From compassion to compliance? Trends in refugee and humanitarian migration in Australia

Australia has a long history of offering protection to refugees. In the post-World War II period it has predominantly been involved in an offshore refugee settlement program whereby it has assisted international efforts to assist refugees and resettled almost 600,000 refugees in Australia. In recent years, however, substantial numbers of asylum seekers have arrived on Australia's shores and this has seen the development of an onshore refugee program which is seen as quite separate from the offshore program. This has involved the detention of asylum seekers while their claims for protection are assessed and when they are assessed as being qualified for protection they are given different status to offshore determined refugee settlers. The paper summarises the development of refugee policy in Australia and the evolution of the offshore and onshore policies. This revised version was published online in August 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.     

The changing nature and European perceptions of Europe's refugee problem

Many in Western Europe regard it as being in the grip of a refugee crisis. This paper considers this contention. It describes the main stages in the development of the current refugee crisis and argues that having established the agenda in the 1940s, Western Europe has been able to progressively distance itself from refugee episodes and define them as essentially problems of the Third World. The end of the Cold War and the growth in numbers of spontaneous, rather than quota, refugees have been considerable shocks to the West, which can no longer contain and distance itself from refugee flows. Shock has led Europe to overreact and become myopic in its view of refugee matters. In reality, figures demonstrate that Wetern Europe is not the centre of refugee generation, applications or resettlement. Despite this, governments have taken draconian unilateral and multilateral action to exclude not only Third World asylum seekers but also those from the East.     

Refugees and village renewal in Yugoslavia

Using statistics collected by UNHCR and the Serbian government, the paper examines aspects of the refugee problem in FR Yugoslavia whose war-affected population amounted to 646 066 persons in 1996 (a figure that is almost certainly an underestimate). Relatively few refugees will return to their homes even with a political settlement because so many homes are damaged or destroyed. Many people would like to settle in Western Europe and some have already succeeded (especially in Scandinavia where asylum seekers from Former Yugoslavia accounted for 80 percent of the applications in January-September 1993). But regulations are being tightened and asylum seekers are now facing deportation. Housing refugees in FRY is expensive (only 350 refugees got new homes and permanent citizenship in 1994), but some exchanges have been arranged between Serbs arriving from Croatia and Croats established in Vojvodina who are willing to move in the opposite direction. The most promising solution discussed in the paper is resettlement in border villages which have experienced steady depopulation since the Second World War. Houses are available for refurbishment and arable land is cheap. The resettlement of refugee farmers could make an immediate impact on food production and over the longer term there could be sustained economic growth in the context of a newly-constituted Euroregion. Such a strategy would make a virtue out of necessity by helping the refugees and the border regions which have had their potential enhanced by cross-border cooperation. This revised version was published online in July 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.     

Giving space: Care, generosity and belonging in a UK asylum drop-in centre

This paper examines the political negotiations which underpin the performance of charitable spaces. In particular, the paper draws upon a period of ethnographic research at a UK drop-in centre for asylum seekers to consider how notions of charity, generosity and the right to give are structured within the daily accomplishment of an environment of care. Through considering the accounts of both asylum seekers and volunteers within this site, the paper outlines how the interactions and relations brought forth in the drop-in centre served to produce a space associated with ideas of welcome and generosity. The political nature of such a space is brought to the fore when considering how practices of care and generosity within the drop-in relied upon, and actively reinscribed, normalised visions of charity, belonging and citizenship. Through highlighting moments of transgression in which positions of giving and receiving are questioned, the paper suggests that the relations of the drop-in centre may reproduce a politically passive and marginalised vision of the asylum seeker within the UK. This reading of an environment of care for those seeking sanctuary has implications for how we understand the spatial experience of asylum itself, and for how we might envision more politically attentive and ethically responsive spaces of sanctuary.     

Choice or circumstance: The UK as the location of asylum applications by Bosnian and Somali refugees

Questions concerning why asylum seekers make their applications in particular countries rather than others have not been fully researched. Some explanation can be found via aggregate migration theories, but there is a need to consider the circumstances of individual movers. Respondents here were drawn from amongst Bosnian and Somali refugees in northern England. The interviews showed that asylum movement is of a variety of types, with two stage migration commonly involved – firstly immediate flight to a neighbouring haven, and secondly on to a more permanent place of settlement. Very few respondents had any real choice in where they ended up. Instead, family circumstances, cultural connections, and the actions of a variety of institutions produced scenarios in which there was generally no alternative to the actual destination arrived at. It is suggested that a mix of individual level and institutional explanations is needed to understand patterns of asylum destinations. This revised version was published online in August 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.     

