Refugees’ Activism:
The Role of Citizenship in the Struggle for Social Justice in Europe
A dissertation submitted in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the Msc Building and Urban Design in Development Word count: 10,379 words
Vitoria Faoro
UNIVERSITY COLLEGE LONDON, DPU Building and Urban Design in Development, September 1st 2017
CONTENT
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
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INTRODUCTION 1 CHAPTER 1. Unpacking Citizenship and Social Justice 5 1.1. The Birth of Citizenship 5 1.2. The Construction of Social Justice 10 1.3. Liberal Citizenship 14 1.4. Citizenship as ‘The Right to Have Rights’ 18
CHAPTER 2. Refugees in Europe – Activism, Policies and Responses 2.1. Refugee’ Activism - The ‘OPlatz’ Movement 2.2. European Responses to the ‘refugee crisis’
23 23 28
CONCLUSION 36
REFERENCES 39 LIST OF ACRONYMS 47 LIST OF TABLES 48 LIST OF FIGURES 49
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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
Writing this dissertation was a challenge, and I could not have done it alone. My gratitude goes to everyone who helped me in this overwhelming process. My supervisor Camillo Boano, for the encouraging comments and precise critiques; and the DPU professors for encouraging me to think critically about everything. My family for their support since the beginning, when I decided to quit my old life and follow a dream. For the small things that helped me get through the summer: Central House’s cosy chairs and cold water, the Hare Krishna’s free food and the not-so-free beers by the canal. Thanks to all the Buddies, who were essential to make this experience unforgettable. No words are enough to describe this year’s intensity and I can only feel privileged to have been a part of it.
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INTRODUCTION “In political thought and in theory, the category (or concept) of the ‘real’ should not be permitted to obscure that of the possible. Rather it is the possible that should serve as the theoretical instrument for exploring the real” (Lefebvre, 2001: 769).
The current context of mobility and urban transformation challenges the notion of borders, enabling the creation of new identities and meanings of belonging and participation, in which forced migrants’ struggles for citizenship rights arise as a mechanism of political activism that contests the concept of national citizenship. As argued by Andrijasevic and Anderson (in Nyers and Rygiel, 2012: 5), “migrants’ claims for justice and the contestation of ascribed/ prescribed categories challenges the presupposition that citizenship cannot be enacted by non-citizens”. By the end of 2016, the number of forcibly displaced people reached its peak in the history of modern society. 65.6 million people were forced to flee their homes, because of persecution, conflict, violence, or human rights violations (UNHCR, 2017). Studies show that “most people who are forced from their homes by war and persecution are either internally displaced or seek safety in a neighbouring country” (Mckinsey Global Institute, 2016: 4). However, due to the upsurge of violence and conflict, and the difficulty faced by developing countries to endure the growing flow of migrants, people are currently undertaking longer, more difficult routes in order to seek refuge in European cities (Mckinsey Global Institute, 2016). In this scenario, Europe has received 2.3 million people in 2016, roughly 3.5% of the total number of displaced people in the world, and 0.45% of Europe’s entire population. Comparatively, Turkey has received 2.9 million people, 3.9% of the country population and Lebanon 1 million, 16.6% of the country population, in the same time span. Notwithstanding, European countries claim to be suffering outstanding pressure in the current ‘crisis’.
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INTRODUCTION
In March 2016, as a response to the influx of refugees1, European Union and Turkey signed a deal that established that refugees arriving in Greece from Turkey (the most common route for refugees coming to Europe from the Middle East) would be returned to the first country, where the asylum would be processed (Kingsley, 2016; Gogou, 2017). This deal represents European Union’s current policies towards refugees, which focus on providing tools to avoid the flow of refugees into the region, instead of creating mechanisms to receive and protect them. Around that discussion, the concept of citizenship arises as a crucial concept, that can be used both to challenge or maintain the status quo and situation of refugees (Holston,1998; Kabeer, 2005; Nyers and Rygiel, 2012). Since its origin in Ancient Greece, as a means to promote men’s2 political participation in the city-state, citizenship has been the identity through which claims to political beings are enacted (Nyers, 2008). The concept’s development by different political schools, such as liberal, neoliberal, socialist and feminist, generated a set of contrasting understandings, advancing citizenship as “the normative category of choice, invoked by critics of the status quo – on both Left and Right – as a vehicle for demanding that the state do more, or less, to advance equality, justice, and participation in the civil society, economy or polity” (Shuck, 2002: 131). One of the most prominent interpretations of citizenship in the Western world is liberal citizenship. It encompasses two main features - individual membership in a nation-state and a set of rights and obligations associated with this membership. The former implies a restriction on who is entitled to these rights, inciting discussion around inclusion-exclusion. The definition of rights and obligations specified in the latter aspect are contingent to contextual and historical dimensions. However, in most liberal nation-states, the main rights conceded to citizens are political and civil rights (Jones and Gaventa, 2002; Kabeer, 2005; Schuck, 2002).
1 This dissertation employs the term refugees, without its distinction to asylum applicants, “to refer to those who for all intents and purposes are outside their countries of origin and are in need of international protection” (Crawley and Skeleparis, 2017: 2), even if their asylum application has not yet been assessed by the host country. 2 The entitlement of citizenship status in Ancient Greece is contingent to time and place. However, it is possible to affirm that it was a status exclusive to men, from which women have always been denied access. Ancient Greece citizenship characteristics will be further explored in the ‘The Birth of Citizenship’ section in this dissertation. 2
The liberal approach to citizenship is problematic insofar as it promotes an idea of citizenship that is “limited to legal provisions (…) [and] focus on gaining access and membership in an already existing political system, by its emphasis on citizens” (Caldwell, 2007:134). This definition limits the participation granted to individuals, strengthening the idea of citizenship as a tool for exclusion, rather than inclusion. In contrast with the traditional liberal definition, grassroots movements and Left political theorists, argue for a citizenship that comprises not only the promotion of political and civil rights but operates as a tool for social justice and inclusion. As pointed by Lister (2007: 51), the idea of “[an] inclusive citizenship [that] is as much about recognition as about access to formal rights” and that encompasses the norms, practices, meanings and identities (Isin and Turner in Lister, 2007: 51). In this approach, the emphasis is set precisely on the groups that are bound to be excluded in the liberal concept of citizenship, and in the possibilities for redistribution of power and participation that arise from the quest for and enactment of citizenship by such groups. The scale of the current forced displacement defies the traditional understandings of citizenship and calls for a reaction from the stakeholders involved. This dissertation will use citizenship, not as a twofold, but as a multi-layered conception, “understood as an ensemble of different forms of belonging rather than a universal or unitary conception” (Isin and Wood 1999: 21), to examine the responses provided by different actors, both in the regional European level and the everyday scale of social interaction. By one hand, refugees’ actions that challenge the exclusive character of liberal citizenship and have the “capacity to mobilise people for social justice (…) between the ideal of citizenship and its absence in the ground” (Nyers and Rygiel, 2012: 11), through the analysis of the ‘OPlatz’ movement in Berlin, Germany. On the other hand, European Union (EU) and European countries policies towards refugees, that enhance exclusion and marginalisation. This paper will be divided into two main sections. The first will focus on unpacking the different approaches to citizenship and their relation to the concept of social justice. The second section will scrutinise the current context of refugees in Europe. The previously explored concepts will be employed to analyse practices of citizenship enacted by refugees in activists demonstrations and examine the ways in which citizenship claims and practices can be used to rebalance power structures and promote agency of excluded groups. 3
This will ascertain the alternatives for social transformation that surface when refugees are seen as key protagonists in global struggles (Nyers, 2008) exploring citizenship from the bottom-up. Thus, corroborating the argument proposed by Meer and Sever (2004: 11), that:
“Bringing citizenship into development debates can help to introduce concepts of
power and inequality to such technical operations since it explores the nature and basis of
CHAPTER 1.
