States are increasingly paying other states to host refugees. For example, in 2010 the EU paid Libya € 50 million to continue hosting the refugees within its borders, and five years later Australia offered Cambodia $31.16 million to accept asylum seekers living in Naru. These exchanges, which I call ‘refugees markets,’ have faced criticism by philosophers. Some philosophers claim the markets fail to ensure true protection, and are demeaning, expressing just how much refugees are unwanted. In response, some have defended (...) refugee markets, claiming they can ensure refugees have protection and are not demeaned. I argue that many markets do demean refugees, and therefore have moral costs, but can still be all-things-considered preferable to alternative schemes if they protect refugees more than these alternative schemes. (shrink)

In the aftermath of the “Arab Spring” and of crumbling state structures, an exodus of unknown proportion from the Near East and from Northern Africa has set in and was further exacerbated by civil war and ISIS terror rule over large territories in the Near East. As a consequence, thousands of refugees came to Europe. Many of them fulfilled the conditions for non-refoulement according to Article 33 of the Geneva Convention on the Law of Refugees of 1951 or were at (...) least entitled for temporary protection according to the Common European Asylum System. These instruments did not, however, take into consideration situations of mass influx and neither is there an efficient mechanism for burden sharing within the EU in place. Some countries where overwhelmed by these migration flows. In this contribution, particular attention will be given to the reactions to these developments by the Austrian government. In Austria, as a consequence of mounting pressure by considerable parts of the population demanding a halt to this migration, the government adopted or announced a series of measures that, if implemented, will constitute a blatant violation of international law. This holds true, in particular, for the so-called upper limit for asylum seekers. Legal academia in Austria in part was silent as to these events, in part sustained it after having been engaged for a legal. It is contended here that unilateralism may be effective in a short-time perspective, but the long-term consequences should not be overlooked. It would be better to work on a genuine international burden-sharing mechanism even though this approach is more difficult to sell to national constituencies. (shrink)

The European Commission’s distribution key for refugees across the EU is wanting in many respects. Two LSE researchers defend an alternative key based on pragmatic and realistic criteria. The outcome is sometimes surprising.

EU states agreed on 23 September to implement a refugee quota system which will distribute 120,000 refugees across the EU, despite four member states – the Czech Republic, Hungary, Romania and Slovakia – voting against the proposal. Luc Bovens and Anna Bartsch write that regardless of the wider debate over whether a quota system is justified or not, it is vital that the ‘distribution key’ determining how many refugees are assigned to each state is fair. They argue that the distribution (...) key proposed by the European Commission is ill-conceived and regressive, and that a fairer system with recalculated quotas may go some way toward convincing the dissenting states to support the system. (shrink)

Thousands of refugees die each year fleeing prosecution in their home state. But receiving states are often reluctant to admit, process and house refugees. This is in part because refugee protection is a public good, and so subject to free-riding. A promising, but controversial, solution is to set up markets in tradable refugee quotas (e.g., in the European Union). One of the main objections to such proposals is that they lead to the commodification and objectification of refugees. Another objection, less (...) often discussed, is that such markets seem to legitimate negative and prejudicial attitudes towards refugees. In this article, I defend markets in refugee quotas against such criticisms. Given how many die each year, we are more than ever in need of creative solutions. Tradable quotas provide a promising mechanism to increase the number of refugees processed and protected, especially in regional schemes like the EU. Ethical objections such as the ones canvassed here should not stand in our way. (shrink)

The tradable refugee quota scheme constitutes one proposal for institutionalising the general right to asylum. The scheme allows states to purchase and sell quotas of refugees that are initially assigned to them through a collectivised status-determination process. In this paper I focus on examining the ethical dimensions of one particular component of the tradable refugee quota scheme: the market. I consider three objections against the quota trading practices: ‘the preference objection’, ‘the dignity objection’, and ‘the exploitation objection’. The first objection (...) suggests that the tradable quota scheme is problematic due to the fact that it fails to consider refugees’ desires regarding the final country in which asylum is provided. The second objection claims that the scheme demeans refugees and violates their dignity. The final objection claims that the scheme leads to the exploitation of weak countries. I argue that the objections fail to show that the tradable quota scheme is inherently problematic. I conclude that either the examined objections can be rejected or it is possible to address the concerns through specific institutional arrangements. (shrink)

In dominant discourses, migrants are mostly perceived as either victims or villains but rarely as political subjects and democratic constituents. Challenging this view, the aim of the article is to rethink democracy with respect to migration struggles. I argue that movements of migration are not only consistent with democracy but also provide a decisive impetus for actualizing democratic principles in the context of debates about the crisis of representation and post-democracy. Drawing on the work of Jacques Rancière, Étienne (...) Balibar and Ernesto Laclau and Chantal Mouffe, I develop a theory of radical democracy as practice, which, starting from the proposed notion of ‘democratic difference’, goes beyond the fixation on democratic regimes and focuses on contentious practices of enacting democratic principles. I articulate these theoretical concepts by analysing how refugees in Germany have managed to break out of a marginalized position and have challenged their denial of rights through a protest march. (shrink)