Palestinian refugees: empirical and qualitative considerations

This paper focuses attention upon the existence of a Palestinian refugee population in the land about and immediately adjacent to Israel. It considers both the creation and the continuation of the refugee state within the host communities and the growth occurring within the refugee populations themselves. Some attention will be directed to a consideration of the refugee population vis à vis the dramatic upsurge in the number of former Soviet-CIS Jewish immigrants into Israel, that create further and deepening pressures upon land and water resources and Palestinian refugee matters. The paper is in three main parts following upon a general introduction to refugee studies. Firstly, a quantitative assessment of the Palestinian refugee population incorporates an empirical presentation of base Palestinian population totals and distributions, directing particular attention to growth in the period 1974–90. Secondly, several perspectives are presented as a backcloth to understanding certain of the continuing and mounting tensions within the Middle East in general and among the Palestinian refugee population in particular. Personal experiences of the writer as fieldworker are presented to provide a more general appreciation and awareness of the particular refugee situation within the Occupied Territories. The third part considers the developing and extending yet increasingly fundamental political consciousness among the Palestinian refugees, and certain envisaged reactions, and speculates upon continuing frustrations that are seen to be leading on to dramatic, mounting and extending violence.     

The agonies of displacement: Ethiopian women refugees in Khartoum,Sudan

Conclusion For the overwhelming majority of the Ethiopian refugees in urban Sudan, there seems to be no end to their plight. Their lives are in limbo. When they left their homeland most thought thei exile would be temporary. They sought temporary refuge only until the conditions at home improved and they might return in safety. Unfortunately, the conditions for their repatriation have never developed. Armed conflicts in Ethiopia still continue to rage unabated. the regime in power also continues to abuse fundamental human rights.Many of the refugees also thought they would have peace and security and, perhaps, a decent livelihood in their asylum home. These have not materialized either. The Sudan, faced with numerous problems, including civil war, drought, famine, huge external debt (in excess of $12 billion), open unemployment, and pervasive underemployment, is not even able to cope adequately with the basic needs of its own citizens, let along that of a refugee population of over a million. Worse, refugees are blamed for every problem from bread and water shortages to skyrocketing rents and have become convenient targets for harassment by the frustrated public.Others hoped for resettlement in another country. However, for the vast majority of refugees, resettlement opportunities elsewhere are virtually impossible to attin. The industrial countried are unwilling to grant asylum to large numbers of Third World refugees. These countries content that most Third World refugees are not victims of political persecution but simply migrants in search of better economoc opportunities. The few refugees to whom these countries are willing to grant asylum are those with the best qualifications: the young, the educated, and the highly skilled.As long as the current status quo in Ethiopia remains unaltered, voluntary repatriation is highly unlikelt. On the contrary, one sees more and more evidence in the country of continued uprooting of masses of people from their homes and land. It is sad that, goven the immense contradictions in the country, the possibility of negotiated solutions to the wars and a return to democracy is nowhere in sight. The plight of hundred of thousands of innocent women and men will not be solved anytime in the immediate future of them to return home in safety, peace, and dignity. For most of these refugees the future is uncertain, probably unpleasant, possibly bleak.     

Housing demolition and refugee resettlement schemes in the Gaza Strip

This case study examines Israeli resettlement policy and housing demolition measures practiced in the Gaza Strip. Since the Gaza Strip is distinguished by a huge concentration of dispossessed Palestinian refugees maintained in large camps, the Israeli authorities, from the early stage of the 1967 occupation of the area, have devoted major effort to breaking up the camps and relocating their inhabitants elsewhere. The Israeli authorities have applied a clear policy of systematic destruction of refugee shelters and initiation of resettlement schemes, aimed in the short run at making the refugee camps less congested, while in the long run, the policy appears designed to remove these camps from the landscape entirely, since they remain a constant reminder of Palestinian uprootedness and exile. To date, the Israeli strategy of demolishing the entire refugee camp network has failed to achieve its final objective.     