Unpacking Citizenship and Social Justice “The nation-state as a sovereign polity is under pressure from both below and above” (Sassen 1996a in Isin and Wood, 1999: 7).
discrimination against particular groups, and can therefore offer avenues for change”.
Responses to the ‘refugee crisis’ in Europe are not only humanitarian but also political. This can be apprehended, for example, from the harsher measures taken by European countries in 2016, with the proximity of general elections and the rise of right-wing parties (Human Rights Watch, 2017). Therefore, positioning the refugee in the centre of this discussion and giving them a voice is fundamental to promote a re-balance in the power structures of political decisions and social processes. In that sense, enactment of citizenship through insurgent acts is a political strategy that strengthens refugee participation, disrupting the established social order and offer avenues to inform formal citizenship and promote social justice from below.
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1.1. The Birth of Citizenship
In the 4th century BC, Aristotle declared that “the nature of citizenship, like that of the state, is a question which is often disputed: there is no general agreement on a single definition” (Aristotle, 1948 cited in Heater, 2004: 17). More than twenty-one centuries later, citizenship continues to be a contested concept. The understandings of citizenship developed in Ancient Greece (Sparta, Athens, Plato, and Aristotle), and the one proposed by Hobbes in the 17th century will be represented in table 1, to highlight the common threads that weave them together and present a foundation for Western modern citizenship. Whilst the objective is not to promote a deep understanding of each historical approach to citizenship, it is important to outline the variety of proposals the concept has had throughout history and its connection to the modern understandings of the concept.
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CHAPTER 1. Unpacking Citizenship and Social Justice
Context in History
Values
Citizenship Status
Rights
Duties
Spartan Citizenship
Sparta 8th century BCE
-Equality among citizens -Strong sense of community -Dependency on slaves’ labour
-Military elite
Membership in the city-state, dependent on military training
-Allotment, sufficient to provide food for the citizen’ family
-Participation in the polis (young men through military duties, old men in politics) -Community meals and exercises
Athenian Citizenship
Athens 6th- 5th century BCE
-’Isonomia’ (Equality under the law) -Redistribution of identities in the political units
-All free men
Agreement between men, to create rules and be ruled by them. Men sovereignty
-Obey the law -Serve in the armed forces
Plato Citizenship
Greece 5th- 4th century BCE
-Inequality between classes of citizens -Social cohesion and stability
-All free men, divided by labour into three classes -Inherited through both lines of descent
Membership in the city-state, dependent on the division of labour
-The chance to speak and vote in the common assembly -To stand for public office -To serve as jurors -To be protected by the law -To own land -Depending on the citizen class
Aristotle Citizenship
Greece 4th century BCE
-Common good -Small state -Community cohesion -’Concord’ state (agreement between citizens)
-Men who participate in the judicial and civic spheres
-Education -Freedom
-To rule and be ruled, aiming for the common good -Help to frame policy and laws -Operate the laws by making judgements
Hobbes Citizenship
British Civil War 17th Century
-Protection -Obedience
-Based on a social contract, subscribed between individual men and a sovereign representative
Men’s natural need to participate in political affairs, that is a “legally guaranteed role in creating and running government” (Taylor, 1994: 151) Agreement through a social contract
TABLE 1. Characteristics of Greek’s and Hobbes’ approaches to citizenship. Source: author. 6
Concept of Citizens
-To perform the class designated work -To vote -To be “deferent to the social and political system, are lawabiding and exercise selfcontrol” (Heater, 2004: 15)
-Right for protection -Obedience to the sovereign -Right to be represented by a sovereign authority
TABLE 1. Continued from previous page Source: author. 7
CHAPTER 1. Unpacking Citizenship and Social Justice
Ways of Claiming Rights -Finishing extensive military training
-Excluded from citizenship rights (as women and slaves)
-Subscribe to an agreement between men
-City-state has duties towards forced migrants, on universalistic basis -Relationship between hosts and refugees regulated through legal provision and religious code (Gray, 2016)
-Being part of specific working classes
-Residence is an essential part of citizenship, therefore alien individuals are not considered citizens
-Being a member of the polis that aims for the common good
-Humanitarian and universalist 3 approach. ‘Philanthropia ‘ should be directed equally at all human creatures
-Renouncing the ‘natural’ right to all things, being a part of the covenant
-Consider foreigners as threats capable of bringing back the ‘state of nature’, which legitimates the ruler’s sovereignty to take own decisions regarding migrants
TABLE 1: Continued from previous page Source: author. 8
Migrants Status
It is possible to detect in the listed characteristics, several similarities to modern conceptions of citizenship. For one, they all reflect the restrictive membership character of citizenship, which consequently promoted exclusion of certain groups in society. How the membership is acquired varies; nevertheless, in all cases, women and slaves were excluded from the status of citizens, therefore had no rights or political duties. Besides, the concept of ‘isonomia’ (equality under the law) introduced by Athenian citizenship represents a starting point to mould the idea of universal equality, which is present in liberal and neoliberal citizenship. It differs from Aristotle, who highlights the existence of peripheral categories of people, which complicate the search for a universal definition of it, such as “resident aliens who have the right of access to a state’s courts; and the old who are ‘superannuated’” (Heater, 2004: 17). Political participation represents the second common characteristic to modern citizenship. In all cases listed, it was considered a citizen’ obligation towards the ‘polis’. What is considered as participation, however, is distinct in each approach. As they continue to be nowadays, rights and duties were contingent to geographical and historical contexts, and reflect the objective of the institution of the polity. Hobbes’ polity, for example, which is based on the social contract and fear of the state of nature, has the most important right represented by protection, while Aristotle’s view, which seeks the common good of society, focus on the right to education and freedom. The analysis of table ratifies Rancière’s (in May, 2008) opinion on the historical formation of the police state. He cites Plato to demonstrate the establishment of hierarchical positions of the different actors in the Greek polis’ society, that define the degree of participation that each of them is allowed. This existence of privileged groups that define the rules of society and render excluded those to whom these rules do not apply, is introduced in the Greek Polis, reinforced in Hobbes’ social contract and maintained in Western liberal states.
3 Aristotle identified philanthropia “as the virtue through which human beings act on the solidarity which exists between them all automatically as members of the same species” (Gray, 2016: 191). 9
CHAPTER 1. Unpacking Citizenship and Social Justice
1.2. The Construction of Social Justice
Justice and citizenship are correlated ideas, evolving simultaneously through time. Thus, the analysis of citizenship must be concurrent to the analysis of justice. This dissertation argues for a definition of justice that is expressed and performed in social interactions. Starting from David Harvey’s (1998a: 15) argument, which upholds a shift in the justice paradigm, “from a predisposition to regard social justice as a matter of eternal justice and morality to regard it as something contingent upon the social processes operating in society as a whole” and based on Todd May’s (2008; 2010) work on the political thought of Jacques Rancière.
Rancière’s ideas propose regarding politics (‘democratic politics’ for May) as a matter of the subject’s contestation of his/ hers subordinate position through an act of disruption of the existing social conditions –the police order5. This order is characterised by a partition of the sensible, which refers to the ways in which people are assigned roles in social processes and how their experience of life is moulded by these established positions (May, 2008). This categorisation is biased and promotes “subjective perceptions of how people fit into different spaces in the social order and of the terms on which society should engage with them in varying contexts and at different points in time” (Moncrieffe 2007 in Crawley and Skeleparis, 2017: 2). Justice, hence, would be achieved through a process of dissensus that confronts the institutional status quo and presents alternative expressions for new perceptions, creating a collective subject and giving visibility to marginalised groups (May, 2010). The presupposition of equality is the starting point for politics to take effect.