Human mass migration from place to place is well recorded in history. The ancient patterns of mass migrations could have their origins in natural forces or divine order. Simultaneously, modern recorded history suggests that human mass migrations were triggered by local and regional politics too such as political oppression or imperial invasion. However, a new pattern of mass migration emerged in the 20th century triggered by a complete new force-strategic redrawing of certain regional maps. This strategic redrawing of (...) maps is not locally inspired but imposed from abroad as part of competitive economic and military strategies of a global scale. This article intends to analyse the mass migrations triggered by Iraq-Syria civil wars in the framework of international strategic global competition. The article argues that these mass migrations are artificially caused by the economic and military strategies of international hegemonic powers. Strategic national interest abroad is the underlying objective at the cost of the sufferings of the millions. (shrink)

Migration is a recurrent phenomenon of human history because it is a successful adaptive strategy of human beings. Although migration today is not of a greater magnitude than in the past, it attracts a great deal of media and academia attention. The present wave of non-Western immigrants into the United States and Europe caused, apart from myriad economic, social and political problems, an ideological dispute between globalism and right-wing populism. Both ideological approaches attract many zealots who spread extreme (...) opinions and poison the whole political life. Using the scholastic method, I examined some opposing points of view of globalists and right-wing populists on several topics regarding non-Western immigration: border control, illegal immigration, limitations of legal immigration, refugee relocation quotas and cultural integration of immigrants. The globalists’ and right-wing populists’ theses and arguments were checked in regard with established authorities, available factual data and human reason. Highlighting some important topics relating to immigration problem and weighing the main arguments used by globalists and right-wing populists, I also indicate several points of compromise that could help people to moderate their political opinions. (shrink)

Textual and visual analyses of nation-branding campaigns are rare but highly needed (Bolin and Ståhlberg, 2010; Hao, Paul, Trott, Guo, and Wu, 2019) as online media have become a popular tool for states to shape people’s perception (Volcic and Andrejevic, 2011). In Anholt’s much applied nation brand hexagon (2007), immigration and investment, society, governance, and culture and heritage are, along with tourism and export, the core aspects that build a country’s reputation. As the 2015 refugee peak situation resulted in a (...) more restrictive approach of the Swedish government towards asylum applicants, the country’s brand was put under pressure. How could Sweden’s values related to openness be highlighted while policymakers chose a deterrent road? In this study, we bridge streams of research on nation branding, framing, and migration studies by presenting a multimodal analysis of the “Portraits of migration” campaign as a strategic response to the refugee situation. (shrink)

In Justice for People on the Move, Gillian Brock develops a promising, original account of migration justice. In her view, states have a robust (though conditional) right to self-determination, which includes a reasonably strong right to regulate migration. However, in order for these rights to be justified, three legitimacy requirements must be met. Most obviously, states must respect the human rights of their own citizens and the international state system itself must be legitimate. This latter condition also requires (...) states to do their part in sustaining a justified state system, which includes helping to alleviate “legitimacy gaps,” including significant human rights violations in other states. Brock uses this framework to address several pressing migration-related policy issues, including Muslim bans, the deportation of unauthorized migrants, temporary labor migration, and refugee protection. However, one topic is notably absent from her analysis: climate-related displacement. Some theorists insist that climate change migrants should not be considered refugees because they do not fit the standard definition of a refugee. In particular, climate migrants were displaced by droughts, floods, storms, or sea level rise rather than by war or persecution, and many are able to remain in their homes at present but will be forced to relocate at some point in the future. This paper explores the implications of Brock’s theory of migration justice for climate migration. I suggest that although her approach to refugee protection may initially appear to exclude climate migrants, her understanding of right to self-determination yields strong obligations to assist them. I take this to be a strength of her framework, which makes an important, albeit indirect, contribution to current debates on climate change migration. (shrink)

This book advocates for the philosophical import of care in re-evaluating problems of humanitarianism in the context of the ongoing international refugee and forced migration situation. In doing so, it rethinks the human capacity to care about the suffering of distant others. At a time when emotional resources are running low, there is a need to recast what it means to care, with the aim of generating a productive movement against the rise of value fundamentalism globally—embraced in mantras of (...) ‘good and evil’ and ‘us and them’—and to confront xenophobia and oppressive politics. The author draws upon a wide array of rich traditions, including historical and contemporary writings on self-care and care of the other, to re-examine the intersection of care ethics and justice. She also rethinks the relationship between care and contestation, here analyzed in the aesthetic, ethical, political, and religious domains of human experience. From within the context of this contingent historical repetition of political oppression, the book constructs a reminder not only of what it feels like to care, but how and why we should act upon our care. Care Ethics and the Refugee Crisis is an important contribution to the growing literatures on care ethics and immigration/forced migration in philosophy. It will also appeal to scholars and advanced students working in other disciplines such as political science, refugee and migration studies, and social anthropology. (shrink)

In 2015 and 2016, European newspapers covered the Syrian migration into Europe in great detail, describing the path followed by millions of refugees as European authorities put up both physical and...

