{"title":"Migrant necropolitics in No Man’s Land camps","authors":"Suraina Pasha","doi":"10.1093/jrs/feae059","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/jrs/feae059","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000 Through genealogical explorations of the understudied No Man’s Land camps at Rukban and Zero Point, this paper aims to contribute a decolonial, South-centric perspective to critical refugee politics literature. The two No Man’s Land camps are conceptualized here as necropolitical spaces of migrant abandonment and containment, where States effectively determine ‘who may live and who must die’ through their violent expulsion of unwanted populations, securitized border policies and restrictions on life-saving aid. Despite their immobilization, the paper highlights how the displaced migrants formed self-government and engaged in claim-making for aid, rights, and homeland political change, thus transforming the death worlds of the No Man’s Land camps into spaces of vibrant political contention. This necropolitical resistance comes with the risk of death or redisplacement, but it provides tantalizing clues of the possibilities of living, even if only momentarily, beyond the law and the State.","PeriodicalId":51464,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Refugee Studies","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":2.2,"publicationDate":"2024-08-09","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"141925402","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Governing the Displaced: Race and Ambivalence in Global Capitalism. By Ali Bhagat.","authors":"Julia Morris","doi":"10.1093/jrs/feae065","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/jrs/feae065","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":51464,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Refugee Studies","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":2.2,"publicationDate":"2024-08-08","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"141927063","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Rohingya women as refugees: Examining displacement, refugeehood and ‘bare life’","authors":"S. Paul, B. S. Butola","doi":"10.1093/jrs/feae039","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/jrs/feae039","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000 Based on Agamben’s assertions (1998) refugees are often compared to ‘bare life’ (homo sacer) without any political agency. They are considered to be outside the purview of national or international legal and yet at its mercy for survival. For refugee women, this stripping of their autonomy stereotypes them as reproductive vessels in need of chivalrous protection within the larger refugee discourse. Policy projects frequently regard them as ‘vulnerable populations’ in need of assistance. Given this theoretical framework, the present study contextualizes the life of Rohingya women prior to displacement and as refugees in India. It aims to assess the de jure and de facto rights of these women through the process of displacement. Moving beyond rigid assertions, this study postulates that refugeehood does not mean a complete absence of decision-making spaces for Rohingya women nor does it in any way mean a sudden disappearance of their sufferings. It focuses on their experiences as women and steers clear of homogenizing their narratives as refugees.","PeriodicalId":51464,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Refugee Studies","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":2.2,"publicationDate":"2024-07-16","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"141643839","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Implications of refugee crisis on public sector healthcare organizations: Empirical observation from Myanmar’s Rohingya refugees in Bangladesh","authors":"Mohammad Kamrul Hasan, Farhad Hossain, E. Atar","doi":"10.1093/jrs/feae062","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/jrs/feae062","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000 Political crises, like the refugee crisis, present significant challenges to nation-states and public sector entities. The influx of refugees from Myanmar to Bangladesh has intensified over recent decades, notably after severe violence erupted in Myanmar’s Rakhine state on 25 August 2017. This study focuses on public service organizations, aiming to understand the impact of the Rohingya refugee crisis. Using a qualitative approach and drawing on existing literature, the research examines how the crisis affects the capacity of public healthcare providers in Bangladesh. The findings reveal both detrimental and beneficial effects on organizational functioning, including management, resource availability, and absorptive and adaptive capacities. Through data analysis, eight key themes emerge, such as changes in service quality, disease control, resource allocation dynamics, and impacts on professional knowledge, shedding light on the complex repercussions of the Rohingya refugee crisis on public healthcare services in Bangladesh.","PeriodicalId":51464,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Refugee Studies","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":2.2,"publicationDate":"2024-07-11","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"141657272","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"More than a number: Exploring the impact of age(ing) on refugees’ experiences of arrival","authors":"Friederike Enßle‐Reinhardt","doi":"10.1093/jrs/feae061","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/jrs/feae061","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000 Age(ing) as an intersectional category has seen only limited attention in refugee studies so far. Although research exists on the living situation and vulnerabilities of specific age groups, conceptual perspectives on how age(ing), as a factor of difference, plays out in refugees’ experiences of flight and arrival has been explored to a lesser extent. Drawing on qualitative research with fifty-three refugees who arrived in Germany since 2015 this contribution explores refugees’ experiences of arrival and their interrelation with their life courses. The analysis follows an intersectional life course perspective to unpack arrival experiences through the dimensions of key life events and their timing; locally and globally linked lives; categories of difference; as well as systems of domination and refugees’ agency. The contribution closes by proposing three conceptual considerations about how a focus on age(ing) can enhance a nuanced understanding of forced migrants’ living experiences.","PeriodicalId":51464,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Refugee