Transforming identity discourses to promote local interests during municipal amalgamations

This paper discusses the different ways in which local identities are used in two Dutch municipalities. Like all local administrations these Dutch municipalities have to deal with external forces by plotting their own course between closing-off and opening-up. Local identities are used not only for resisting external threats like municipal amalgamations, but also to attract external resources. It proved useful to distinguish between primary identity discourses based on the widely recognised dominant characteristics of the local community, and secondary identity discourses based on how communities within a municipality have over time learned to deal with these different primary local identities. During an amalgamation this secondary identity discourse disappears with the old municipality. The disappearance of the protective shield of a secondary identity discourse can threaten the underlying primary local identities, and can bring local identities into the centre of the local political debate. A perceived external threat frequently changes the character of these local identities. They can become more inward oriented, focus more on their historical roots and their differences with others; they ‘thicken’ into resistance identity discourses. In other cases the secondary identity discourse of a municipality is too weak and indistinct to support the primary local identities of its communities. Municipal amalgamation can then help to promote a new more attractive secondary, ‘thin’ regional identity discourse based on a selection of characteristics used in established primary local identity discourses.     

Climate change and forced migrations: An effort towards recognizing climate refugees

The scientific community has long urged for the broadening of the refugee term, which remains identical since the 1951 Refugee Convention, despite strong evidence showing connections between forced migration and climate change. Even though the concept of climate and environmental refugees is not legally recognized, the discussion concerning these definitions is increasing. Furthermore, with the intensification of global climate change, a more specific subcategory of refugees began to be popularized: climate change refugees. A climate change refugee is any person who has been forced to leave their home, or their country, due to the effects of severe climate events, being forced to rebuild their lives in other places, despite the conditions to which they are subjected.     

The creation and consequences of international refugees: Politics,military and geography

Worldwide, the number and the occurrence of events that create international refugees has been increasing dramatically for at least the past fifty years. Analysis of the distribution of the causes and location of refugees has revealed that refugees more often result from military actions than natural disasters. In many instances, the creation of international refugees is a conscious political and military policy, a practice that seems to be increasing. More importantly, some geographic areas seem to be continuing core areas of such practices. Finally, regardless of their cause, refugees present specific problems to national control of population and territory. States that have been open to refugee settlement seldom are neighbor states and many now find their own populations rebelling against continued aid in the form of increased immigration. Most often, contiguous states are unwilling hosts as well as unwilling sites of refugee camps. Such circumstances can cause serious social, political as well as potential military consequences.     

Exploring the asylum-migration nexus in the context of health professional migration

The current global migration regime is extremely complex and characterised by a polarisation of flows. Increasing numbers of individuals fleeing conflict regimes and seeking asylum are faced with restrictive immigration regimes whilst at the same time, highly skilled migrants are welcomed and encouraged to contribute to developed economies. This paper explores the asylum-migration nexus that has emerged as a result of restrictive immigration policy by drawing upon a survey of 300 health professionals in the UK. First, the empirical lens of health professionals fleeing conflict regions is employed to map the contours of the asylum-migration nexus. Second, the implications of highly selective asylum flows to Europe, in terms of economic and social characteristics, are considered. The paper concludes by highlighting concerns that Western refugee policy regimes are worryingly failing to fully meet moral obligations to protect individuals seeking asylum whilst also inadvertently supporting brain drain flows.     

A grievable life? The criminalisation and securing of asylum seeker bodies in the ‘violent frames’ of Australia’s Operation Sovereign Borders

The life of those seeking asylum from persecution and other human rights abuses has become interminably precarious. As minority world governments deploy various apparatuses of security to govern the circulation of ‘unruly’ populations, the world’s most vulnerable people have been reconstituted as security threats. In this paper I trace this ‘transfer of illegitimacy’ and criminalisation of asylum seeker bodies in the context of the Australian government’s newly deployed Operation Sovereign Borders. Drawing on Foucault’s governmentality as a domain of security and Butler’s articulation of recognition, precariousness and grievability, I explore both the subjectivities formed as a function and technique of securing Australia’s borders and the way this framing produces a certain governed reality that ‘acts upon the senses’ to delimit public discourse. I argue that the range of discursive and non-discursive practises that make up Operation Sovereign Borders has dire implications for those seeking asylum in Australia. Not only do these practises constitute a social crafting where conditions for a flourishing life are diminished, but this crafting of precarity is carried out in the name of securing citizens lives. The life of the asylum seekers is a life unrecognised in the violent frames of Operation Sovereign Borders.     

