη επιχειρηματική δραστηριότητα ή εργασία, ως βιώσιμο τρόπο ζωής και όχι ως οικογενειακή ευθύνη.

 Το άρθρο αποτελεί συντομευμένη και τροποποιημένη έκδοση ενός άρθρου που δημοσιεύθηκε αρχικά στο Jamhoor.

Λίγα λόγια για το συγγραφέα του άρθρου:

Ο Sibth ul Hassan Turi είναι  υπότροφος του προγράμματος: Orange Knowledge Programme,  σπούδασε στο ISS το έτος 2016/2017. Κατάγεται από την περιφέρεια Kurram της Khyber Pakhtunkhwa και είναι μέλος του εργατικού κόμματος του Ισλαμαμπάντ (Awani Workers Party Islamabad/Rawalpindi).

Το άρθρο μεταφράστηκε από τη Χρυσάνθη Κούτρη, μεταπτυχιακή φοιτήτρια στο International Institute of Social Studies, με εξειδίκευση στα οικονομικά  της ανάπτυξης και ερευνητικά ενδιαφέροντα στο πεδίο: Children and Youth in Development.

 

 

COVID-19 | Europe’s far right whips out anti-migrant rhetoric to target refugees during coronavirus crisis by Haris Zargar

Posted on 4 min read

The explosion of the coronavirus has dramatically brought about fresh challenges for refugees, asylum seekers and migrants. With countries adopting stringent measures to contain this pandemic, including rigid border controls, the outbreak will not only have a huge impact on those driven out of their countries by crisis situations, but may create another refugee tragedy that may be worse than what has been experienced before.

The global response to the spread of the virus formally known as COVID-19 has been shaped by the complexity of national political interests and hardened immigration policies. Xenophobic rhetoric about how migrants and refugees are potential carriers of the deadly virus and pose a health threat has already become a central theme for right-wing populists in Europe, who advocate for cracking down on immigration.

As Steven Erlanger aptly noted in an article for The New York Times, COVID-19 is not only proliferating, but is also “infecting societies with a sense of insecurity, fear and fragmentation”. The possible outcome in the aftermath of the pandemic, therefore, may be a further polarization of societies and ‘othering’ of refugees and migrants.

This will likely jeopardize their rights and future course, setting in motion a new wave of xenophobic and racial politics bolstering far-right groups in many countries as a result. And this global health emergency may allow governments to implement temporary immigration and health-related measures that could systematically target refugees, asylum seekers, and migrants on the pretext of containing the spread of the virus.

Politicians across the European Union (EU) have already begun to exploit the COVID-19 outbreak by levelling suspicion at refugees and migrants. Ultra-nationalist Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán blamed migrants for the spread of the virus in Hungary: “We are fighting a two-front war, one front is called migration and the other one belongs to the coronavirus. There is a logical connection between the two as both spread with movement.”

In Italy, currently the most affected European country with the highest death toll outside China, right-wing political leader Matteo Salvini whipped up anti-immigration rhetoric by suggesting that migrants from Africa may have brought the virus with them. Greece’s nationalist government has cited the risk of COVID-19 infection as its reason for pressing ahead with a contentious plan to build “closed” camps for asylum seekers trapped on the Aegean islands of Lesbos and Chios.

In the Balkans, Croatian Health Minister Vili Beroš said migrants represent a ‘potential’ risk of spreading the virus, while Serbia’s far-right parties have threatened to expel about 6,000 migrants who are residing in the country. Far-right groups in France, Germany and Spain have called for suspending the Schengen agreement that allows passport-free travel among 26 member states in the EU. Border closures and tighter travel restrictions have been used as preventive measures during previous public health emergencies. Following the outbreak of diseases such as the Zika virus in 2016, Ebola in 2014, and H1N1 influenza in 2009, many countries imposed tight travel restrictions.

The World Health Organization has warned that trying to tighten border security will not work and may even impede the global fight against the spread of COVID-19. “We cannot forget migrants, we cannot forget undocumented workers, we cannot forget prisoners,” said WHO executive director and public health specialist Michael Ryan. “The only way to beat [coronavirus] is to leave no one behind.”

Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF, or Doctors Without Borders) has also urged Greece to immediately evacuate refugees and migrants from overcrowded camps on its islands owing to the high risk of COVID-19 spreading swiftly among people living in squalid conditions. The organization said that it would be impossible to contain an outbreak in such camp settings and that it had not yet seen a credible emergency plan in case of an outbreak.

