Exile to Poverty: Policies and Poverty Among Refugees in Poland

Poverty is a well‐known short‐term outcome of migration in general and a long‐term outcome of forced migration in a global context. Surprisingly, this outcome appears among refugees in welfare states which provide various asylum and social policies facilitating integration. The article aims to explore the relationship between asylum and social policies and poverty among refugees. The research results are drawn from two studies conducted among refugees, NGOs, national and local administration representatives, and case workers in Poland between 2006 and 2014. The results show that asylum policy contributes to the material and symbolic hardship experienced by refugees, and social policy is ineffective in its prevention. If refugees are settled in regions with high levels of poverty, unemployment and ethnic‐based prejudices, then they experience and continue to live in poverty. In such a context, and due to its weaknesses in addressing discrimination, social policy cannot successfully integrate refugees.     

Refugees in Greece: Facing a Multifaceted Labyrinth

The years after 2015 were remarkable for the reception and accommodation schemes of refugees fleeing Syria, Iraq and Afghanistan. The EU‐Turkey common statement of March 2016 and, most of all, the sealing of the Balkan corridor, blocked the flow of refugees towards central Europe through Greece, testing the readiness of the Greek authorities to take action to meet a series of urgent needs (accommodation, nutrition, asylum procedures, health) and social integration processes (education, training, access to labour). Approximately 45,000 refugees are settled in refugee camps or urban settlements all over the country. Those entrapped in the Eastern Aegean islands should be returned to Turkey, which is considered a “safe third country”. The purpose of this article is to shed light on a phenomenon that is ongoing and challenges a series of policies and legal principles both in Greece and the EU.     

Toward a Sociology of Knowledge of Land Surveys: The Influences of Societies and States

Although land surveys can be viewed as accomplishments of strong states, this paper shows that they are successful not because of state power, but because of two social factors, lay knowledge and the alignment of social interests. Land surveyance is a strategic research site because it is technologically and labor intensive, so it is difficult to complete. The paper uses historical methodologies of comparison and narrative to show that a national land survey was never completed in the case with the strong state, England/Great Britain/the United Kingdom, while such surveys were completed in the cases with the weak states, the United States and Italy. Where the surveys were completed, there was widespread social knowledge about them and support for surveyance.     

流亡者与生活世界

流亡作为舒茨的生活本身,构成了其思想的海德格尔式的照面(begegnen,encountered)。在此关照下,本文试图从舒茨的行动概念入手,通过将舒茨的现象学社会学置于德国社会理论的传统之中,来理解其作品中所体现出来的作为一个具体的、实在的现代人的困顿,及其困顿的终极表现——流亡。而这一舒茨作品中不言而喻的组成部分也正是我们从现代性的角度来理解其生活世界这一概念的基本出发点。     

Navigating a Hostile Terrain: Refugees and Human Rights in Southeast Asia

Countries in Southeast Asia serve as origins, transit routes, and destinations for an increasing number of refugees, asylum seekers, and other people displaced by conflict and persecution. In this article, I consider existing academic literature on refugees and forced migration and situate current trends and processes related to refugees in Southeast Asia within such work. I begin by surveying sociology material on refugees and forced migration processes in general, also drawing from related fields of human geography and interdisciplinary refugee studies. I then review current mixed migration trends and corresponding state responses in the context of globalization and contemporary conflict in Southeast Asia, placing refugee movements within this setting. Finally, using examples from the region, I consider two rough areas of inquiry in need of further sociological exploration – (i) purposive transnational refugee actions and processes and (ii) the dynamic social spaces created and developed out of refugee migration. Human rights implications of these issues are considered throughout, and suggestions to reconsider human rights protection beyond nation‐state‐focused models are given.     

Refugees and mass migration: Australia

Since World War II, Australia has experienced large-scale immigration, both refugee and other, averaging nearly 1% of the total population a year and totalling from 1947-1985 nearly 4.3 million persons. Despite a remigration loss of 23%, the net gain has totalled some 3.3 million. Refugees have been appreciable, totalling well over 500,000 and with a relatively low rate of remigration (about 7%), have comprised nearly 15% of total net migration. These refugees, however, have not come in a steady stream. From 1947-1951 and with the Indochinese refugees of 1976-1985, they contain a large number of unskilled workers who may have difficulty finding jobs, especially in their early months when they are still learning survival English. The refugees have not been homogenous in terms of culture, language, religion, or race. The 200,000 Eastern European refugees of 1947-1952 were mainly Slavic and Christian in origin; the Armenian, Assyrian, and Lebanese of the 1960s and 1970s were more oriental in language and religion; the Indochinese of recent years, although mainly Buddhist, are mixed in terms of language and ethnic origin. Refugee intake is now an important element in total immigration while special measures are taken to help refugees successfully resettle. After comparatively short time these refugees start to resemble other immigrants, and tend to become naturalized in relatively large numbers.     

