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Refugees’ Access to Work Permits and Business Licences in Kenya
In Kenya, many refugees, in both urban and camp settings, engage in employment and run businesses to cover their basic needs. Kenyan legislation allows refugees to engage in gainful employment and set up businesses: refugees can apply for Class M work permits with Immigration Services and business licences with county authorities to regularise their activities. In practice, access to work permits and business licences is complicated by several barriers. This study explores the gaps that exist between policy and practice of refugee access to Class M work permits and business licences in Kenya, and identifies what support is needed to improve access to sustainable livelihoods for urban and camp refugees.
IOM’s Immigration Detention Practices and Policies: Human Rights, Positive Obligations and Humanitarian Duties
This chapter analyses IOM’s practices and policies on immigration detention from the 1990s to date, spanning a period of significant change in its approaches to detention. The chapter first distills pertinent international human rights law (IHRL) on migration-related detention, and then examines IOM’s normative statements concerning detention. It shows that while IOM generally emphasises international legal standards, it also tends to stress states’ ‘prerogative’ to detain, frame alternatives to detention (ATDs) as a desirable option rather than a legal obligation, and weave an operational role for itself, notably through assisted voluntary returns (AVRs). The chapter then interrogates IOM’s involvement in detention through four case studies. These reveal not only IOM’s changing role regarding detention, but its enduring part in a global system whereby powerful states and regions seek to contain protection seekers ‘elsewhere.’ The chapter concludes that, without constitutional and institutional change to ensure it meets its positive human rights obligations, and deeper critical reflection on its humanitarian duties, IOM’s practice risks expanding and legitimating detention.
IOM Unbound? Obligations and Accountability of the International Organization for Migration in an Era of Expansion
It is an era of expansion for the International Organization for Migration (IOM), an increasingly influential actor in the global governance of migration. Bringing together leading experts in international law and international relations, this collection examines the dynamics and implications of IOM's expansion in a new way. Analyzing IOM as an international organization (IO), the book illuminates the practices, obligations and accountability of this powerful but controversial actor, advancing understanding of IOM itself and broader struggles for IO accountability. The contributions explore key, yet often under-researched, IOM activities including its role in humanitarian emergencies, internal displacement, data collection, ethical labour recruitment, and migrant detention. Offering recommendations for reforms rooted in empirical evidence and careful normative analysis, this is a vital resource for all those interested in the obligations and accountability of international organizations, and in the field of migration. This title is also available as Open Access on Cambridge Core.
Femi(ni)cide as war as femi(ni)cide: Violence and justice-seeking beyond borders
Chapter in 'The Routledge International Handbook on Femicide and Feminicide', edited by Myrna Dawson and Saide Mobayed Vega.
The role of developmental ‘buzzwords’ in the international refugee regime: Self-reliance, resilience, and economic inclusion
Buzzwords play an important role in setting up the scope and direction of aid policies. Alongside the growing focus on development-led approaches in the international refugee regime, three buzzwords – self-reliance, resilience, and economic inclusion – have achieved particular prominence in recent refugee policy-making. Drawing upon a review of policy documents and multi-sited empirical research in Sub-Saharan Africa, this article gives a detailed analysis of how these buzzwords intersect with one another and elucidates the roles they play in shaping development-oriented approaches to refugees. While this trifecta is painted with positive connotations, empirical research shows that developmental approaches underpinned by these buzzwords can have detrimental effects on both refugees and hosts. Building upon this analysis, it offers a theoretical approach to understand the current mainstreaming of developmental support within the international refugee regime from a lens of ‘reframing’, which is a strategy to redefine social problems and thereby control discourses around their solutions. The study shows that as a discursive apparatus, this triad of buzzwords is instrumentalised by policymakers to reframe the absence of solutions for ‘displacement crisis’ as ‘development opportunities’ in order to protect the damaged global refugee system. In so doing, such buzzwords play a crucial role in redefining the responsibility of refugees and their hosts in undertaking neoliberal development, while simultaneously reducing the ambit of responsibility of the international refugee regime. By analysing these popular buzzwords as a set, the article contributes to a deepened understanding of the ways in which these innocuous words are embedded in a broader ‘ideological project’ informed by the political and economic incentives of the global policymakers. It also sheds light on the possible wider consequences of the current mainstreaming of development-led approaches for refugee rights and protection issues.