Todd May (2008) proposes an understanding of justice that opposes the classic distributive theories of justice. May argues that distribution revolves around people’s material goods, instead of reflecting the existence of unequal opportunities for people’s participation in political and social lives. This “neglects people’s capacity for collective and autonomous action, and blunts the democratic character of political involvement” (May, 2008: 5), regarding people as passive subjects of equality. He argues for a concept of justice that arises from active equality, contrasting to its passive counterpart. For him, distribution of equality3 presupposes a hierarchy between the passive receiver and the active distributor (usually the state or an institution); nevertheless, the idea of a hierarchical system existing within the equality principle is an oxymoron. Distributive justice, then, acts not to overcome inequalities in society, but to maintain them. Based on Rancière’s idea of presupposition of equality4, May argues for active equality, which must always be declared and demonstrated by those who are counted as unequal by their communities – the marginalised and excluded; thus “challeng[ing] our institutions and our political traditions in the name of those who are not its beneficiaries” (May, 2008: 3). 3 4 ‘Presupposition of Equality’, is a theory introduced by Jacques Rancière, which assumes equality as a precondition of human nature and promotes individuals as political agents equally capable of participation. May (2008: 29) coherently explains it: “(…) if one is entitled to participate in deciding the political conditions of one’s life, this involves the assumption that one is able to engage in such decision-making alongside others. One is an equally capable political being”. 10
This provokes a reconfiguration of the actors’ centrality to the process, exposing the inequalities and injustices perpetuated by the established police order. Politics that arise from the presupposition of equality, thus, promote a reconfiguration of social space, “mak[ing] visible what had no business being seen, and makes heard a discourse where once there was only place for noise” (Rancière 1999 cited in Biesta, 2016:153). Political activity is, thus, “the appearance of that which has been excluded” (May, 2008: 49). The process of categorisation of social identities is a fundamental part of society’s established order, and it provides the “means by which we construct the social world” (Bakewell 2008 in Crawley and Skeleparis, 2017: 2). Refugees tend to be portrayed as one broad social category, distinguished from others based on their political status in relation to a nation-state and need for protection. The individual specificities existent within such label are constantly overlooked, considering them “almost like an essentialised anthropological ‘tribe’, refugees thus become not just a mixed
5 ‘Police order’, refers to the established hierarchical “proper social order” (May, 2008: 42) that controls the modes of participation imposed on people. As described by Rancière (1995 in May, 2008: 41): “What generally goes by the name of politics is the set of procedures whereby the aggregation and consent of collectivities is achieved, the organisation of powers, the distribution of places and roles, and the systems for legitimising this distribution. I propose to give this system of distribution and legitimization another name. I propose to call it the police”. 11
CHAPTER 1. Unpacking Citizenship and Social Justice
category of people sharing a certain legal status; they become ‘a culture’, ‘an identity’, ‘a socialworld’, or ‘a community’” (Malkki, 1995: 511). In this regard, it is essential to consider an intersectional approach to social justice, such as to oppose identity politics. Fraser (2000: 112) argues that “to impose a single, drastically simplified group-identity which denies the complexity of people’s lives, the multiplicity of their identifications and the cross-pulls of their various affiliations (…) serves as a vehicle for misrecognition”. On the same path, May proposes that “lives are not all of one kind, even under the same social conditions” (May, 2008: 21). Understanding the relationship among multiple dimensions and modalities of social relations (McCall, 2005: 1771) through a holistic and intersectional approach helps to unpack categories and identify historical processes and relations of power that obstruct participation for such individuals. Active participation as an expression of social justice is also put forward by Nancy Fraser’s (1996, 2005) theory of parity of participation, which refers to “social arrangements that permit all to participate as peers in social life” (Fraser, 2005: 73) and involves the scrutiny of hindrances that interfere in such participation. She asserts that these exist in different spheres of society, namely social, economic and political and that “overcoming injustice means dismantling institutionalised obstacles that prevent some people from participating on a par with other, as full partners in social interaction” (Fraser, 2005: 73). Therefore, the analysis of justice cannot be performed through the examination of isolated spheres of society. Rather, it encourages a comprehensive approach to social justice, that reflects the complex entanglements between the political, economic and social spheres of society. Fraser’s ‘parity of participation’ theory resonates with Rancière’s ‘presupposition of equality’ since it considers justice as equal access to participation in social life. Such condition of participation presupposes people’s equal capacity to be involved in social and political decisions and to define the conditions of such participation. The echo is also perceptible in her argument for a disruption in the institutionalised status quo to promote such participation. Contrary to May, however, Fraser does not dismiss distributive justice completely. Her holistic approach promotes distribution of resources as a way to rebalance power structures and promote political participation guaranteeing “participants’ independence and voice” (Fraser, 1996:30). They also disagree on the role performed 12
by institutions in the justice process. Fraser defends that equal participation has to be ensured and promoted by institutions, in order to be enacted by people. For May, however, depending on institutions to ‘distribute’ participation removes the individual from the centre of the process, restoring the police state and the ‘active distributorpassive receiver’ hierarchy. Thus, limiting the space for people’s participation by the decisions taken by the most powerful. In this regard, distribution of participation constitutes the same obstacles for social justice as the distribution of resources. Both understandings of social justice are associated with the expansion of citizenship beyond the territorially-bounded political and social entitlements, to comprise excluded groups participation in society. Rancière’s presupposition of equality calls for a citizenship related to insurgent acts, incorporating the idea of participation, not as something that is provided by a more powerful subject, but that is recognised by the excluded groups as their prerogative, even if their sensible experiences suggest the opposite. Fraser, on the other hand, entails the institutionalisation of participation, which requires a citizenship status given by institutions, but that includes marginalised groups and offer space for them to interact in social and political life. Although the authors have the same final goal, they disagree in the ways used to disrupt the system. While May proposes an insurgent process in which the marginalised groups act for themselves, Fraser proposes the institutionalisation of these practices. These reflections around social justice are particularly relevant in the context of forced migration, as they highlight the central role of excluded groups in voicing their marginalisation and emphasise the importance of a holistic and intersectional approach to achieve social justice. They conceive a possibility of refugee’s emancipation and recognition as political subjects (Sigona, 2005), through the acknowledgment of their own rights. Thus removing themselves from the marginalised position in which they are placed as a social category which is represented as agency-less burden (Sigona, 2005). This disruptive potential of refugees (Sigona, 2014) can be observed in cases of collective mobilisation and activism, such as the Sudanese refugees in Cairo in 2005, analysed by Sigona (ibid). They organised a sit-in at a square in front of the UNCHR’s headquarters, to protest their living conditions in Egypt and the UNHCR problematic assistance. Around 2,500 people stayed in the square for 3 months, until they were removed by the Egyptian security forces. This example removes refugee from dominant depictions as powerless objects of humanitarian intervention to highlight 13
CHAPTER 1. Unpacking Citizenship and Social Justice
their quest for recognition as political subjects (ibid).
of social rights by the state presumes that certain individuals need the state’s support due to unequal access to resources and opportunities, which contradicts the principle of universal equality, upon which liberal citizenship is established.