Migration and Islamic Ethics, Issues of Residence, Naturalization and Citizenship addresses how Islamic ethical and legal traditions can contribute to current global debates on migration and displacement; how Islamic ethics of muʼakha, ḍiyāfa, ijāra, amān, jiwār, sutra, kafāla, among others, may provide common ethical grounds for a new paradigm of social and political virtues applicable to all humanity, not only Muslims. The present volume more broadly defines the Islamic tradition to cover not only theology but also to encompass (...) ethics, customs and social norms, as well as modern political, humanitarian and rights discourses. The first section addresses theorizations and conceptualizations using contemporary Islamic examples, mainly in the treatment of asylum-seekers and refugees; the second, contains empirical analyses of contemporary case studies; the third provides historical accounts of Muslim migratory experiences. (shrink)

Along with Turkey’s changing refugee policy from the Eurocentric, secular nation-state ideology to the neo-Ottomanist one on the state level, there also exist main handicaps on the micro power level concerning the successful coordination of the refugee issue with full respect of the human rights. Economic, cultural and especially political factors play a role in the relationship between Syrians and Turkish residents. Fragmentation within the Syrian community living in Turkey is also evident. On the other hand, different from the state (...) policy, Turkish people implicitly show their reluctance towards this migration wave without creating a social turmoil. In this line, it is suggested here that Neo-Ottomanism, as a rising trend, helps a considerable majority of the society to take a moderate stance towards the immigration flux. (shrink)

In July 2016, we participated in a conference in Lesvos (Greece) on borders, migration, and the refugee crisis. The Crossing Borders conference was framed in contrast with the ad-hoc humanitarianism that was being implemented, to the extent that it seemed to offer an opportunity to think about the refugee crisis, militarism, and austerity capitalism in systemic terms. This paper is based on an intervention we staged in the closing panel of the Crossing Borders conference, where we read a statement (...) we collectively wrote with fourteen other participants. The intervention was the outcome of frustration as we saw stereotypes and dynamics of knowledge production that reproduced the division between "us" and "them," further marginalising migrants and refugees, elevating international experts while silencing locally affected people. We use this incident and the text of this intervention as a starting point to analyse the growing academic industry in relation to what has been constructed as "Europe's refugee crisis." Our intervention sought to contest several kinds of borders—linguistic, epistemic, activist, methodological, political, historical, and internalised— which are uncritically reproduced in this academic industry. (shrink)

Since 2015, the ‘refugee crisis’ is possibly the most photographed humanitarian crisis in history. Photographs taken, for instance, in Lesvos, Greece, and Bodrum, Turkey, were instrumental in generating waves of public support for, and populist opposition to “welcoming refugees” in Europe. But photographs do not circulate in a vacuum; this book explores the visual economy of the ‘refugee crisis,’ showing how the reproduction of images is structured by, and secures hierarchies of gender, sexuality, and ‘race,’ essential to the functioning of (...) bordered nation-states. Taking photography not only as the object of research, but innovating the method of photographìa— the material trace of writing/grafì with light/phos—this book urges us to view images and their reproduction critically. Part theoretical text, part visual essay, "Reproducing Refugees" vividly shows how institutional violence underpins both the spectacularity and the banality of ‘crisis.’ This book goes about synthesising visual studies with queer, feminist, postcolonial, post-structuralist, and post-Marxist theories. "Reproducing Refugees: Photographìa of a Crisis" offers theoretical frameworks and methodological tools to critically analyse representations, both those circulated through hegemonic institutions, and those generated from ‘below’. It carves a space between logos and praxis, ways of knowing and ways of doing, by offering a new visual language that problematises reified categories such as that of the ‘refugee’ and makes possible disruptive, alternative, resistant perceptions. The book contributes to the fields of migration and border studies, critically engaging visual narratives drawn from migration movements to question dominant categories and frameworks, from a decolonial, no-borders, queer feminist perspective. (shrink)

FIFA President Sepp Blatter’s recent attempt to resurrect the 6 + 5 quota for club football which limits the number of home-grown players to six is a protectionist measure at odds with global trends in free trade and freedom of movement. We remain unconvinced that his goals—to arrest the decline in the competitive quality and balance of international football, ensure greater investment in developing native talent and safeguarding national identity—are a problem or served well by such a regulation. We show (...) that the impact of foreign players on national teams is mixed and restrictions are as likely to undermine the quality of national teams as much as they will improve them. Our moral case will show he is wrong to assert that elite club football’s prime agenda ought to be a nationalist one. We conclude that the primary threat to the integrity, competitive balance and cultural significance of football is not labour migration but misplaced financial imperatives that have an overriding impact on shaping footba.. (shrink)

