Political Theory

H02(b) - Refugeehood, Identity & Agency

Date: Jun 3 | Time: 10:15am to 11:45am | Location:

Chair/Président/Présidente : Erich Daniel Luna Jacobs (University of Toronto)

Discussant/Commentateur/Commentatrice : Patti Lenard (University of Ottawa)

Institutionalizing Refugee Agency and Participation in the multi-levelled Governance of the Global Refugee Regime: Kiran Banerjee (Dalhousie University)
Abstract: This paper aims to advance a multi-scalar approach to reconceptualizing the place of forced migrants in the varying levels of governance that define the contemporary refugee regime. In doing so it responds to the emerging recognition of a growing imperative to rethink past articulations of international protection that have predominated for the last half-century. These earlier responses to displacement have largely treated refugees as objects of humanitarian intervention, giving little space for their voice or participation, thereby effacing the agency of displaced persons. Today's current moment of reflection and political possibility therefore offers to address among the deepest normative failures of the contemporary refugee regime: if refugeehood is theorized in terms of the denial what Hannah Arendt called the “right to have rights” then the treatment of displaced persons within the international system constitutes more of a continuation, rather than remedy or reprieve, of this situation. Addressing the voice and agency of refugees is urgent and long overdue. However, formulating what meaningful representation and participation constitutes in these circumstances remains challenging. To address these considerations I proceed by taking up this issue from both normative and historical perspectives to map out and complicate the way representation and participation could be understood in this context. I do so by reconstructing several distinctive models of representation to underscore the different normative considerations underlying these approaches. I conclude by showing how this should be applied to the refugee regime in order to both reform and transform contemporary international protection.

Unclaiming Belonging: The Refusal of the Refugee Identity: Erik Cardona-Gomez (SOAS, University of London)
Abstract: The refugee regime aims to provide support to refugees until state protection can be granted. Its key characteristics include: (i) the requirement for refugees to identify as such, (ii) the process of claiming asylum in a recipient state, and (iii) the obligation of recipient states not to return refugees to a country where they face persecution. A refusal of (i) translates into a rejection of (ii) and (iii). Thus, when individuals reject the refugee identity, they refuse the entire refugee regime. This paper explores this refusal, focusing on how refugees reject this imposed identity and instead embrace alternative identities that better advance their demands for justice. The paper emphasizes that the refugee identity is primarily constraining and does not provide a platform for advancing justice. It argues that refusing the refugee identity is seen as unclaiming belonging to a regime which imposes conditions such as (ii). Instead of resulting in obligations like (iii) being fulfilled, this often leads to further grievances due to the refugees' vulnerable condition. The paper also argues that the refusal of the refugee identity highlights how structures and institutions designed to guarantee some level of protection may end up reproducing structural injustices while attempting to achieve a notion of belonging.

LGBTIQ+ refugees and the civic turn in immigrant integration: Annamari Vitikainen (UiT - The Arctic University of Norway)
Abstract: This paper contributes to the political theory of queer migration and the ethics of LGBTIQ+ refugeehood by looking at the conceptual links between the so-called civic turn in immigrant integration and the recent decisions of some Western liberal states to give priority to LGBTIQ+ refugees in resettlement (e.g. Norwegian LGBTIQ+ prioritization policy, and the differentiated subsidies of the Canadian private sponsorship program). The so-called civic turn in immigrant integration emphasizes the need for all newcomers to acquire certain civic skills (e.g. language competence, knowledge of public institutions), and to respect, or, according to some more stringent views, endorse, certain public values (e.g. individual freedom, autonomy, equality). By looking at the ways in which civic integration policies are used, not only after, but also prior to migration, the paper establishes a link between the regulative aims of civic integration and LGBTIQ+ refugee resettlement selection. Independent of the normative bases for selecting LGBTIQ+ individuals for resettlement, the paper adds to the concerns according to which LGBTIQ+ communities are being used as a tool for constraining migration on morally impermissible grounds, such as ethnicity and religion. The paper portrays these concerns in a new light by illustrating how the specific risk-factors of LGBTIQ+ refugees (e.g. family; country of origin community) can be used to cater for the restrictive aims of civic integration policies both in integration (likelihood of stratification) and admission (likelihood of family reunification).

Agency as a Collective ‘In-Betweenness’: Reza Khodarahmi (University of Alberta), Mojtaba Mahdavi-Ardekani (University of Alberta)
Abstract: Human agency is often defined as the capacity to act according to one’s individual will. In this traditional framework, purposeful action and consciousness of individuals distinguish agency from externally enforced action. This explanation is blind to the ideological enforcements and the influence of structures in shaping subjects. From birth, humans enter an entwined web of social and power relations and cultural traditions that have been constructed and accumulated over millennia. They become passive recipients of social boundaries according to which reality is symbolized such as body and soul, civil society and the state, I and the other, reason and nature. If both individual will and these boundaries are social products, then agency in this framework becomes devoid of any substantial meaning, and turns into a disciplinary action. In this paper, using the notion of Adorno’s ‘negative dialectic’, I discuss that agency is possible when sharp boundaries and rigid conceptions framing reality are challenged and fluidified. In contrast to the conventional understanding of agency as rooted in a solidified, autonomous ‘I’ and ideological identity between subject and object of knowledge, I propose that agency can be reconceptualized as a collective and social ‘in-betweenness’. This approach suggests that agency is possible both for those subjects existing and living within the preestablished social relations while at the same time are excluded/degenerated symbolically and conceptually from the dominant discursive order, and for all who struggle for their right to recognition.