Recent humanitarian situations such as the ongoing civil war in Syria have highlighted how the destruction of critical healthcare infrastructure in a country can contribute to the emergence of infectious and communicable diseases. With fears growing over the excessive strain on public healthcare services owing to the coronavirus outbreak and an inability to cope with the rising number of infected people, the health implications for refugees may be profound.

This article is part of a series about the coronavirus crisis. Read all articles of this series here. This is a shortened version of an article originally published by New Frame.

HarisAbout the author:

Haris Zargar is a PhD researcher looking at links between land reforms, social movements and armed insurgencies in Indian-controlled Kashmir. He has been a journalist for the past nine years, writing on the intersection of politics, conflict and human security. He worked as a political correspondent based in New Delhi with leading Indian new outlets including The Press Trust of India and The Mint. He holds degrees in Journalism and Development Studies from the University of Kashmir, and the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS), University of London.

Image Credit: EYE DJ on Flickr

EADI/ISS Series | Two faces of the automation revolution: impacts on working conditions of migrant labourers in the Dutch agri-food sector

Posted on 5 min read

by Tyler Williams, Oane Visser, Karin Astrid Siegmann and Petar Ivosevic

Rapid advances in robotics and artificial intelligence (AI) are enabling production increases in the Dutch agri-food sector, but are also creating harsh working conditions as the sector remains dependent on manual labour, while implementing new technologies. To ensure better working conditions for migrants forming the majority of manual labourers in this sector, ‘worker-friendly’ implementation of new technologies is necessary to limit the negative effects of the automation revolution.

The ‘Threat’ of Automation?

Decades-old debates about the extent of job loss induced by the automation revolution were re-ignited by the seminal work of Frey and Osborne (2013), who suggested large numbers of jobs would be replaced by automation. Where jobs are not lost, automation impacts labour conditions as facilities are geared towards the optimal use of new technology. Novel ICTs offer possibilities to increase labour productivity and to free workers from harsh and repetitive tasks (OECD 2018). Yet they also enable high levels of remote, covert monitoring and measurement of work, often resulting in increased work pressure and the risk of turning workplaces into ‘electronic sweatshops’ (Fernie and Metcalf 1998).

Ever since Keynes (1930) warned about “technological unemployment” in his essay ‘Economic Possibilities for our Grandchildren’, tech innovations have been eliminating jobs across sectors (e.g., in manufacturing), while simultaneously leading to the creation of new types of work (e.g., machine engineers). However, the ‘fourth industrial revolution’ (Schwab 2016) currently taking place might differ from earlier ones: automation is accelerating, affecting a wider variety of jobs, and is now also penetrating sectors like agriculture. Likely candidates for new automation waves are ‘3D jobs’ (dirty, dangerous and demeaning) which are overrepresented in agriculture and often performed by migrant workers (manual mushroom picking, for example, which is physically demanding and carries myriad other risks like respiratory issues). Therefore, this sector – understudied in research on automation – deserves attention.

Farm Robots and Migrant Workers

‘Milking robots’, drones, and (semi-)automated tractors have appeared on farms in the U.S. and the EU. As the second largest exporter of agricultural products and the ‘Silicon Valley of Agriculture’ (Schultz 2017), the Netherlands is at the forefront of such innovations. Yet despite this position, Dutch agriculture still depends strongly on manual labour, as the complexity and variability of nature (crops, animals, soils, and weather) have hampered automation.

Technological innovation and the recourse to low-paid, flexible migrant labour in the Dutch agri-food sector both represent cost-saving responses to the increased market power by supermarkets (Distrifood 2019) and the financialisation of agriculture. A FNV (Federation of Dutch Trade Unions) representative asserted: “Employers see those people as machines […]. Employers need fingers, cheap fingers, if I may call it like that”[1].

However, an educated migrant workforce provides benefits to employers beyond ‘cheap fingers’. The majority of labour migrants from Central and Eastern Europe (CEE), the largest group of migrant labour workers on Dutch soil (CBS 2019), hold a post-secondary education (Snel et al 2015: 524). As the Dutch are reluctant to do the low-paid 3D jobs, agriculture depends heavily on migrants from CEE countries, especially from Poland (Engbersen et al 2010). An estimated 30 percent of all CEE migrants in the Netherlands work in agri-food, contributing almost 2 billion euros to the country’s GDP in that sector (ABU 2018).