Refugees, land cover, and environmental change in the Senegal River Valley

This paper seeks to explore the complex relationships between land cover, environmental change and forced migration in the middle valley of the Senegal River, attempting both to identify the nature of environmental impacts of forced displacement with specific reference to land cover, and to examine the social, political and economic circumstances in which these are exacerbated or reduced. The study concludes that change in land cover caused by the presence of refugees is not a major cause for concern in this area, despite the vulnerability of the natural environment. Significant factors in reducing negative impacts include the dispersal of the refugee population, and cultural and social proximity of the refugee and local populations surveyed. At the same time, observed changes in land cover need to be treated with caution, given the often cyclical nature of environmental change, and the range of factors associated with it.     

Saving the Other: Exploring the social in social enterprise

Social enterprise is increasingly viewed by governments worldwide as a promising means of promoting development. In South Africa, too, this sector is identified as a strategic growth area. Although there is no final consensus on the definition of social enterprise, certain characteristics are generally agreed. These include the idea that social enterprise prioritises social needs over profit maximisation, and involves marginalised people within viable businesses that have socially beneficial outcomes. Academic research on social enterprise has largely come from business studies, focusing on the internal functioning of social enterprise organisations, the figure of the social entrepreneur, the relationship between the social enterprise sector and the state, and on what the sector needs to flourish commercially. Social issues, especially analyses of power within the sector, have been relatively neglected. This paper addresses that gap, drawing on a wider development studies literature on the social economy to inform an examination of power relationships in the craft industry in South Africa, where narratives of social enterprise are pervasive. I argue that although empowerment is an explicit aim of many craft organisations, the most prominent discourses within the industry often rely on and perpetuate objectifying constructions of producers. These manifest particularly through notions of ’saving’, shaping a moral economy that entrenches difference along lines of black–white, north–south, and healthy-diseased. Such discourses run counter to the aims of empowerment that are central to the ethos of social enterprise, and should challenge both policymakers and academics to think carefully about how power works within the sector.     

(Re)politicizing empowerment: Lessons from the South African wine industry

Despite being a poorly defined and vague concept, empowerment is currently of political and theoretical significance and nowhere more so than in South Africa, where it seen as central to post-apartheid transformation. This paper explores the ways in which empowerment has been understood, defined and deployed by post-apartheid governments in the context of a gradual shift from nation-building to neo-liberal governance. It examines the impact of legislation and government policy through a critical examination of empowerment initiatives in the wine industry. Drawing on research conducted in the Western Cape in 2004, the paper analyses how empowerment is interpreted and appropriated both within legislation and specifically within the wine industry. It explores what the wine industry reveals about the disempowering work of neo-liberalism, even as it is couched in the discourses of empowerment. Findings suggest that equating empowerment with economic empowerment threatens to reinforce structures of domination, rather than transforming them, while leaving power relations largely untouched. The case study reveals that until more radical understandings of power and empowerment are acknowledged and incorporated into government policies the failure to address broader issues of social and economic transformation will persist and policies aimed at the empowerment of marginalised individuals and communities will continue to have apparently pre-determined and depoliticised outcomes.     

Sophistication at a country pace: community sustainability and amenity-based development

There is a lot at stake in the control of landscapes; not only rights and access to resources, but also the symbolic construction of community identities. Having one’s identity represented in the landscape is critical to understanding one’s position within that community—either as an insider or outsider. This paper examines Great Barrington, Massachusetts as a case study of the links between discourses of landscape and community and their relations to processes of social exclusion during amenity-based development. Building upon conceptions of community as a process of creating boundaries between insiders and outsiders, this paper argues that the sustainability of a town cannot be assessed merely from inside a particular community identity but must situate that town within complex multi-scalar processes to determine if it is merely externalizing its unsustainable aspects, people and practices. I extend this argument by examining the ways to concept of multifunctionality has been used both in Great Barrington and in international discourses to promote sustainability through processes of exclusion. The research for this paper was done in collaboration with the Alliance for a Healthier Great Barrington.     