El moviment de dones del Kurdistan
El moviment de dones del Kurdistan és al centre d’un dels experiments revolucionaris més emocionants del món: Rojava. Format durant dècades de lluita, i més recentment, en la lluita contra l’Estat Islàmic, Rojava encarna un compromís radical amb l’ecologia, la democràcia i l’alliberament de les dones. Però mentre que proliferen imatges impactants de dones kurdes en uniforme de combat, continua sense haver-hi un coneixement real del moviment de dones. Desmuntant els marcs orientalistes superficials imperants, Dilar Dirik, en canvi, ofereix un informe empíricament ric del moviment de dones del Kurdistan. Valent-se d’una recerca original i treball de camp etnogràfic, fa una enquesta dels orígens històrics del moviment, l’evolució ideològica i la pràctica política durant els últims quaranta anys. Dirik, que va més enllà de les idees abstractes, situa la cultura i ideologia del moviment en la feina concreta que fa per a la revolució de les dones aquí i ara. Emportant-se el lector des dels campaments de la guerrilla a la muntanya fins a les acadèmies de dones radicals i als camps de refugiats autoorganitzats, els lectors d’arreu del món poden implicar-se en la revolució del Kurdistan, tant de manera teòrica com pràctica, com una pedra de toc vital en la lluita més àmplia per un internacionalisme antifeixista, anticapitalista i feminista militant.
A deconstructive approach to refugee self-reliance: the case of the Kalobeyei Integrated Settlement
In the last decade, there has been a renewed interest in ‘self-reliance’ as a remedy for protracted refugee crises. While self-reliance has been articulated as a key policy objective, scholars have been preoccupied with a key question: what is self-reliance and what interests does such a policy ultimately serve? Drawing on Jacques Derrida’s post-structuralist thought, this paper puts forward a deconstructive approach to examine how the concept of self-reliance is discursively constructed. Through an analysis of relevant policy documents, this paper examines the role that texts play in producing and reproducing the meaning of self-reliance. I argue that self-reliance is an inherently undecidable, or malleable, concept that is embedded in a system of binary oppositions within the refugee regime. In other words, self-reliance is constructed relationally, as it is defined by what it is and what it is not with reference to key concepts such as dependency, vulnerability, resilience, and entrepreneurship. Despite this ambiguity, self-reliance has a logocentric, or hegemonic, power, which makes it susceptible to be co-opted by various policy actors to suit their interests. I examine self-reliance within the context of the Kalobeyei Integrated Settlement in Turkana County, Kenya, to demonstrate the political implications of self-reliance’s logocentrism.
In memory of Stephen Castles: Studying migration as part of social transformation
Stephen Castles' scholarship examines the dynamics of international migration, always in relation to broader trends in the political economy of the countries and regions in concern. In this short piece, I reflect on his scholarship, particularly since the 2000s and 2010s—a period I had the chance to work with him. Throughout the 2000s, Stephen Castles worked at the University of Oxford, as the Director of the Refugee Studies Centre (RSC), and later as the Director of the International Migration Institute (IMI). These were also the years he started advocating to study (forced) migration as not a standalone subject but as part of broader processes of social transformation. He (Castles, 2015, 4) conceptualized social transformation as ‘[a] shift in social relationships so profound that it affects virtually all forms of social interaction, and all individuals and communities simultaneously.’
"Like Handing My Whole Life Over": The German Federal Administrative Court’s landmark ruling on mobile phone data extraction in asylum procedures
On 16 February 2023, the German Federal Administrative Court (BVerwG) ruled that the practice of regularly analysing data carriers, including mobile phones, by the Federal Office for Migration and Refugees (BAMF) when registering asylum applicants is illegal (BVerwG 1 C 19.21). The judgement arrives after the Gesellschaft für Freiheitsrechte’s (GFF) efforts to reveal this practice’s details and take legal action against its use in the asylum procedure. In this post, we briefly overview this practice and analyse this judgement and its implications. We argue that although this judgement represents an important victory for asylum seekers’ and refugees’ data protection and privacy, some controversial aspects of this practice still require clarification.