The paper examines the representations of Ukrainian refugees in Polish press at the beginning of the 2022 Russian invasion. Using corpus linguistics methods (namely, collocation analysis) it shows that the displaced Ukrainians were mostly referred to as (war) refugees and discussed with respect to their movement and reception in Poland. The study contrasts the construal of Ukrainian refugees in media outlets with different ideological and business aims. The findings are also discussed with respect to how European media tend to cover (...) immigration from other regions, notably the Middle East and North Africa, and how these two types of migration become linked in the analysed news reports. Altogether, while pointing to a potential of the media to shape positive attitudes towards refugees, as attested by their coverage of Ukrainians, the study also highlights the extent to which racism is likely to determine the construal of different groups of migrants. (shrink)

Written by an international team of leading political and legal theory scholars whose writings have contributed to shaping the field, Migration in Political Theory presents seminal new work on the ethics of movement and membership. The volume addresses challenging and under-researched themes on the subject of migration, and debates the question of whether we ought to recognize a human right to immigrate, and whether it might be legitimate to restrict emigration. The authors critically examine criteria for selecting would-be (...) migrants, and for acquiring citizenship, as well as the tensions between the claims of immigrants and existing residents, and tackle questions of migrant worker exploitation and responsibility for refugees. All of the chapters illustrate the importance of drawing on the tools of political theory to clarifying, criticize and challenge the current terms of the migration debate. (shrink)

This essay develops, within the terms of the recent New York Declaration, an account of the shared responsibility of states to refugees and of how the character of that responsibility effects the ways in which it can be fairly shared. However, it also moves beyond the question of the general obligations that states owe to refugees to consider ways in which refugee choices and refugee voice can be given appropriate standing with the global governance of refuge. It offers an argument (...) for the normative significance of refugee’s reasons for choosing states of asylum and linked this to consideration of a refugee matching system and to refugee quota trading conceived as responsibility-trading, before turning to the issue of the inclusion of refugee voice in relation to the justification of the norms of refugee governance and in relation to the institutions and practices of refugee governance through which those norms are given practical expression. (shrink)

This article sets out the principal ethical considerations for a just immigration policy. Advocates of a more liberal immigration regime have called for open borders or at least a more relaxed immigration policy. They argue that it is incompatible with basic rights such as freedom of movement, association, and opportunity. Furthermore, the use of coercion to prevent needy people from seeking opportunities abroad sits uneasily in a world of massive inequalities divided along geographical and state lines, as well as the (...) large number of refugees. At the other end of the spectrum, many individuals and groups protest immigration levels and their real or imagined effect on jobs, wages, and culture. The article briefly discusses the causes of migration and the implications of moral theory for immigration policy. It gives special consideration to the case of refugees and addresses the difficult question of how states should treat guest workers and undocumented immigrants. (shrink)

The coming of mathematicians to the United States fleeing the spread of Nazism presented a serious problem to the American mathematical community. The persistence of the Depression had endangered the promising growth of mathematics in the United States. Leading mathematicians were concerned about the career prospects of their students. They feared that placing large numbers of refugees would exacerbate already present nationalistic and anti-Semitic sentiments. The paper surveys a sequence of events in which the leading mathematicians reacted to the foreign-born (...) and to the spread of Nazism, culminating in the decisions by the American Mathematical Society to found the journal Mathematical reviews and to form a War Preparedness Committee in September 1939. The most obvious consequence of the migration was an enlarged role for applied mathematics. (shrink)

The most recent global refugee figures are staggering, with over 82.4 million people forcibly displaced and 26.4 million registered refugees. The ongoing conflict in Syria is a major contributor. After a decade of violence and destabilization, over 13.4million Syrians have been displaced, including 6.7 million internally displaced persons and 6.7 million refugees registered in other countries. Beyond the immediate political and economic challenges, an essential component of any response to this humanitarian crisis must be health-related, including policies and interventions specific (...) to mental health. This policy and practice review addresses refugee mental health in the context of the Syrian crisis, providing an update and overview of the current situation while exploring new initiatives in mental health research and global health policy that can help strengthen and expand services. Relevant global health policy frameworks are first briefly introduced, followed by a short summary of recent research on refugee mental health. We then provide an update on the current status of research, service provision, and health policy in the leading destinations for Syrians who have been forcibly displaced. This starts within Syria and then turns to Turkey, Lebanon, Jordan, and Germany. Finally, several general recommendations are discussed, including the pressing need for more data at each phase of migration, the expansion of integrated mental health services, and the explicit inclusion and prioritization of refugee mental health in national and global health policy. (shrink)