1.3. Liberal Citizenship Marshall’s Liberal Citizenship
The liberal concept of citizenship developed by western political theory is mainly based on ‘Enlightment’ values of “individual freedom, autonomy, consent, and limited state power” (Schuck 2002: 132), but also echoes characteristics of Ancient Greek citizenship (as stated in the previous section). Liberal citizenship is “a distinct conception and institutionalisation of citizenship whose primary value is to maximize individual liberty” (Schuck 2002: 132), providing individuals with a membership in the nation-state, which yields them with rights. It is, hence, a relationship between state and individual, in which the former has the role to protect and ensure individual freedom, the main principle of liberalism, for citizens to exercise their rights, being left “to their own devices without much guidance from the state” (Schuck 2002: 137). This membership status is based on the assumptions of universalism, in which all human beings are equal in nature and before the law, thus have the same needs, resources and opportunities to exercise their rights. In that sense, the consignment of formal rights by the state would be sufficient to “promote equality through making a person’s political and economic power ‘irrelevant’ to rights claims” (Isin and Wood 1999 in Jones and Gaventa 2002: 3). The rights included in the membership, namely civil and political rights encompass the right to vote, freedom of speech, freedom of choice, protection of private property, and so on. As explained by Kabeer (2005: 2), “classical liberal theory recognises civil and political rights as the only ‘true’ rights because they promote the freedom of individuals to act. The duty of the state is to defend this freedom”. Social rights, related to the provision of welfare and public services, such as health and education, are not contemplated in the classical liberal theory. These rights prioritise collective needs, in detriment of individual needs, thus are considered by liberal values “as entailing excessive state intervention, drawing on public resources and hence constituting an infringement of individual liberty” (ibid). Furthermore, the promotion 14
As a response to the post-II world war crisis, T.H. Marshall’s (1950) proposed a more comprehensive definition of liberal citizenship, that represents a step forward from the classic concept towards a more inclusive understanding of it. Two breaches are created when he defines citizenship as a “status bestowed on those who are full members of a community, which includes civil, political and social rights and obligations (T.H. Marshall 1950 in Yuval-Davies 1997: 5). The first turning point, is the incorporation of social rights in the bundle of rights secured by the state. Marshall’s theory claims that these services would provide citizens with the basic social and economic conditions, making a foundation from where it would be possible to achieve personal goals. Contemplating social rights conveys the favouring of collective needs, while discerning (even if to a limited extend) the existence of inequalities within society. The accretion of social rights represents an evolution from the previous universalist formulation of citizenship and introduces a perception that “go[es] beyond the formal rights of classical liberalism, to conceptualise social rights as substantive rights: rights to the conditions, which enable the claiming of other rights” (Lister 1997 in Jones and Gaventa, 2002: 9). Marshall’s theory, however, presents limitations inasmuch it considers social rights purely to provide citizens with minimal social and economic needs, providing “a reduction in the risks associated with capitalism for the poorest citizens” (Jones and Gaventa, 2002: 3), rather than to eliminate economic disparities. Furthermore, the emphasis on economic inequalities ignores the injustices that are result not only of economic differences, but also from the lack of recognition and representation of disadvantaged social identities. In the context of refugees, this can be observed in the predicaments they encounter to access labour market and housing, increasing the need for welfare support and strangling the opportunities for securing livelihood and independence. A report 15
CHAPTER 1. Unpacking Citizenship and Social Justice
published by the British Refugee Council (2016) denounces the hardships that newly granted refugees encounter to access housing in the UK (United Kingdom). For instance, British laws provide only four weeks for refugees to secure an income and somewhere to live, before they are evicted from asylum accommodation, putting many of them in risk of homelessness. Although the government provides a loan that refugees can apply to, there is no commitment from authorities to process this loan, which is estimated to be processed in six weeks, two weeks longer than refugees have before eviction. The second breaking point is the definition of citizenship as a membership in a community, as an alternative to the nation-state. This rationale still endorses the membership status; however, the community’s inclusion creates an opportunity to explore citizenship in relation to other actors and in multiple scales. The role of the collectivity in this case is central for the concept of citizenship. As argued by YuvalDavies (1997: 5):
“By formally linking citizenship to membership in a community, rather than to the
state (…) Marshall’s definition enables us analytically to discuss citizenship as a multi-tier construct, which applies to people’s memberships in a variety of collectivities – local, ethnic, national and trans-national”.
The shift from the relationship between individuals and the nation-state to the one among peers in a community leads to a new idea of citizenship which reposition the role of actors involved, evoking Fraser and Mays’s approaches to social justice. As the incorporation of social rights, the community centrality highlights the importance of collective needs and values. This open space for promoting citizenship as social inclusion. Hence, for refugees, aspects such as social integration and sense of belonging - which refers to a relationship between people and between people and space – prove to be more valuable than a national membership provided by the government.
Neoliberal Citizenship
Introduced in 1970’s, the neoliberal citizenship represents a resurgence in the classic liberal values and a recoil from the collective advancements proposed by Marshall. 16
May (2008: 45) argues that “neoliberalism is bound to the idea of ‘end of politics’, that the economic will attend to the needs formerly pressed in the political sphere”. Following the economic supremacy logic, neoliberal citizenship considers that the access and enactment of citizenship rights are promoted by the “individual integration into market as consumer and producer” (Dagnino 2005: 159). In such view, citizenship is accessible to individuals who are active participants in the established free market as paid workers and consumers. Neoliberalism “sees citizens not as participants in a common political culture or project but as consumers to be satisfied by meeting their individual needs” (May, 2008: 28). The client-consumer construction of the citizen discourages participation in public life, promoting a depoliticization of citizenship (Young, 1989) and the weakening of the state’s role as guarantor of rights. Hence “it reduces the political to the economic and the economic to the consumerist” (May, 2008: 28), transforming rights into solidarity work provided by the third sector and private companies. It is possible to observe this phenomena regarding refugees’ humanitarian aid and integration interventions, both in camps and in cities. In Calais, “hundreds of volunteers and grassroots organisations took on the burden of delivering humanitarian aid and basic services” (Sandri, 2017), due to the lack of responses from governments both in France and the United Kingdom. In Greece, NGO’s from around Europe are continuously filling the gap left by the government, assisting people in camps with squalid conditions and problems, such as lack of basic services and overcrowding (Banning-Lover, 2017).
Limitations of Liberal Principles
The provision of equal and universal rights perpetrated by liberal and neoliberal citizenship provides a legitimate and useful resource for disadvantaged individuals and groups seeking to challenge inequalities and pursue their claims for justice and recognition (Kabeer 2005; Lister 1998). It provides legal platforms, such as the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR), through which grassroots organisations and activists can demand rights denied to excluded groups; and local and national institutions can appeal to, in order to fundament their quest for development. 17
CHAPTER 1. Unpacking Citizenship and Social Justice
Nevertheless, they present various limitations in promoting socially just outcomes, insomuch they fail to address the association between different spheres of social processes. The prerequisites to ensure ‘parity of participation’ are not fulfilled, and in many cases the obstacles that impede such participation are even enhanced. Hence it fails to promote the equitable outcomes endorsed in theory. Furthermore, the liberal construction of all individuals as being the same, disregards differences of class, ethnicity, gender and so on, grounds the ‘universal’ citizen on the dominant white, able-bodied, middle-class man, “abstract[ing] inequalities from the political and historical contexts in which they were produced and maintained” (Lister 1997 in Jones and Gaventa 2002:10). This ignores the needs and experiences of particular groups (ibid), enabling the segregation of those who do not fit such representation – as women, black and ethnic minorities, disabled, migrants and lower classes - from the access to citizenship rights. This exclusion is reinforced in the neoliberal conviction of the free market as an accessible space for people’s participation and enactment of citizenship.
differences within society (Young 1989; Kabeer 2005) and are based on excluded groups’ experiences of participation and struggles for rights (Lister 2007). An idea of citizenship “as a more total relationship, inflected by identity, social positioning, cultural assumptions, institutional practices and a sense of belonging” (Werbner and Yuval-Davies in Lister 2007:52). More than a quest for recognition, redistribution and representation, the redefinition of citizenship seeks a resignification of the political structures, “its participants, institutions, processes, agenda and scope” (Dagnino, 2005: 150), which implies the necessary disruption of the established political and social order to achieve social justice. Likewise, Kabeer (2005) proposes the idea of an ‘inclusive citizenship’ that relates to group rights and the sense of belonging to a particular group. An approach to citizenship that:
“starts with the needs of disadvantaged and seek to invest them with the power and
resources required to challenge inequities actively and create their own strategies and entry points for change” (Cornwall 2000 cited in Jones and Gaventa 2002: 11).