A no-camp policy: Interrogating informal settlements in Lebanon

As fewer refugees move into formal camps, what kinds of non-camp spaces are emerging and how does that challenge the ways in which we understand the management and politics of refuge? This paper seeks to shed light on this question through an analysis of informal settlements in Lebanon. The Syrian crisis has displaced millions of people, most of whom have moved into neighbouring countries such as Jordan, Lebanon and Turkey. The Lebanese government, faced with a longer history of Palestinian camps and their militarization has refused to allow the establishment of official refugee camps for Syrians. As a result of this ‘no camp’ policy, Syrians are forced to either live in private rented accommodation in towns and cities throughout the country, or in informal settlements (ISes) built on private, often agricultural land. These informal settlements are built and developed through a complex assemblage of humanitarianism, hospitality, security, economic and political considerations. In this paper, I look at the physical and social spaces of informal settlements in the Bekaa Valley, Eastern Lebanon, examining how differential access to aid, support, security and tacit recognition by the state has led to variations amongst them. In doing so, I expose how an informalized response to the crisis through a system of deregulation is enabling refugee spaces to emerge that are visible, yet unrecognized, flexible, yet precarious. These spaces destabilize the city/camp dichotomy by drawing together elements of both. In engaging with debates on informality, the paper contributes to a growing critical literature on refugee geographies and seeks to expand beyond the reductive narratives of refugee camps, thereby offering insights into refugee futures in increasingly uncertain times.     

Opportunities provided by geographic information systems and volunteered geographic information for a timely emergency response during flood events in Cologne,Germany

The occurrence of disasters such as extreme flooding in urban environments has severe consequences, not only on the human population but also on critical infrastructures such as the road networks, which are of vital importance for everyday living and particularly for emergency response. In this article, our main goal is to present-conceptually and in praxis-a model that could be used from the emergency responders for timely and efficient emergency management and response in an urban complex environment. For the city of Cologne in Germany, we aim to indicate possible ways to decrease the emergency response time during an extreme flood scenario through the development of an accessibility indicator, which consists of different components. Therefore, we will investigate the opportunities that occur, in a flood risk scenario, from the use of geographic information in different forms such as Volunteered Geographic Information (VGI) and open-source data in an ArcGIS environment, to increase urban resilience through the decreasing emergency response time. We will focus on network analysis for the fire brigades (first acting emergency responders) during a flood scenario to calculate their emergency response ranges and emergency response routes through flooded road networks, for the assistance of the possibly affected hospitals, refugee homes and fire brigades, which can be flooded. At the end of the paper, we suggest that the vulnerable community of the refugees could be taken into consideration as a new source of VGI, as an additional component that would lead to the decrease in the emergency response time. The geo-located information that could be provided by the refugee community can be very useful in emergency situations, such as those examined in this article where timely information can be forwarded to the proper authorities for a more focused and timely emergency response, increasing the resilience of the urban population and their community.

     

Opportunities provided by geographic information systems and volunteered geographic information for a timely emergency response during flood events in Cologne,Germany

The occurrence of disasters such as extreme flooding in urban environments has severe consequences, not only on the human population but also on critical infrastructures such as the road networks, which are of vital importance for everyday living and particularly for emergency response. In this article, our main goal is to present-conceptually and in praxis-a model that could be used from the emergency responders for timely and efficient emergency management and response in an urban complex environment. For the city of Cologne in Germany, we aim to indicate possible ways to decrease the emergency response time during an extreme flood scenario through the development of an accessibility indicator, which consists of different components. Therefore, we will investigate the opportunities that occur, in a flood risk scenario, from the use of geographic information in different forms such as Volunteered Geographic Information (VGI) and open-source data in an ArcGIS environment, to increase urban resilience through the decreasing emergency response time. We will focus on network analysis for the fire brigades (first acting emergency responders) during a flood scenario to calculate their emergency response ranges and emergency response routes through flooded road networks, for the assistance of the possibly affected hospitals, refugee homes and fire brigades, which can be flooded. At the end of the paper, we suggest that the vulnerable community of the refugees could be taken into consideration as a new source of VGI, as an additional component that would lead to the decrease in the emergency response time. The geo-located information that could be provided by the refugee community can be very useful in emergency situations, such as those examined in this article where timely information can be forwarded to the proper authorities for a more focused and timely emergency response, increasing the resilience of the urban population and their community.