All migration politics are reproductive politics. The nation-state project of controlling migration secures the racialised demographics of the nation, understood as a reproducible fact of the social and human body, determining who is differentially included, who is excluded, and who is exalted. In this commentary, we put forward a provocation about methodological heteronormativity and its omnipresence in the discourse surrounding the so-called “refugee crisis.” By methodological heteronormativity, we refer to the ways states, supranational organisations, hegemonic ideologies, but also (...) solidarity movements and critical scholars construct the figure of the (un)deserving “refugee.”. (shrink)

Refugee migration leads to increased diversity in host societies and refugees have to face many stereotyped attitudes in the host society. However, there has been little research on minority group stereotypes toward host society members and how these stereotypes relate to the acculturation-relevant attitudes of refugees in their first phase of acculturation. This study surveyed 783 refugees in Germany who had migrated mostly in the so-called “refugee crisis” between 2015 and 2016. At the time of the survey in 2018, (...) they had been in Germany for an average of 27 months. These refugees reported their positive and negative sociability stereotypes toward German host society members, acculturation-related orientations, shared reality values, and perceived discrimination. Results showed that positive sociability stereotypes toward host society members were associated with increased cultural adoption and shared reality. In contrast, negative sociability stereotypes negatively affected cultural adoption and shared reality. However, stereotypes showed no association at all with cultural maintenance. Interactions between sociability stereotypes and discrimination experiences highlighted a disillusion effect, in the sense that discrimination reduced the motivation to adopt the host culture more strongly among refugees who held strongly positive sociability stereotypes. The study extends knowledge on the significance of minority group stereotypes in the context of refugee migration and reveals the maladaptive consequences of discriminatory behavior against refugees by host society members. (shrink)

In the wake of the recent global refugee and migration crisis, Hannah Arendt’s defense of the right to have political rights has become prominent again. Her work is read as an early reminder that the internationally promoted human rights regime may be merely a rhetorical reference, without the will or international authority for political action. I examine Arendt’s analysis in its historical context and then turn to consider Ricœur’s understanding of human rights. The capability to respond to and to (...) be held accountable by others marks Ricœur’s ethics of responsibility. He agrees with Arendt that legal authority must rest upon power and not domination, but he insists that the undercurrent of common power is the moral capability of an agent. The essay examines the ramifications of Ricœur’s ethics for the current crisis of refugees and migration, and it argues that he offers, at the same time, a correction useful for the ethical foundation of human rights. (shrink)

This comparative content analysis of Belgian and Swedish newspaper coverage of the ‘refugee situation’ in 2015 (N=898) revolves around responsibility indicators, news actor characteristics, and thematic emphasis. As they are a potential influential factor in the public-opinion formation process, the studying of media portrayals is an essential first step in investigating the dynamic interplay between media discourse and societal reactions. Belgium and Sweden differ with respect to migration policy, integration indicators, and the number of incoming refugees. They also differ (...) in terms of journalistic cultural values. As a result, they make for an excellent case study of intercultural differences and similarities in how refugees are reported on. Our analysis made clear that Belgian news coverage shows regional diversity, with Francophone Belgian journalists showing more tolerance towards migrants and thus tending to be more in line with their Swedish counterparts. Still, refugees are seldom allowed to speak for themselves. This warrants attention and action by news professionals. (shrink)

The current European ‘migration crisis’ encompasses increasing rates of migration and the accompanying failure of migrants, including both economic migrants and refugees, to integrate. In this paper, I focus on a normative analysis of the entry fee immigration system, providing both an internal and external critique. In the internal critique, I take for granted that states are best understood as clubs. However, states seem to share greater similarities with clubs that are too exclusive to allow membership to be (...) purchased. In the external critique, I argue that imposing a substantial entry fee on club membership is impermissible if exclusion from membership deprives non-members of basic rights and interests, even if measures are taken to equalise their ability to pay. The upshot of the internal and external critique, I believe, is that membership ought not to be contingent on the payment of a fee, or more generally, the acceptance of current members. (shrink)

Wars and crises worldwide force millions of people to flee and seek refuge, often outside their countries of origin. What moral responsibilities do states have towards refugees? In this Ethical Annotation, Dr Jos Philips and his co-authors zoom in on the responsibilities of EU countries. They consider arguments in favour of and against admitting refugees and argue that EU countries must do at least at much as they can do at little cost, and perhaps even more.