The universal equality and market-led approach presented by liberal and neoliberal agendas “hides the realities of citizenship exclusions under a veil of formal equality” (Jones and Gaventa 2002:15), augmenting the obstacles for participation in social life and perpetrating intrinsic forms of “domination and oppression that misrecognise and marginalise” (Young 2011 in May 2008). Unequal power relations remain static, resulting in unequal access to resources, which enhances social exclusion. Young (1989, in Jones and Gaventa 2002:11) argues that “those with resources, power and knowledge to shape definitions of rights and how they are put into practice are able to turn rights discourses and entitlements to their advantage”. Thus, maintaining the exclusions existent in the social order established by the police state, and impeding the participation of marginalised groups in social life.
1.4.
Citizenship as ‘the right to have rights’
In response to the exclusionary character of liberal citizenship, new definitions for citizenship were developed. Definitions that recognise and respect social and cultural 18
Inclusive citizenship, thus, is based in minority groups’ claims and encompasses the existence of multiple group identities. These different identities generate specific needs, that will be responsible for informing their specific claims. “Rights are thus understood as not only claimed, but created, through group struggles, and formal recognition of group rights is seen to give power and legitimacy to group struggles for rights” (Isin and Wood 1999 in Jones and Gaventa 2002: 12. Highlight in the original). This approach is underpinned by a strong focus on the values of social justice, which in this context is based upon an examination of “when it is fair for people to be treated the same and when it is fair that they should be treated differently” (Kabeer 2005: 3). In the UK, groups such as Migrants’ Rights Network, Migrant Voice and Migrants Organise offer platforms for participation of migrants and refugees in public life and promote campaigns to advocate for a rights-based approach towards migration in the UK (Migrant’s Rights Network, 2017; Migrants Organise, 2017). The intersection of different identities groups that inform individual priorities within the refugees’ category, has to be assessed when promoting citizenship rights. Refugees as a social category was a creation of the 1951 UN Convention, to produce specific mechanisms of protection for people facing persecution. Before that, ‘refugees’ 19
CHAPTER 1. Unpacking Citizenship and Social Justice
were identified as specific nationalities no longer physically present in or politically protected by their state of origin (Long 2013 in Crawley and Skeleparis, 2017: 4). Therefore, there is a risk to homogenise and over-simplify the experiences of people in such category (Crawley and Skeleparis, 2017: 4). Refugee women travelling with children, for example, often prioritise access to education and health, while refugee men focus on employment opportunities. At the same time, for different nationalities or ethnic groups, priorities might be established upon the recognition of one’s religion or the fight against ethnic discrimination. In that sense, Malkki (1995 in Crawley and Skeleparis, 2017: 5) argues that:
“whilst ‘forced migration’ has often been presented and discussed as a discreet and
particular form of migration, involuntary movements of people are always part of much larger assemblages of socio-political and cultural processes and practices which include a variety of people who, whilst all displaced, find themselves in qualitatively different predicaments”.
The establishment of legal categories, hence, fails to reflect all the complex intersectionality existent among people that are placed in a certain group. Therefore, in the case of refugees, a model of citizenship as one that encompasses social and cultural recognition and embrace the representation of particular groups’ specificities achieves immense importance.
Practice of Citizenship
The practice of citizenship by marginalised groups represents “a counter-politics that destabilises the dominant regime of citizenship, renders it vulnerable, and defamiliarizes the coherence with which it usually presents itself to us” (Holston, 2009: 15). Therefore, serves as a tool to achieve the disruptive understanding of social justice proposed by May. In this process, invented spaces of participation (Miraftab 2004, 2009; Miraftab and Wills, 2005) are created by individuals who enact citizenship from below, transcending the formal structures for participation provided by the state – invited spaces of participation (ibid). The use of invented spaces of participation “opens the stage to participation that is not ‘asked for’, such as in activism, campaigning or oppositional political involvement” 20
(Meer and Sever, 2004: 12). This enactment of inclusive citizenship in the invented spaces of participation arises as insurgent citizenship, as defined by Miraftab (2005: 202), “a fair and legitimate practice of citizenship by active citizens participating in the construction of inclusive citizenship from below” and is characterised by the fluid movement across invented and invited spaces of participation, through active inclusion and resistance (Miraftab, 2009: 35). Insurgent citizenship, hence, is demonstrated through the discovery of ‘the right to have rights’ (Arendt 1986 in Kabeer 2005: 4) and advocates for one’s perception of his/ her rights. The focus shifts from the rights per se, to the process of claiming rights. Cowan et al (2001 in Jones and Gaventa, 2002: 11) bolsters this account affirming that “in practice, rights are often interpreted and mediated through situated struggles and claims-making processes”. In this approach, the understanding of citizenship is being shaped by citizens’ participation in collective life, thus the agency they have to influence their own lives is central. Participation is framed as a fundamental citizenship right and a prerequisite for making claims of other rights (Hausermann 1998). Nevertheless, the reliance on insurgent citizenship transfers to the citizenry the responsibility to fight for their rights, posing the threat of removing the government from its obligations towards citizens. Lister (1998) agrees with this risk, but highlights the opportunities created by bottom-up participation. She cites Held (1987, in Lister 1998: 72) affirming that “whilst is problematic to put the onus solely on marginalised groups to engage in active political participation in order to achieve social change, what is most important is that such individuals have the ‘right and opportunity to participate as political citizens”. This approach to citizenship promotes an addition to the citizenship concept, as it regards substantive rights as not being completely dependent on the formal status given by the state. Thus, it gives space for people without national membership status, such as refugees, to enforce their political subjectivity, “mov[ing] away from an idea of refugees merely as sediments of other people’s actions towards the recognition of their agential capacity” (Bauman 2002 in Sigona, 2015: 5). Therefore, the use of invented spaces for the struggle for rights represents in itself an enactment of citizenship. “These insurgent forms are found both in organised grassroots mobilisations and in everyday practices that, in different ways, empower, parody, derail or subvert state agendas. They are found, in other words, in struggles 21
over what it means to be a member of the modern state” (Holston, 1998: 47-48). Groups who are not entitled to formal rights ultimately have an opportunity to exercise their claims and position themselves in society. While it is imperative to credit the centrality of active engagement in the wider political struggle (Kabeer 2005: 22), it is also essential not to neglect the importance of formal citizenship to convey political and civil rights. In this sense, this dissertation agrees with Isin and Wood (1999:4) concept of citizenship:
CHAPTER 2.
Refugees in Europe – Activism, Policies and Responses “There are a thousand refugee experiences and a thousand of refugee figures whose meaning and identities are negotiated in the process of displacement in time and place” (Soguk in Sigona, 2014: 2).
“as both a set of practices (cultural, symbolic and economic) and a bundle of rights
and duties (civil, political and social) that define an individual’s membership in a polity. It is important to recognise both aspects of citizenship – as practice and as status – while also recognising that without the latter modern individuals cannot hold civil, political and social rights. In the same vein, many rights often first arise as practices and then become embodied
2.1. Refugee’ Activism - The ‘OPlatz’ Movement
in law as status. Citizenship is therefore neither a purely sociological concept nor purely a legal concept but a relationship between the two” (Highlights in original).