Tempest-tost: Exile,ethnicity, and the politics of rescue

Refugees are individuals forced to flee from their homelands because of categorical persecution or because they are bystanders caught in the crossfire of war or civil strife. Such involuntary exile often leads to alienation in the most literal sense of the term. Whether expellees, escapees, or displaced persons, refugees share a common fate and, often, a common destiny: those who are dispossessed are dependent on others to provide care, succor, protection, and assistance. Yet responses to their plight are almost invariably highly selective, the quality of mercy being strained by considerations other than pure altruism. This paper, a commentary on the sociology of exile, attempts to convey the sense and significance of estrangement and responses to it in both historical and contemporary contexts. Early sections deal with concepts and concerns; later ones examine United States refugee policies and practices relating to exile, ethnicity, and the politics of rescue.Presidential address presented at the Eastern Sociological Society annual meeting, Arlington, Virginia, April 1992. Some parts of the address have appeared in different form in other publications by the author (see Rose, 1981, 1984, 1991).     

Refugees: On the Economics of Political Migration

Unless literally forced to leave, prospective refugees have a choice between staying and flight, subject to constraints, particularly the willingness of a country to grant asylum. Although all options may be unpleasant, they nonetheless represent alternatives amenable to economic analysis. The incentive to flee is a function of threat severity and credibility, and the attractiveness of available safe havens. The theoretical analysis suggests that restrictive asylum policies have little impact on demand for asylum, except in the interplay with other factors, such as costs of flight and retribution against unsuccessful refugees. While the case of bogus refugees has received much attention in the popular literature, this article shows that threatened individuals may choose emigration instead of flight if there are repercussions associated with refugee status. The article also analyzes the case of bogus refugees.     

A Wanderer in a Distant Place: Tibetan Exile Youth,Literacy, and Emotion

Among Tibetans living in exile in India, expressions of longing and sadness for family, friends and places in Tibet are not uniformly shared across members of the community. Time and distance have faded and idealized their homeland in the memories of long‐term exiles. Yet, for a segment of this community called New Arrivals, who have only relatively recently left Tibet, people and places “back home” are real and immediate. The immediacy of these ties to Chinese Tibet, however, often engenders perceptions of New Arrivals as Sinicised, backward and uneducated. This paper focuses on these New Arrivals in the enclave of McLeod Ganj, India, home to the Tibetan exile government and approximately 7,000 Tibetan exiles. In this predominately Tibetan area, the division between long‐term exiles and New Arrivals constitutes the dominant social boundary among McLeod Ganj Tibetans, a division that is most prominent among McLeod Ganj’s Tibetan youth. Drawing from community discourses, social networks and practices, and educational institutions, I analyse everyday written forms (e.g., poetry, letters, diary entries) to suggest that through these writings, New Arrival youth are constituting and reconstructing their marginalized position within the community. In an exile community where resources are limited, improving the position of New Arrivals can be challenging. Here, I suggest two approaches to the difficulties these youth face. First, re‐educating the larger Tibetan community in order to breakdown the prejudices that exist toward these new exiles. Second, refashioning the existing educational institutions for New Arrivals to better prepare them for employment in the Tibetan communities or elsewhere in India.     

Why Refugees Rebel: Towards a Comprehensive Theory of Refugee Militarization

Militarization by refugees can have problematic outcomes. It can undermine the sovereignty and stability of the host state, perpetuate a transnational conflict and obstruct international efforts to resolve it, and present difficulties in the provision of humanitarian assistance to needy populations. Existing literature privileges structural explanations for militarization while neglecting the agency, interests and internal politics of refugee groups. In this paper, I offer a comprehensive theory of refugee militarization that emphasizes the importance of endogenous factors, including political and economic motivations, in the context of broader structural factors, including political opportunities and resource mobilization, mediated by the presence of militancy entrepreneurs. This theory helps integrate the motivation of refugees, and the discursive framing used by militancy entrepreneurs to mobilize them, with capacity for militant activity. The need for case studies and specific policy recommendations for host states, non‐governmental organizations and international stakeholders are discussed.     

A Nation in Exile: Tibetan Diaspora and the Dynamics of Long Distance Nationalism 1

This essay is an attempt to explore the dynamics of Tibetan nationalism in diaspora. I do this from three perspectives. First, I examine the techniques of contemporary nationalist uprisings among displaced communities, and I argue that the nature and character of the nationalism-in-exile is determined to a great extent by the cooperation between the community within Tibet and those outside it. Secondly, I analyse the situation where a displaced community keeps the nationalism agenda alive in isolation. Specifically, I argue that beyond whatever situation may be present in the territory with a contested sovereignty, those in the diaspora always pursue a policy to establish links and ties--both clandestine and open--with their counterparts and work in tandem in order to facilitate their cause. Thirdly, I argue that fears of persecution cannot be a basis to non-engagement with those living in the contested territory: nationalist struggle is very much like a war, and it cannot be fought effectively from outside. In addition, the aspirations of the community concerned is likely to be compromised if those in the diaspora are overwhelmingly concentrated in one host country. Further, although traditional-legal or charismatic leadership is a great uniting factor and crucial to the vision of the diasporic community, excessive dependence on it can significantly alter the course of the nationalist aspiration.     