Studies","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":2.2,"publicationDate":"2024-07-09","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"141666422","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Self-generated asylum evidence: Scripting, staging and desperation in the assessment process","authors":"Ben Laws","doi":"10.1093/jrs/feae057","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/jrs/feae057","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000 The demonstrable rise in self-generated asylum evidence—most typically via social media—is in need of explication. Drawing on cases from ethnographic research in Sweden this article sets out to understand why asylum seekers turn to extreme forms of activity such as filming themselves burning the Quran. It appears that such ‘staged’ evidence is most often born out of a sense of emotional desperation in the face of a stone-wall assessment system which leans heavily towards rejection. To reach this conclusion, however, the article first engages with more traditional asylum ‘scripts’ and roadmaps endorsed and shaped by NGO’s and legal practitioners. The 2015 Migration Crisis in Europe has fundamentally altered the assessment process, not only in its ‘bar-raising’ aspects for positive decisions, but also by reconfiguring the very form and structure of evidence presented.","PeriodicalId":51464,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Refugee Studies","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":2.2,"publicationDate":"2024-07-09","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"141663165","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Mismanagement and misinterpretations in asylum interviews: Perspectives from South Africa and Sweden","authors":"Lisa Ottosson, P. Angu, Kristina Gustafsson","doi":"10.1093/jrs/feae054","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/jrs/feae054","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000 This article explores the interactions between key actors in asylum interviews in South Africa and Sweden. It is based on forty-one interviews with asylum seekers, interpreters, state officials, and legal representatives. The analysis is guided by theories on professional encounters, bureaucratic violence, and interdependence. The result is presented in two themes: the emergence of mismanagement due to repressive policies and cost-cutting measures, and misinterpretation due to poor interpretation services and failure to recognize the hermeneutic aspects of asylum seekers’ claims. These issues lead to mistrust in the asylum system and in each other’s capacities, as key actors fail to take joint responsibility for the interview act and its outcome. The conclusion is that all key actors operate within a destructive process of mistrust, reinforced by an increasingly repressive political framework as its strongest driving force.","PeriodicalId":51464,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Refugee Studies","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":2.2,"publicationDate":"2024-07-09","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"141665817","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Samira Surfs. Rukhsanna Guidroz and Illustrated by Fahmida Azim","authors":"T. S. Gangothri","doi":"10.1093/jrs/feae056","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/jrs/feae056","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":51464,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Refugee Studies","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":2.2,"publicationDate":"2024-07-09","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"141663345","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Stuck in a whirlpool? The role of hope and despair in dealing with risks during Afghan migration journeys","authors":"E. Kiriscioglu, Anja van Heelsum","doi":"10.1093/jrs/feae055","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/jrs/feae055","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000 Migration journeys are full of risk, navigated not just by physical obstacles but also by emotional tides. This study explores how the fluctuation of hope and despair plays a role in dealing with risks. Drawing upon in-depth interviews with Afghans in Turkey, this paper demonstrates that hope and despair fluctuate along migration journeys contingent upon three elements: (1) empirical evidence about the future, (2) (un)certainty and potential in the future, and (3) the agency or capability to act. The research finds that hope arises when the future is perceived as uncertain, offering individuals alternative pathways and restoring a sense of agency by transforming uncertainty into potentiality. Conversely, despair sets in when individuals perceive their near future as certain, devoid of alternatives. This sense of certainty about the near future leaves migrants feeling trapped, akin to being stuck in a whirlpool.","PeriodicalId":51464,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Refugee Studies","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":2.2,"publicationDate":"2024-07-09","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"141665458","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Withholding the letter: Transgender asylum seekers, legal gender recognition, and the UNHCR mandate","authors":"B. Camminga","doi":"10.1093/jrs/feae058","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/jrs/feae058","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000 In the absence of legal gender recognition (LGR), transgender people carry documents that misrecognize them. The link between LGR’s absence and exposure to violence and exclusion—experiences that often force transgender people to flee—is clarified by scholarship. However, when a trans person seeks asylum, they are often provided with documents that, rather than unambiguously recognizing their bearer, repeat this misrecognition. This incongruence often exposes transgender asylum seekers to greater risk. Previously, I have argued that, at the moment in which they seek international protection, transgender asylum seekers experience a form of statelessness due to the absence of LGR. In this paper, I build on this argument, drawing on a range of empirical studies to suggest that conditions of statelessness already exist prior to fleeing. As a result, I argue that the UNHCR is under obligation to provide documents recognizing their holder, even if this runs counter to state legislation.","PeriodicalId":51464,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Refugee Studies","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":2.2,"publicationDate":"2024-07-08","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"141667548","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}