In the next section, European national and transnational asylum policies will be analysed in the light of the current increase of refugees in Europe. Furthermore, the framework of citizenship will be employed to explore refugees’ activism for rights in Europe, aiming to distinguish possibilities for improvement in policies, that arise from bottom-up struggles.
National membership
t en rg es u c Ins acti Pr
INCLUSIVE CITIZENSHIP Rights based on group specificities, collective claims and everyday practices
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Source: author
Universal rights based on status given by the state
p shi on ti te ela a r y sta e b t mo ven by pro ip gi cted o s t nsh ena itie itize ship l i b nc s en up ssi Po twee citiz gro be d the lised an rgina ma
FIGURE 1. Citizenship Framework Diagram
LIBERAL CITIZENSHIP
The case study will illustrate refugees’ political activism, through the examination of the ‘OPlatz’ (Oranienplatz) movement in Germany6. The movement includes a series of mobilisations (public space and government institutions occupations, hunger strikes and marches) organised by refugees in Berlin, from 2012 to 2014, to protest the country’s asylum policies, which entail several spatial restrictions hindering the social participation and political mobilisation of refugees (Ataç and Steinhilper, 2016). Their contestation was mainly against the ‘Residenzpflicht’ – a German law that limits freedom of movement, the obligation to stay in Lagers – refugee’ camps, and the Dublin Agreement; and requested the right to work and study in Germany. Although the claims were based on specific policies, they “are deeply rooted in the everyday experience of exclusion and a lack of social and economic perspectives in their host countries” (Ataç and Steinhilper, 2016) and encompass, in large, a demand for recognition and respect of their dignity as human beings, represented in the quest for freedom of movement and self-determination.
6 The facts examined in this section were compiled from a series of press and academic articles. For more on it see Ataç and Steinhilper, 2016; Coldwell, 2015; Levernick, 2014; Riedmann, n.d. 23
CHAPTER 2. Refugees in Europe – Activism, Policies and Responses
The movement started as a response to the suicide of an Iranian refugee in a camp in Wurzburg, in the Bavaria region. This act served to denounce the conditions of social isolation and lack of hope over the time-consuming and complicated asylum process that refugees have to go through in Germany. The camp residents, then, marched to Berlin, infringing the Residenzpflicht - the German law that prohibits the movement out of demarcated areas for asylum applicants and migrants with temporary permit for six months. During the 600 kilometres walk to Berlin, protesters passed through other Lagers and gathered more people in the same situation to join their act, shaping their claims and reinforcing their collective identity (Ataç and Steinhilper, 2016).
The movement included other actions simultaneously with Oranienplatz and GerhartHauptmann school occupations. Protestors organised a bus tour around Germany, between February and March 2013, named “Refugee’s Revolution” to raise awareness about their movement and unify similar movements and demonstrations in a national scale. They also organised a march, by the end of March 2013, in which around one thousand protestors, among refugees and citizens activists, walked from the square to downtown Berlin. In October 2013, demonstrations were held in the EU commission foyer and the German chancellery, to commemorate the 300 refugees that died in a tragic event in Lampedusa, while trying to cross the sea from Libya to Italy.
Upon their arrival in Berlin, in October 2012, protestors set a protest camp in Oranienplatz square, in the Kreuzberg neighbourhood. In November, due to the
These acts are illustrative of the agency refugees have, even when restricted from the legal rights to enact them, and represent “the networks and activities of refugees themselves, pursuing and organising protection”. The urban public space is used as a safe space to regain power and enhance visibility of refugees’ struggles. Through civil disobedience, they put themselves in the position of political subjects, from which they were being denied access by the restrictive institutional procedures. These mobilisations represent acts of citizenship, as argued by Isin and Nielsen (2008: 39):
cold weather, they also occupied the Gerhart-Hauptmann school. Both occupations started informally, without requests by protestors, but were temporarily authorised by the district mayor. The authorities’ permission for refugees - who were prohibited to even be in such space - to mobilise in a public space in the city represents the political strength and legitimacy that the movement acquired in the eyes of the government. The protest camp created a space in which refugee’s struggles were voiced and discussed, among refugees and activists, besides getting access to the public sphere and media. Through the occupation of the square, “refugees had access to the organisational infrastructure necessary for initiating a broad discussion about actions and forms of participation” (Ataç and Steinhilper, 2016).
“Those acts that transform forms (orientations, strategies, technologies) and modes
(citizens, strangers, outsiders, aliens) of being political by bringing into being new actors as activist citizens (claimants of rights and responsibilities) through creating new sites and scales of struggle”.
The meaning of citizenship put forward by the enactment of these acts, thus, follows the concept proposed in this dissertation, in which citizenship is “irreducible to either the status or the practice” (Isin and Nielsen, 2008: 2), while focusing in the acts in which “regardless of status and substance, subjects constitute themselves as citizens, better still, as those to whom the rights to have rights are due” (ibid).
FIGURE 2. Protest Camp in Orenianplatz, Berlin. Source: Finding Berlin
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The square occupation was cleared between March and April 2014, after the government presented a proposal to representatives of the ‘OPlatz’ movement, in which housing, German language classes and individual inspection of each of their cases would be provided. Whilst the majority of protestors accepted the offer, a group of around thirty people refused it and remained in the square undertaking hunger strikes until April, when the evacuation process finished.
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CHAPTER 2. Refugees in Europe – Activism, Policies and Responses
The Gerhart-Hauptmann school occupation, however, lasted longer. On June 2014, government announced that other housing had been made available for protestors. From the two hundred inhabitants, forty refused to leave and climbed to the roof to continue the protest, threatening to throw themselves if they were forced to leave the school. The other inhabitants were evacuated by a police force of 1700 men. The school’s last inhabitants were evicted in August 2016. The disproportion in the number of policemen, compared to the number of activists, represents the power that the movement acquired as a disruption force and the government’s will to end it.
Notwithstanding the eviction of both Oranienplatz and Gerhart-Hauptmann school occupations and the unfulfilled promises by the government, the movement was successful inasmuch it generated a discussion around refugees’ rights and the asylum system in Germany and Europe, in which refugees’ claims were a central component of it. The usually unheard and excluded voices of refugees were articulated “in a time and place where they are not expected to speak” (Nyers, 2008: 165). Besides, in the particular case of Gerhart-Hauptmann school, the demand to transform it into a Refugees’ Centre was accepted and it remains with this function until now. During this time, public and governmental discourse about refugees included them in a political active spot, detaching them from the usual agency-less victim position in which they are placed, thus reshuffling the “asymmetry of power and voice between the state on the one hand and the refugees on the other” (Indra 1993 in Korac, 2003: 53). These acts demonstrate refugees’ capacity to organise themselves towards a collective action to demand for social justice conceived from below, disrupting the established social order. While the protest movement targeted restrictive asylum policies, the emancipatory effects of their struggle materialised also through the emergence of new solidarity networks and strong social ties (Ataç and Steinhilper, 2016).
In view of the current ‘refugee crisis’, what are the possibilities for national policies to be created considering refugees’ political subjectivity and promote their inclusion in the centrality of the asylum and integration processes? The next section will examine EU asylum policies framework and the European countries response to the increase in the flow of refugees in Europe, searching for a possibility for refugees’ citizenship struggle to “reorient politics of the state, transform and reform the modalities of membership, and participation” (Nyers, 2008: 173) in response to the current humanitarian emergency concerning migration.