While technology can and does assist in and accelerate the harvesting process, this educated workforce can flexibly perform manifold tasks like identifying and communicating inconsistencies in products or processes to their supervisors, including plant illness, irregular production, etc. This makes them invaluable in improving agricultural production processes and output[2]. However, their working conditions remain precarious. Consequently, grasping the impact that technological innovations have on agriculture necessitates studying transnational labour.

To this end, ISS scholars – with the Centre for Research on Multinational Corporations (SOMO) – initiated a research project titled ‘Technological change in the agro-food sector in the Netherlands: mapping the role and responses of CEE migrant workers’. So far, it has included interviews with organisations in the agri-food sector, trade unions, engineering/labour experts, and migrant workers; this formed the basis for the MA theses of Petar Ivosevic and Tyler Williams. First results were discussed during an ISS workshop with practitioners in December 2018, and a follow-up workshop will be held on 17 March 2020. In addition, two sessions on the topic will be organised at the 2020 EADI Conference taking place from 29 June to 2 July at the ISS.

Industry versus Workers

To date, the benefits of automation for industry and farm workers are highly unevenly distributed. For example, technologies such as (semi-)automated LED lighting allow for more crops to be grown indoors, accelerating crop growth and extending the growing season. This benefits the agricultural industry and supermarkets by leading to all-year production. It also initially improved agricultural labour conditions: workers received a more stable, year-round income and a reduction in time spent working outdoors in difficult weather conditions. However, these improvements also brought negative consequences for labourers. The workweek increased (from 40 to roughly 60 hours – occasionally 80 hours – per week), and smart LED-lighting technologies, sterile environments, and novel ways of conserving heat and humidity created harsher working conditions (cf. Pekkeriet 2019).

Moving Forward

 How can decent labour conditions for (migrant) farmworkers be ensured while further automation of agricultural workplaces takes place? First, further research involving (migrant) workers themselves, growers, and other practitioners is needed to inform policy. So far, policy debates on the future of agriculture have paid only scant attention to (migrant) workers and labour conditions. Farm labour ‘shortages’ in agriculture are often narrowly and one-sidedly discussed in terms of supposed ‘unwillingness’ to work in agriculture per se or the tendency of CEE migrants to return to their home countries where economic growth has picked up. Such a position ignores the harsh (and often insecure) working conditions or postulates them as a given. It strongly underestimates the (potential) role of ‘worker-friendly’ implementation of new technologies and decent labour conditions in shaping the quality (and attractiveness) of farm work. Support from Dutch labour unions – which have started to organise and include CEE migrant workers – could increase migrant workers’ voice. Insecure, dependent work arrangements, language problems, and fragmentation of the migrant workforce have thus far impeded migrants’ own collective action. Finally, food certifications in the Netherlands primarily target food safety and sustainability. Including social (labour-related) criteria would reward farms with sound labour conditions[3].

[1] FNV Representative. 18 June 2018, interviewed by Karin Astrid Siegmann and Petar Ivosevic.
[2] Municipality Westland Presentation, World Horticulture Centre, 19 February 2019.
[3] For instance, the pillar of fair food in the slow food manifesto includes respectful labour conditions.

This article is part of a series launched by the EADI (European Association of Development Research and Training Institutes) and the ISS in preparation for the 2020 EADI/ISS General Conference “Solidarity, Peace and Social Justice”. It was also published on the EADI blog.

Photo-Tyler-image1About the authors:

Tyler Williams recently completed the ISS MA Development Studies’ track in Migration and Diversity and co-organised the abovementioned workshop.

 

Foto-OaneVisser-Balkon-1[1]

Oane Visser (associate professor, Political Ecology research group, ISS) leads an international research project on the socio-economic effects of and responses to big data and automatization in agriculture.photo-KarinSiegmann-fromISSwebsite

 

Karin Astrid Siegmann is a Senior Lecturer in Labour and Gender Economics at the International Institute of Social Studies (ISS), studying how precarious workers challenge marginalization of their labour.Photo-Petar-image1

 

Petar Ivosevic graduated from the ISS MA program in Development Studies in 2018, with a major in Agrarian, Food and Environmental Studies.