POWER AND REFUGEES

Power, noun, is a concept for which there is no single definition. Theorizing the idea of power in a universal way is impossible, since there is no consensus in the academy about what power is, or how it manifests itself (Foucault, 2000 [1982]). Power relations permeate all spheres of society, and their imbalances generate the social hierarchies from which inequalities are born. To analyze power relations and their influences on sociospatial inequality, this section of the paper will draw on Michel Foucault’s reflections on power and the subject, Maria Cristina Santinho’s1 research on the situation of refugees in Europe, and Jorge2 e Aline Rocha’s3 studies and interpretations of some concepts posited by Foucault.

Thought of as an expression of will, or just having that possibility, power is not an inherently good or bad “potency” - after all, nothing is. It is just a capacity. And social inequality is a convenient product for the maintenance of power relations that dictate what an individual is and how they should act within a society. In this context, Foucault states that the study of power, in its lack of definition, should always be accompanied by a spatial and temporal contextualization to really understand how it can be analyzed.

In the case of this dissertation, the context of the study of power relations is both the current Fontaínhas region, with its underutilized spaces and marginal character, and the Fontaínhas of the future, post urban revitalization plan and with a new group of immigrant residents looking for their place. And then a first question is posed: how can the architect help marginalized groups find “their place”?

Foucault says that the notion of individuality that

1 Maria Cristina Santinho is a researcher at the Center for Research and Studies in Sociology, Research Network in Anthropology, ISCTE - Instituto Universitário de Lisboa, Portugal.

2 Jorge Alberto da Costa Rocha is a professor at the State University of Feira de Santana (UEFS), PhD in Teaching, Philosophy, and History of Science from the Federal University of Bahia (UFBA).

3 Aline Santana dos Santos Rocha is a professor at Salvador University (UNIFACS), with a Master’s degree and a degree in History from UEFS.

leads each subject to recognize their place, their influence, and their power is shaped by truths that are told to them during their lifetime. Through the truths, which determine by antagonism the falsities (Rocha & Rocha, 2019) - or what follows the norm and what diverges from it - each individual understands their place as a subject in society, and consequently the place of the other. The subject is, therefore, a product of the discourses deferred by the bodies that have the power to transmit truths, namely the government, science, school, family, and all the systems that reproduce them.

“[...] as truth I understand not a kind of general norm, a series of propositions. I understand as truth the set of procedures that allow at each instant and to each one to pronounce statements that will be considered as true.”

(“Pouvoir et savoir”, DE, III, 1994, p. 407, apud. Rocha & Rocha, 2019, p. 38. Translated by the author.)

Through discourses of truth, individuals have their existence validated or invalidated by processes designated by Foucault as dividing practices. The information they consume, the “facts”, end up creating a database by which everyone conforms, and dictating ways to act as well as to punish. Society regulates itself in this way: the subjects insert themselves into a state of order, and within it identify and correct those who break the rule (Foucault, 2000 [1977]). This differentiation automatically creates a division between “us” and “them,” a differentiation that is essential for the maintenance of existing power relations.

The “us” and the “them,” in the framework of this dissertation, are respectively the local population of a country and the refugees who go there seeking shelter. Beyond the dividing discourses that associate being different with something negative, refugees have to face a lack of trust that further complicates a bureaucratic process already created to their disadvantage. Santinho’s studies in her text Afinal, que asilo é este que não nos protege? put forward some points that allow us to understand the various layers of political and economic discourse that have contributed to the marginalization of refugees:

1. During the years of capitalism’s growth, migration between countries was at many times stimulated in order to create a large proletarian contingent for an expanding economic system. Today, however, with the system already consolidated and evolved, this need no longer exists, and the movement of capital and information is much more valued than the movement of people.

2. Several historical events have led to the increasing vilification of “all those who are perceived as strangers” (Santinho, 2013), such as the creation of walls on the US-Mexico border, the occupation of territories in Palestine, the refugee “crisis” that has affected Europe since 2012, among other examples. Moreover, the “war on terror” that gained traction after September 11, 2001, has led to a generalized distrust of all asylum seekers and the validity of their claims.

3. The conceptualization of the idea of forced migration, as compared to unforced migration, has created a hierarchy in which the former has become synonymous with unwanted migration. And the propagation of this “truth” (related to the ideas of truth posed by Foucault) has ultimately shaped the way that both the population and the law deals with refugees.

The reality is that border policies are not designed to guarantee the human rights of immigrants, as was decreed by the Geneva Convention in 1951. The only ones protected by legislation are, in fact, the borders. The state thus inserts itself in a cyclical system: since immigration policies are created around the truth that the state must protect the population from outsiders - to prevent terrorism, to save their jobs, to stop the illegal transportation of refugees, among other commonly disseminated justifications - if the government suddenly favored them, the whole regime of truths would be called into question, and with it the validity of the state.

What the process of marginalization does, therefore, is strip refugees of their power. In a vulnerable situation, as a result of unplanned immigration for survival, the position of asylum seekers in Europe in the face of endless bureaucracies is one of submission and waiting.

“[Refugees] Are therefore trapped in a determined time and place, subject not to their own decisions about how they will conduct their lives from then on, but conditioned by border policies at the global level or social policies at the national level, which will make them tendentially dependent and passive beings, for a long period.” (Santinho, 2013. Translated by the author.)

Given this context, we return to the question: how can architects help marginalized groups find “their place”?

Well, if in order to recognize “one’s place” one must recognize themselves and realize their power, in the sense of feeling that they have their truths validated, then spaces must be created in order to empower marginalized groups. Since power is what legitimizes an individual’s actions to them and others, the process of empowerment allows refugees to feel comfortable enough to take ownership of a space. Being currently on the oppressed side of power relations, the only way out is resistance: clashing with the current power and creating a new regime of truths (Rocha & Rocha, 2019).