FIGURE 3. Activists and Policemen at the Gerhart-Hauptmann school Occupation, Berlin. Source: VICE
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CHAPTER 2. Refugees in Europe – Activism, Policies and Responses
2.2. European Responses to the ‘Refugee Crisis’
Forced migration is not a new matter in human history nor a new discussion in social and political theory. Kleist (2017) affirms that refugee history “does not have a beginning”, and that norms and practices of protection are contingent to historical periods and societies; some being precursors and other contrasting to today’s responses to refugee situations (ibid). The increase in transnational movements, caused by armed conflicts and authoritarian governments around the globe, especially since the aggravating conditions of the war in Syria have been referred to as ‘the largest refugee crisis’ since World War II, by governments, multilateral agencies and NGOs (UNHCR, 2016; 2017), academia and media (Ritzen, 2016). The crisis discourse is used by both government and grassroots organisations, the former to generate a discomfort and show to the world the pressing moment they are dealing with. The former, to encourage solidarity and call for humanitarian action.
FIGURE 4. Trend of Global Displacement and Proportion Displaced | 1997 - 2016 Source: UNCHR, 2017
The meaning of the word crisis by the Oxford Dictionary (2017) is a “time of intense difficulty or danger; a time when a difficult or important decision must be made” (Oxford Dictionary, 2017). Semantically, the current displacement of people can be considered a crisis. It is, indeed, a difficult time that calls for important decisions to be made, concerning the responses from governments and civil society regarding the 28
welcoming and protection of refugees. The largest seems to be a fact, since by the end of 2016, the number of forced displaced people in the world reached 65.6 million (UNHCR, 2017). However, what makes it ‘crisis’ in the humanitarian sense is not only the immense amount of people in need for international protection, but the response given by host countries to the situation. In Europe, the influx of people increased drastically since 2014, including the region in the ‘crisis’ map, challenging social cohesion within European countries, regions, municipalities and neighborhoods” (Doomernik and Glorius, 2016: 429) and asking for a response from domestic politics of EU member states and EU as a whole, “in their struggle to find durable solutions” (Heisbourg 2015 in Greussing and Boomgaarden, 2017: 1749). The lack of preparation and “inability of the European Union and its member states to adequately and jointly address the needs of people eligible for international protection” (Den Heijer et. al. 2016 in Doomernik and Glorius, 2016: 431), translated into “political chaos and a sense of crisis” (ibid). Despite the ‘surprise’ with the influx of people, encouraged by the dominant representation of the ‘crisis’, which gives the idea of a linearity and continuity of people heading towards Europe, (Mainwaring and Bridgen 2016 in Crawley and Skeleparis, 2017: 2), changes in the trends of people arriving in countries around and in Europe were happening since previous years. Many of these people that arrived since 2014, were already living outside their country of origin, such as Turkey and Lebanon, for months or years (Crawley and Skeleparis, 2017). Besides, Europe has staged overwhelming displacement of people before, for example in the 1990s, from the dismantling of Yugoslavia (Doomernik and Glorius, 2016: 431). The previous experience and the analysis of geopolitical circumstances could have been used as ground for creating policies on reception and integration of refugees, rather than blaming the crisis on the people who are fleeing persecution. For instance, EU countries rely on a supranational framework concerning asylum policies (Bank, 2014), that have been gradually constituted since 1990’s, “to adopt a Common European Asylum System that would be based on the Geneva Convention of 1951 (Council of European Union in Kiagia et. al. 2010: 41). Usually considered as exclusive to nation-state affairs, the European supranational migration rules have been created to complement national policies, “which were proving inadequate to deal efficiently with immigration in an area without [physical] borders” (Bia, 2004: 6), due to the European free movement policies. 29
CHAPTER 2. Refugees in Europe – Activism, Policies and Responses
From 1999, with the Treaty of Amsterdam, asylum and immigration issues have been moved from the ‘third pillar’ to ‘first pillar’ “where the EU institutions play a leading role in the adoption of supranational legislation and under which the measures to be adopted to develop a common approach to immigration and asylum are spelt out” (Bia, 2004: 7), strengthening the supranational legislation, in relation to national ones.
Reception Conditions Directive (RCD) 2013 (EU countries)
Guarantees asylum seekers with a minimum level of reception conditions, including access to housing, food, clothing, health care, education for minors and access to employment. It also includes the provisions to be secured to persons with special needs, such as unaccompanied minors, single parents with minor children and victims of violence.
Asylum Procedures Directive (APD) 2013 (EU countries)
Establishes provisions on all aspects of asylum application procedure, providing safeguard for applicants.
Qualification Directive (QD) 2011 (EU countries)
Defines more detailed criteria for refugee status eligibility, under the 1951 Refugee Convention. Also establishes criteria for subsidiary protection and defines a minimum standard of rights to be granted to refugees and subsidiary protection beneficiaries.
New York Declaration on Refugees and Migrants 2016 (Global)
UN multilateral treaty that reaffirms the principles on refugee protection established in the 1951 Refugee Convention and ensures the commitment by the signatory nations in finding new ways of sharing responsibility for the current refugee crisis.
Table 2 discloses some of the most relevant EU policies, which are responsible for shaping the EU response to the ‘migration crisis’.
Policy Name
What is it about
1951 Refugee Convention
UN multilateral treaty established on the context of
(Global)
the post-II World War, that defines who is a refugee and sets out the rights of individuals who are granted asylum and the responsibilities of nations that are granting asylum.
Protocol of New York of 1967 (Global)
UN multilateral treaty, that rectifies the 1951 Convention, removing temporal and geographical restrictions for whom can be considered a refugee.
Dublin II Regulation 2013 (EU countries and Iceland, Liechtenstein, Norway and Switzerland)
Establishes the criteria to determine which EU member state is responsible for processing the asylum application under the Refugee Convention. It states that the first safe country in which a refugee arrives is responsible for processing the asylum application. If the asylum seeker moves onward, they should be returned to the first state for the application to be processed.
TABLE 2. European Union Supranational Framework for Asylum Procedures. Source: author (based on Bank, 2014).
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TABLE 2. Continued from previous page Source: author (based on Bank, 2014).
EU common policies, which “should be based on solidarity and collaboration between member states” (Den Heijn et. al. 2016 in Doomernik and Glorius, 2016: 432) do not necessarily meet the expectations and interests of national policies, thus creating contention and lack of collaboration among countries and EU institutions, resulting in the creation of policies that “are limited to the minimum common denominator” (Vink and Meijerink 2003 in Kiagia et. al., 2010: 41).
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CHAPTER 2. Refugees in Europe – Activism, Policies and Responses
In formulating reception and integration procedures, Northern and Southern European countries have different approaches. The former countries’ system is one-way “highly centralised state-sponsored programme (…) that cover basic needs” (Korac, 2003: 52), but consider refugees as objects in the process, making them dependent in the state’ support “with minimal possibilities for independent decision-making in central aspects of their lives” (Kiagia et al, 2010: 42); while the latter promote “minimal social assistance” (Korac, 2003: 52) and “cover only the refugees’ urgent needs” (Kiagia et al, 2010: 42), with the assistance of NGOs. However, both types of approaches to integration disconsider the subjectivity of refugees and their contribution as individuals in the integration processes. In addition, the emergency character of the ‘refugee crisis’, limited the capacity of solidarity structures to the provision of basic services, such as shelter, clothes and food for newly-arriving refugees, reinforcing the role of the refugee as passive victim (Ataç and Steinhilper, 2016). Furthermore, upcoming general elections, the rise of right-wing parties that campaign for harsher norms on immigration and growing public concern due to terrorist attacks, led to many European countries adopting even more restrictive measures relating to asylum. Their responses seem to be more concerned in enhancing security, limiting arrivals and outsourcing responsibility, than offering platforms for integration and protection (Human Rights Watch, 2017). This is facilitated by “the ambiguity that characterises the relevant Directives and Regulations” (Statewatch 2006 in Kiagia et. al., 2010: 42) and “the absence of a court that would supervise the application of the Geneva Convention of 1951 and the Protocol of New York of 1967” (Gilbert 2004 in Kiagia et. al. 2010: 42). Table 3 displays some of the restrictive actions taken since 2016 regarding refugees, to illustrate the present response of European countries to the displacement crisis.