In this chapter I focus on two problems facing immigration systems around the world, and Australia in particular. The topics addressed are chosen because each one involves important fundamental rights and because significant improvement in these areas is possible even if each state acts alone, without significant coordination with others. First, I examine refugee programmes, focussing specifically on the ‘two- tier’ refugee programmes pioneered by Australia with the introduction of Temporary Protection Visas by the Howard Government in 1999. Next, I (...) look at recent declines in refugee resettlement schemes from already stingy levels and, in relation to Australia in particular, I show how the tying of resettlement numbers to the number of affirmative asylum claims granted is both wrong- headed and counterproductive. The second area of immigration policy explored is family migration, another area where immigration systems around the world have been moving in the wrong direction, often via less than transparent administrative processes. Australia is no exception. While Australia’s family migration system is reasonably good on its face, in practice there are several factors which make the programme significantly less than satisfactory from the perspective of protecting the basic rights of migrants and, arguably more importantly, citizens. These problems can and should be fixed in straightforward ways, and since doing so would be more just, would have few— if any— significant negative consequences, and in fact would have a number of clear benefits, those changes should be made. (shrink)

"Our grandparents, refugees; Our parents, immigrants; We, racists?" The slogan that prefaces the paper provides the theoretical caveat for the tensions, limitations, and contradictions of academic discourses in conjuring the daily realities of the era of the 'refugee crisis' in Greece. This paper has the form of a dialogue between a visual sociologist (Myrto) and a political theorist (Anna) who investigate different forms of the ways the 'refugee crisis' is changing the socio-political landscapes in Greece. The multiple aspects of our (...) identities provide valuable tools with which we unpack the multiple and contradictory narratives of researching, learning, and disseminating in the current milieu. In particular, we are interested in the ways we shape knowledge and the tension between the episte-mological and the ontological ways of knowing. In other words, by moving from theory to praxis and back, we are attempting to reconcile the problem of knowing and the problem of being part of a specific crisis milieu. For example, how can we use crisis as a research methodology? What can we learn from the ongoing 'refugee crisis' in relation to issues of citizenship, belonging, and the future of the European project? Furthermore, the paper attempts to transcend discursive borders between social sciences and the humanities by analysing the deeply performative, situated and embodied practices of doing research in moments of crisis. For example, how to navigate multiple, and at times contradictory, aspects of one's identity without returning to outmoded discourses of positivism and objectivity? (shrink)

This book brings together philosophical, social-theoretical and empirically oriented contributions on the philosophical and socio-theoretical debate on migration and integration, using the instruments of recognition as a normative and social-scientific category. Furthermore, the theoretical and practical implications of recognition theory are reflected through the case of migration. Migration movements, refugees and the associated tensions are phenomena that have become the focus of scientific, political and public debate in recent years. Migrants, in particular refugees, face many injustices and (...) are especially vulnerable, but the right-wing political discourse presents them as threats to social order and stability. This book shows what a critical theory of recognition can contribute to the debate. The book is suitable for researchers in philosophy, social theory and migration research. "A profound examination of how states and societies struggle to recognize migrants as fellow human beings in all their fullness. The contributions are exceptional for combining astute philosophy and social theory with a discussion of actual politics and real lives." Dr. Hugo Slim “This impressive and timely volume offers an innovative way of understanding the issues of migration and integration by using a critical theory of recognition. Recognition theory has rich potential for effectively responding to the issues of autonomy, identity, integration, and empowerment that are at the core of the current public debates on mass migration, displacement, and the refugee crisis. By examining the normative and policy implications of recognition as they apply to migration, the book offers a pathbreaking look at the human dimension of the debate.” Dr. Helle Porsdam. (shrink)

This article considers the current global trend of Internally Displaced Persons and the Refugee Crisis, which have become serious concerns for most nations of the world and for the Church. While not limiting the discussion to the current refugee situation, the article focuses more on the circumstances faced by IDPs in Nigeria and the factors that led to this situation. The article brings a Biblical perspective to the situation, as it also looks at the role that theological education can play (...) in stemming the migration tide. Bibliographic and ethnographic tools used in eliciting data reveal that theological education has a role in critically assessing the IDP situation and finding a way out of it. Also, theological education can be a prophetic voice for the Church and society in condemning the factors that lead to crises, and even in urging and encouraging both the government and the Church to fulfil their responsibilities. (shrink)

The underlying idea of the notion ‘environmental refugee’ is simple: environmental problems make certain regions less fit for human habitation and people are therefore forced to migrate. However, much of the debate on environmental refugees is polarised. It is argued that this polarisation follows from two different perspectives. The first points to the responsibility of industrial countries with regard to their contribution to environmental problems. The second is interested in policies towards particular refugees. With regard to the latter perspective, there (...) are two fundamental problems with the notion ‘environmental refugee’: the environmental cause cannot be easily disentangled from other causal factors and the idea of environmental cause covers too many substantially different subgroups. These problems can be met by a more refined classification. The debate is focused for the most part on one category, namely ‘deterioration refugees’. The main problem of this group is that they cannot be distinguished from the broader group of economic migrants. However, there is a subgroup of deterioration refugees in which the environmental cause can be separated from other causes, thus reinforcing this group’s claim to be helped. (shrink)