‘In London, I Am a European Citizen’: Brexit, Emotions, and the Politics of Belonging
London hosts by far the largest population of non-national EU citizens in Europe. It is also home to roughly one-third of the entire EU citizen population living in the UK. London’s population changed rapidly following EU enlargement in the 2000s in terms of its size, the variety and number of nationalities it hosts, and its socio-demographic profile (Lessard-Phillips & Sigona, 2018). These changes have intensified and shaped the process of ‘diversification of diversity’ captured in the late 2000s by anthropologist Steve Vertovec in his seminal work on superdiversity (Vertovec, 2007). Despite Britain’s exit from the EU, its new geopolitical orientation (towards a more ‘Global Britain’) and the new immigration regime that has come to replace the EU’s freedom of movement, this diversification process has continued. For example, between 2016 and 2020, live births among EU mothers in London have roughly stayed the same - only marginally declined from 17.52 to 17.18 per cent of the total number of live births in London, with Poland, Romania, Germany and Lithuania among the top 10 countries of birth for non-UK mothers in the city (ONS, 2021; see also Lessard-Phillips & Sigona, 2019).
UNRWA and the Palestinian refugees: Protecting refugee rights while structurally addressing the agency’s financially unsustainable modus operandi
The 73-year-long failure to resolve the Palestinian refugee question, and the discourse around it, especially since Madrid and Oslo, combined with the unsustainability of UNRWA’s current modus operandi – essentially a means to manage the humanitarian dimension of the of the unresolved Israeli-Palestinian conflict – prompt a critical re-examination of the way the Palestinian refugee question has been approached and how UNRWA has interpreted and implemented its mandate over the past decades. This paper calls for a fundamental paradigm shift in the approach to protection of and solutions for the Palestinian refugees, comprised of three elements: (1) the search for solutions for Palestinian refugees must move from the essentially bilateral approach of the last decades, namely the Madrid/Oslo framework, back to the multilateral arena of the UN; (2) the discourse on solutions must move beyond the current constraints of perceptions or politics, and refocus on the rights of the Palestinian refugees that remain unfulfilled, including both historical rights (self-determination, return, restitution compensation) and the panoply of human rights that for many refugees, especially in UNRWA area of operation, remains suspended; (3) it is necessary to abandon the “politics of suffering”, namely the resisting belief that the refugees must continue to live in substandard conditions with limited advancement of rights and a clear residential status in host countries in order to assert and maintain their right to return. In fact, allowing refugees to have a dignified life may enable them to be political actors determining their present and future. The 2016 New York Declaration provides a unique opportunity to realize the above paradigm shift. Applicable to Palestinian refugees, it provides an UN-sanctioned mandate – with the broadest possible endorsement of the international community – for the elaboration of a comprehensive response framework (CRF) for Palestinian refugees, dealing with the various unresolved aspects of the Palestinian refugee situation, and developed through a multi-stakeholder approach. The authors propose a radical yet gradual evolution of UNRWA’s strategic direction, from providing humanitarian assistance and support for human development to a comprehensive response to all aspects of the Palestinian refugee question, including a more expanded focus on protection and durable solutions. By doing so, the agency would build on its existing mandate in protecting the rights of the Palestinian refugees and address the void left by the demise of the UN Conciliation Commission for Palestine (UNCCP), which critically complements the UN mandate toward them. Palestinian refugees need and deserve, like all other refugees, an international entity engaged not only in supporting their humanitarian needs but equally in upholding their human rights, including to return, restitution and compensation, as well as facilitating such other durable solutions as the refugees may want to pursue. These latter rights flow from the illegality of the ‘ethnic cleansing’ of Palestine and have only become stronger with the passing of time and the further advancement of international law. The development of a CRF for Palestinian refugees (CRF-PR) has the potential to reenergize the discourse in support of unmet Palestinian refugee rights, and reactivate a common front among host countries, refugees, and Palestinian leadership. By generating discussion and awareness, it would shift political attention towards the refugees and create important momentum to ‘federate’ and advocate jointly for a just and durable solution of the refugee question. Giving proper weight to a rights-based approach, centred on the refugees, and advancing the development of a CRF-PR through a multi-stakeholder platform under the aegis of the UN, has the potential to break the current impasse. Implementing the above shift – including by turning UNRWA’s registration system into a central repository of documentary evidence of the refugees’ historic claims – could gradually pave the way for a broader reconsideration of the agency’s modus operandi, moving away from parallel delivery of some services in some of its “fields” of operations. As a first step, UNRWA may wish to develop a note on its mandate as UNHCR did in 2013. The reforms and initiatives in this paper should also help inform the imminent development by UNRWA of its next Medium-Term Strategy (MTS).