Action
What is it about
EU - Turkey Deal March 2016
Deal between EU and Turkey, that promotes that asylum seekers reaching Greece by sea return will return to Turkey where the application for asylum will be processed. It is based in the Dublin Regulation, and considers that Turkey is a safe country for refugees, discrediting what had been previously considered about Turkey. Advocates and human rights groups declared the “proposal is unethical, unworkable and illegal” (Kinsgley, 2016a). In exchange, the EU promised to give money for aid and to resettle one Syrian for every Syrian returned.
Border Closures Balkan Route March 2016
The Balkan’s route includes Macedonia, Croatia and Slovenia and it was used by hundreds of thousands of refugees coming from Greece to reach Germany and other countries in Northern Europe in 2015. More than 10,000 people are now stuck in Greece wretched conditions (Kingsley, 2016a).
Relocation Scheme Several countries 2016 - 2017
Relocation scheme agreed in 2015 to share responsibility for asylum seekers and alleviate the burden of the frontline countries (mainly Greece and Italy) defined that 160,000 asylum seekers would be relocated. By now, less than 21,000 have been relocated (Tisdall, 2017; Revesz, 2017).
Poland, Hungary and Have refused to accept asylum seekers quota from the Czech Republic relocation scheme and are undergoing legal action by the 2016 - 2017
European Commission (Tisdall, 2017).
Austria April 2016
Approved tougher legislation that permits the country to declare a state of emergency and block most migrants from entering the country. Besides prepared to erect new fences in the border with Italy and Hungary (Hume et al, 2016).
TABLE 3. Actions Promoted, in 2016 and 2017, European Union Countries Regarding Asylum Procedures. Source: author
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France 2016 - 2017
Have not met the relocation quota and is preventing vessels carrying rescued people to dock in French ports (Tisdall, 2017).
and citizens. In view of such attitudes towards refugees by formal institutions, the reframing of political structures, from regarding refugees as merely objects, to subjects capable of participating in the social processes proves to be of the most importance.
Sweden June 2016
New and sharper asylum rules. Such as to only permit asylum seekers entering the country to apply for temporary residency rights and to difficult family reunification (Bilefsky, 2016; Hinde, 2017).
Germany 2016 - 2017
New and sharper asylum rules. Such as to facilitate the expulsion of asylum seekers from the country, to increase detention time pending deportation, to permit personal cell phone data from being investigated and to limit the number of family members entering the country (The Local, 2017).
The insurgent practices, as the activism movement illustrated in the case study, present a way to recalibrate power structures and enact inclusive citizenship. Nevertheless, these acts could represent more than a demonstration of refugees’ political subjectivity, if they were legitimised by governments, through the institutionalisation of practices and acceptance of their demands.
United Kingdom (UK) Has been exempted from the EU relocation scheme. This is May 2016 possible due to previously agreed treaties that allows the country to opt out from EU rules on ‘border checks, asylum and immigration’ (Brunsden, 2016). TABLE 3. Continued from the previous page. Source: author
The actions listed in the table represent the restrictive character of actions taken by European countries, that demonstrate that “Europe is in fact far removed from being a community based upon solidarity and respect for human rights” (Doomernik and Glorius, 2016: 433). The retreat of several countries from the Relocation Scheme, the closure of routes, the creation of laws that facilitate blockage, expulsion, and detention of refugees, and the EU-Turkey deal, are a few examples of responses that fail to show solidarity and support in light of the current events (Human Rights Watch, 2017). These laws and policies that are created in the national and supranational levels of governance legitimise practices that are to the detriment of refugees (Kiagia et al, 2010) and have consequences in the local level and everyday life of both refugees 34
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CONCLUSION
This dissertation analysed different approaches of citizenship, namely liberal, neoliberal, inclusive and insurgent, to understand the possibilities in which citizenship can be used as a tool for refugees to attain social justice. After this analysis, it is evident that formal national citizenship, based on liberal principles, does necessarily translate into inclusion and substantive rights for refugees. Thus, an approach to citizenship that encompasses the participation of marginalised groups achieves immense importance. A citizenship “not only as a legal and political membership in a nation-state but also as an articulating principle for recognition or group rights (…) [and] also as the practices through which individuals and groups formulate and claim new rights or struggle to expand or maintain existing rights” (Isin and Wood, 1999: 4). In that sense, the case study examined an activism movement performed by refugees, to illustrate how the enactment of citizenship as an insurgent practice can offer avenues for inclusion. Protesters in the ‘OPlatz’ movement were demanding rights that they are not formally entitled to, since they are not citizens of the nation-state. Nevertheless, their demands were based both on their universal human condition and the needs they have as a marginalised group. The case removes refugees from the agency-less position in which they are placed by dominant representations and depicts them as subjects of change - people with voices, that want to be heard.
In the context of the current ‘refugee crisis’, EU countries are promoting restrictive policies focused on enhancing security and limiting arrivals, rather than promoting inclusion and integration. These policies marginalise refugees, both spatially and socially, serving to immobilise their political subjectivity. Hence, there is a clear disconnection between EU policies and the real needs of refugees, in terms of protection and inclusion. It is in this gap amid policy’s frameworks and refugee’s insurgencies that is possible to create avenues for change, that ensure refugees have their rights protected. This dissertation argues that in order to promote social justice, laws and policies that are being created in a national and supranational levels should reflect practices that are being enacted in the ground. Refugees are engaging in activism movements to express ways in which policies could be formulated to be more inclusive and respectful of human rights. The first step towards refugees’ integration and social inclusion would be, then, to consider them as the central actors in their process of asylum, validating the participation in the invented spaces and creating institutionalised spaces for their involvement. Political and social circumstances are continuously evolving, therefore, the asylum policy framework has to be constantly developed considering refugee’s claims and needs, voiced by them in the spaces for participation.
The enactment of citizenship by refugees in the case, thus, deviates from the liberal approach to citizenship, based on “entitlement grounded in legal status, stasis and location in bounded space, documentation, exclusion, and private property” (Nyers and Rygiel, 2012: 9), to move towards an idea of citizenship based on “participation in community, and social relations developed in space and in relation to ‘the commons’” (ibid). Participation appears, then, as a process of “political reconfiguration, where identity and belonging is renewed and remade rather than simply accommodated” (Hall, 2015: 865).
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LIST OF ACRONYMS
ADP EU OECD QD
Asylum Procedures Directive European Union Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development Qualification Directive
RCD UDHR UK UN UNCHR
Reception Conditions Directive Universal Declaration of Human Rights United Kingdom United Nations United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees
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LIST OF FIGURES
LIST OF TABLES
FIGURE 1.
Citizenship Framework Diagram. Source: author
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FIGURE 2.
Protest Camp in Oranienplatz, Berlin,
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Germany. Source: Finding Berlin http://www.findingberlin.com/refugee-camporanienplatz/ [Accessed August 23rd 2017] FIGURE 3. Activists and Policemen at the Gerhart- Hauptmann school Occupation. Source: VICE https://news.vice.com/article/in-photos-berlin-refugeeschool-stand-off-ends-after-8-days-of-siege-and-protest [Accessed August 23rd 2017]
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FIGURE 4.
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Trend of Global Displacament and Proportion Displaced 1996 - 2016. Source: UNHCR, 2017
TABLE 1.
Characteristcs of Ancient Greek’s and Hobbe’s Approaches to Citizenship. Source: author
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TABLE 2.
European Union Supranational Framework for Asylum Procedures. Source: author
30 - 31
TABLE 3. Actions Promoted, in 2016 and 2017, 33 - 34 by European Union Countries Regarding Asylum Procedures Source: author
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