In order for a state to rightfully exercise self-determination by means of setting policies concerning migrants and migration, they must be legitimate, Gillian Brock argues in _Justice for People on the Move_. Legitimacy, in Brock’s view, requires that states satisfy three (jointly sufficient) conditions: they must respect their own citizens’ human rights; they must be a part of a legitimate state system; and they must adequately contribute to the maintenance of this state system. In her new book, Brock also (...) argues persuasively for a variety of migration-related policies that states ought to adopt (concerning, for example, addressing the needs of refugees, regularization of undocumented migrants, and protections for temporary labor migrants). In previous work (Brock, _Global Justice: A Cosmopolitan Account_, Oxford University Press, New York, 2009; Brock and Blake, _Debating Brain Drain: May Governments Restrict Emigration?_, Oxford University Press, New York, 2015), Brock has compellingly defended the justice of policies designed to allay the harmful effects of brain drain. In this commentary, I wish to argue that the legitimacy standard Brock defends in _Justice for People on the Move_ is an obstacle to the justified adoption of the migration-related policies Brock demonstrates here and in previous work to be substantively morally justified, if not required by justice. If a state is not legitimate, then it lacks the moral standing to adopt migration policies that are otherwise morally justified. I do not intend to question the importance of the concept of state legitimacy for political philosophy generally. However, I wish to argue that that in the context of migration justice, considerations of state legitimacy may be contrary to the goal of defending a view on what policies a state ought to adopt. It may be more useful simply to consider whether or not there is moral justification for a particular state to adopt a particular policy. (shrink)

Media coverage of migration and migrants can exert considerable influence on the public’s understanding of and attitudes towards migration. During the peak of what has been called ‘the refugee crisis’ in 2015, heated discussions about immigration and its possible impact filled the media landscape. This study focuses specifically on the news framing of insecurities regarding immigration, exploring what we have termed ‘uncertainty frames’ in the coverage of refugees, asylum seekers and immigrants. This study will thus lend empirical support (...) to a novel attempt to combine the concepts of uncertainty, risk, and framing. These frames were analyzed within French and Austrian media from 2015 to 2016. Drawing on a content analysis of tabloid and broadsheet articles, different types of uncertainty frames (economy, values, society, etc.) as well as different types of solution frames (the kind of solutions provided for the issue of immigration) were examined. Results suggest that even though all frames decrease in salience over time, important variations in different types of uncertainty frames do appear. It is argued that frames related to abstract issues seem to stay more salient throughout time in both countries. (shrink)

This paper advances a historical and philosophical explanation of the dynamics of irregular migration and the EU-external border policy in Africa. The refugee crisis in Europe has led to tougher security measures, including the EU’s externalization of its boundaries to transit countries with serious implication for human security and regional stability in Africa. In re-assessing the foundation of international migration policies through historical and philosophical lenses, this work brings to the fore the internal contradictions in EU-external border policy (...) in Africa. Whereas migration studies have drawn insights from political and applied moral philosophy, this approach is rare in the debate on irregular migration and informal transborder flows between the EU and Africa. The article particularly unveils the inter-relational complexity between globalization, migration, human rights and development. The approach is qualitative based on the critical analysis of ethnographic survey, government documents, mass media reports and existing literature. Underpinned by the philosophical tenets of the Hobbesian “collective right” and Lockean concept of “inalienable” human rights, as well as the discourse on the “priority thesis”, it concludes that the resolution of the migration dilemma lies in the ethical modification of the immigration laws in line with the universal notion of democratic values, the rule of law, human rights and the reality of global inter-connectivity. Keywords: Africa, External Border Control, European Union, Development, Human Rights, Irregular Migration; Priority Thesis. (shrink)

In recent years there has been a great deal of activity and discussion on the appropriate treatment of refugees and asylum-seekers. The increasing number of asylum-seekers in Western Europe, which peaked in Germany with more than 438,000 requests in 1992 alone, has been at the root of the political debate. The administrations involved seem to be unable to cope adequately with such increases, a fact which in its turn has given rise to a variety of humanitarian and juridical problems .It (...) is not my intention here to discuss the many technical facets of this social issue . I prefer, rather, to offer a socio-ethical reflection on one particular and fundamental aspect of our attitude toward refugees, namely, the apparently unavoidable fact that they are set against the background issues of migration and social integration. In their host countries refugees have in fact been perceived primarily as immigrants and foreigners, not as refugees.It is also not my intention to make an a priori judgment on the question. Instead, I would like to begin by inquiring into the historical and structural factors which have defined our perception of the issue. It will become clear that we can only achieve an ethically adequate treatment of refugees if we are prepared to rectify the much broader problem of our attitude to foreigners as such. (shrink)

A rational migration policy has to be based on a coherent set of objectives and its instruments have to be chosen so as to best achieve these objectives. If the focus of migration policy is on the interests of the receiving country, it has to be decided, firstly, how many and what kind of immigrants are to be invited and, secondly, how many refugees are to be accepted for humanitarian reasons. The former are supposed to live permanently in (...) the receiving country, while the latter may stay only temporarily. For the determination of these objectives, the economic and the non-economic consequences of immigration for the native population need to be analyzed. As there will be conflicts of interest, an open debate about the objectives of migration policy is necessary. In particular, it needs to be acknowledged that economic self-interest motivates, at least in part, both the critics and the proponents of immigration. Only when objectives have been agreed upon, can the appropriate instruments be chosen. Among those, the instrument of the entrance fee may play an important role, especially with regard to selecting qualified immigrants. (shrink)