Refugees as icons: Culture and iconic representation

The September 2015 photograph of Alan Kurdi, a 3‐year‐old Syrian boy, lying facedown and dead on a Turkish beach, quickly became an iconic representation of Europe's “refugee crisis.” Even though images of distant suffering of refugees have become ubiquitous, only a few become iconic. It is this cultural process of iconization that often bedevils sociologists interested in visuality. How does an image gain the necessary currency to sway public opinion or even policy making? Why do some photographs elicit profound compassion that transcends the borders of its particular context? In this review, we explore how various authors have addressed these questions, focusing on the iconic images of Alan Kurdi. The “iconic turn” in cultural sociology and in the social sciences more broadly speaking offers theoretical and methodological insights for the analysis of images such as those depicting refugees and asylum seekers. For this reason, we situate the current work in the field of refugee photography within the framework of cultural sociology, even if many of the scholars discussed are from other disciplines.     

Agency and Organization: Toward a Cyborg-Consciousness

The presumption that agency is primarily thefunction or personification of a naturalized humanactant can be traced through a Western intellectualtradition which draws upon a dualistic conception of the self as a unified, productive, sovereignsubject, and an independent, external, physical other.In this paper, I problematize the prevalence of suchCartesian differentiation. I review an alternative, postfoundational actant ontology, then tracethe resemblances in the work on situated knowledges.These orientations challenge the hierarchical divisionbetween the internal self and the external other and instead emphasize the relational, material,and performative nature of human being . Drawing on thenotion of proximal thinking, I suggest that formalorganizations can productively be described as relational spaces, containing multiple andcomplex frontiers, frames and interfaces, with(in) whichostensibly differentiated and individualistic attitudestoward agency give way to the variety and possibility of the self-in-between; a cyborg-consciousnessable to withstand the tension of partial identities andcontradictory voices.     

Students and Refugees Together: Towards a Model of Practice Learning as Service Provision

Between 2001 and 2003, 14 assessed placements were provided for social work students through students creating a ‘virtual’ agency offering a service to refugees and asylum seekers. Drawing on research in progress regarding a unique project in South West England, this paper explores an inclusive model that creates a context for students to integrate theory and practice at the cutting edge of professional practice.

The START project is a service to refugees and asylum seekers, a group that experience acute social exclusion and media‐induced hostility, provided for two years entirely by students as part of their professional course requirements. Holistic, needs‐led assessment, cultural sensitivity and advocacy by students allow families and unaccompanied minors to access otherwise inaccessible resources.

In the current context of changing arrangements for practice assessment, emphasis on multi‐disciplinary learning and service user involvement, this offers an alternative to the ‘apprenticeship’ model for students in developing a secure professional identity. Student learning is framed as contribution rather than burden in the organisational and employment arena and service‐user outcomes have been dramatic. The focus of this paper is on the educational impact from the perspectives of students and practice teachers and an alternative model of practice learning.     

National Governance Frameworks in the Global Compact on Refugees: Dangers and Opportunities

This article examines the treatment of national governance frameworks in the Global Compact on Refugees. Given that national governance frameworks are the primary determinants of whether a refugee can live safely, move freely, work, and access state and private services such as education, healthcare, banking and justice, their treatment in the Global Compact has important implications for future prospects for local integration, the durable solution least‐often discussed but most likely to become the de facto reality for most of the world's refugees.     

Leaving a legacy: Toward a typology

This article explores the understudied phenomenon of legacy as a component of the aging experience. Against a backdrop of almost exclusive prior focus on transmission of material possessions as the primary form of legacy, the concept is critically examined in developing an expanded, theoretically and empirically grounded perspective. In-depth interviews conducted with 14 adults, ranging in age from 31 to 94 and representing diverse marital, parental and health statuses, reveal multiple dimensions of leaving a legacy in terms of content, creation and transmission. A typology of three distinct but overlapping categories of legacy was identified: biological legacy, material legacy and a legacy of values. Sub-types were identified within each category. Each participant clearly articulated and identified with at least one form of legacy and the majority expressed all three types but with varying degrees of intensity and with the legacy of values viewed as more important than other forms of legacy The findings suggest the need and potential for developing deeper insight into a component of the aging experience that may assume particular significance toward the end of life.