Sister parties no more: explaining the refugee policy divergence of the Swedish and Danish Social Democratic parties
The Social Democratic parties of Sweden and Denmark share many things, operating in countries with shared history and culture. However, one thing not shared is refugee policy. This working paper seeks to understand why the Social Democratic parties of Sweden and Denmark have developed such different refugee policies despite their many similarities. While the gradual developments of both parties in opposite policy directions can be seen to take place over time, existing literature proposes several different explanations to what has caused this divergence. As such, this research aims at filling a gap in existing literature by gathering central explanations, assessing and reviewing their relative influence on policy divergence. This is done by exploring key changes in policy using three different hypotheses, all presenting a potential causal factor and mechanism for divergence. These three factors are party politics, leadership, and refugee inflow level. They are extracted from three strands of existing literature, namely from comparative politics of asylum in Scandinavia, comparative politics of asylum in general, as well as from the literature on comparative politics of Scandinavian social democratic parties. Examining key policy changes using categorization of factors based on causal role played, this research seeks to understand how divergence has emerged as a result of the chosen three factors. The resulting argument is that all extracted factors have played a part in policy change, but that the party-political factor constitutes the core explanation for policy divergence, even if the leadership factor has also contributed. The last factor, refugee inflow, is argued to not be causal for divergence.
Post-abyssal ethics in education research in settings of conflict and crisis: Stories from the field
This article draws heavily on the post-abyssal philosophy of Boaventura de Sousa Santos in order to theorise new ways of thinking about research ethics in settings affected by armed conflict and crisis, and to put them into practice. Our article explores the dilemmas and tensions faced by four graduate students and a supervisor across diverse international settings. For some of us, these are places we call home, for others these are places that provide refuge to our people: Afghanistan, Jordan, Lebanon and India. We seek to deepen standard understandings of ethics as institutionalised in university forms, arguing that tidy checklists for safety and risk mitigation do not adequately address the complex affective and socio-political struggles permeating research, and the bodies of researchers, in these settings. Our main focus here is on how we can synthesise our various experiences in order to offer something of value to others who may be about to go into the field in settings affected by armed conflict and crisis. The question that we address, then, is: how can researchers avoid the limitations, obfuscations and silences of traditional institutional ethics in order to adopt a situated, embodied, post-abyssal research ethic that might open up new spaces for emotion, encounter, and engagement with struggle, risk and voicing? We use an autoethnographic approach that enables congruence with the aims of this article, and that supports our aspirations for enhanced impact through powerful narrative. We end with discussion that contains suggestions for institutions, supervisors, researchers, and for funding and professional bodies.
Realities of school ‘integration’: insights from Syrian refugee students in Jordan’s double-shift schools
Recent agendas have sought to encourage governments to integrate refugees into national education systems. However, clearer nuances of integration and examples of positive and negative approaches are necessary to help understand the effects of policies on students’ learning and well-being. This article explores the perceptions of Syrian refugee students who have been integrated into Jordan’s schools through the double-shift system. Drawing on a broader study which explored students’ perceptions through semi-structured interviews, this article illustrates how educational settings have shaped students’ perceptions of their spaces, learning, and aspirations. It portrays the issues that arise from a system that formally integrates refugee students in formal school while keeping them physically and socially segregated from native students. By shedding light on the ways in which educational spaces enhance or reduce differences between societies, this article argues that harmonized policies, structures, and practices are essential for inclusive and equal learning opportunities.
Refugee mobilities in East Africa: understanding secondary movements
There is significant policy interest in refugee migration, particularly in relation to ‘secondary movements’ – the movement of refugees from the first country in which they arrive. Yet, there is very little theoretical or empirical research on refugee mobilities in the Global South, where the overwhelming majority of refugees reside. Existing literature on refugee migration focuses mainly on people who have already selected onward migration to the Global North. This leaves a gap in terms of describing, understanding, and explaining refugee migration patterns within and from low and middle-income regions of the world. Drawing upon cross-sectional data for Kenya, Ethiopia, and Uganda, we describe aspirations relating to mobility; and drawing upon panel data for refugees based in Kenya, we describe actual patterns of mobility. While a majority of refugees ‘hope’ to migrate inter-regionally and a smaller majority ‘expect’ to migrate inter-regionally, actual mobility patterns are very different. Whereas refugees are highly mobile, the overwhelming majority of their mobility is internal and most international migration is intra-regional. By describing these patterns for one region, the article challenges policy assumptions relating to secondary movement and offers a starting point for further comparative research on refugee mobilities.
The Mediating Role of Education: Learning as Syrian Refugee Young People in Jordan
Chapter in A. North & E. Chase (eds) Education, Migration and Development: Critical Perspectives in a Moving World