The fourth-century B.C. was a period during which a large number of Greek cities were affected by civil wars, military conquests, and destruction, with the displacement of large numbers of men, women and children as a result. This has implications for the modern debate on Athenian attitudes to immigration, which normally focuses on just two groups of free non-citizens: adult, able-bodied men who moved to Athens voluntarily to take advantage of the city’s economic opportunities and on the free non-citizen population (...) who had come to Athens as slaves and who stayed on after their manumission. This article argues that refugees were likely to have constituted a considerable component of the migration to Athens during certain troubled periods in the course of the fourth century. This means that the size of Athens’s immigrant population was likely to have fluctuated considerably, that many of the refugees would have been destitute, that women and children may have made up an even greater proportion of the non-citizen population than normally assumed, and, thus, that a considerable number of these immigrants would not have been able to contribute substantially to Athens’s grain trade or military. The implications of this for our assessment of the Athenian motives for admitting groups of refugees are discussed, and it is argued that the requirement that all male and all unaccompanied female immigrants had to find an Athenian sponsor and pay a special metic tax may have constituted a certain level of control over immigrant numbers. (shrink)

Crises of forced migration are, unfortunately, nothing new. At the time of the writing of this paper, at least two such crises were in full swing – mass movements from the Middle East and parts of Africa to the E.U., and major movements from Central America to the Southern U.S. border, including movements by large numbers of families and unaccompanied minors. These movements are complex, with multiple causes, and it is always risky to attempt to craft either general policy (...) or philosophical positions in response to salient crises. However, both of these instances do bring to the foreground important questions about the proper purpose and extent of refugee protection as a means of dealing with crises of forced migration. In particular, both of these instances force us to consider what role persecution on the basis of a protected ground – race, religion, nationality, membership in a particular social group, or political opinion – ought to play in granting refugee protection, and whether our response to those in danger should change if the agents of persecution are non-state actors. This paper is not primarily about the problems arising from Syria or Central America. In a way similar to how hard cases make bad law, I contend that a too central focus on salient crises tends to lead to bad theory and often to bad general policy. However, if I am successful in my goal of clarifying the place of persecution and non-state action in refugee protection, then we may in turn be better able to think clearly about our current crisis situations. -/- In this paper I will first draw on my previous work on the normative logic of the refugee convention to argue that, while persecution should play an important, and even central, role in our thinking about refugees, this importance is shallow and pragmatic rather than deep and fundamental. Next, I will show how this conclusion supports the claim that harms amounting to persecution by non-state actors may ground an asylum claim, at least in some cases, both when the state is unwilling and when it is unable to protect its members. I consider two cases: first, instances where the authority and power of the state has been usurped by another power, and second, when the state has (implicitly or explicitly) delegated its power or authority to non-state actors. I will show how this leads to extending asylum to a broader range of people than traditional accounts would. -/- (To download this paper, please use the link from SSRN below.). (shrink)

Two sample populations, one refugee and one resident, were studied. The frequencies of consanguineous marriages came out to be 49·8% and 55·4%, respectively, for the refugees and the residents. Caste endogamy was dominant both in the residents and the refugees. The mean coefficient of inbreeding was calculated to be 0·0303 for the refugee population and 0·0332 for the resident population samples. First cousin marriage was the dominant type of marriage in both samples; fathers daughter (FBD) marriage was more frequent among (...) the refugees while mothers daughter (MBD) marriage was more frequent among the residents. Education has no decreasing effect on the incidence of consanguineous marriages. A significant difference in the pattern of marriages in the refugees is observed after the Saur Revolution of 1979. (shrink)

In the years to come, a great number of people are going to be displaced due to climate change. Climate refugees are going to migrate to find somewhere more hospitable to live. In light of this, many countries are likely to try to prevent the influx of climate refugees, and more specifically argue that they cannot reasonably be required to take in large numbers of refugees as this is simply too demanding. This objection—the demandingness objection to taking in climate refugees—is (...) the focus of the present article. The ‘demandingness objection’ is clarified in greater detail. And it is pointed out that it relies on agent-relative options and that, according to what is dubbed ‘Kagan’s conditional’, agent-relative options require an agent-relative constraint against harming. This constraint, however, is violated when states significantly contribute to climate change and thus cause people to be harmed by the effects thereof. On this basis, it is argued that such states forfeit their right to invoke the demandingness objection. Roughly, when a state violates an individual’s right not to be harmed, it owes that individual to undo the harmful condition, or if that is not possible at least some form of compensation, and it cannot be relieved from that obligation by simply pointing out that it is costly to comply with it. (shrink)