Governing populations through the humanitarian government of refugees: Biopolitical care and racism in the European refugee crisis

AbstractThe notion of humanitarian government has been increasingly employed to describe the simultaneous and conflicting deployment of humanitarianism and security in the government of ‘precarious lives’ such as refugees. This article argues that humanitarian government shouldalsobe understood as the biopolitical government of host populationsthroughthe humanitarian government of refugees. In particular, it explores how the biopolitical governmentality of the UK decision to suspend search-and-rescue operations in the Mediterranean in 2014, and the British rejection and German welcoming of Syrian refugees primarily concern thebiologicalandemotionalcare of the British and German populations. To this end, the article analyses how dynamics of inclusion/exclusion of refugees have been informed by a biopolitical racism that redraws the boundary between ‘valuable’ (to be included) and ‘not valuable’ (to be excluded) lives according to the refugees’ capacity to enhance the biological and emotional well-being of host populations. This discussion aims to contribute to three interrelated fields of research – namely, humanitarian government, biopolitical governmentality, and responses to the European refugee crisis – by exploring how biopolitics has shaped the British and German responses to the crisis and how it encompasses more meanings and rationalities than currently recognised by existing scholarship on humanitarian government.

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Narrative Framing of the Syrian Refugee Crisis in British Religious News

Journal of Religion Media and Digital Culture ◽

10.1163/21659214-00802005 ◽

2019 ◽

Vol 8 (2) ◽

pp. 276-297

Author(s):

Gregory Perreault ◽

Newly Paul

Keyword(s):

Media Coverage ◽

Framing Theory ◽

Syrian Refugees ◽

Refugee Crisis ◽

News Values ◽

Syrian Refugee ◽

News Organizations ◽

The Media ◽

The Uk ◽

Syrian Refugee Crisis

This paper examines how religious news organizations in the UK covered the Syrian refugee crisis in Europe. Using narrative framing theory, this paper examines all coverage from 2015 and 2016 published in bbc Religion (a part of bbc News), The Muslim News, and Christian Today to examine shared and disparate narratives regarding Syrian refugees migrating to the UK. Four major frames emerged from our analysis of the media coverage in religious and mainstream publications: a humanizing frame, saviour frame, dehumanizing frame, and, redemption frame. The publications differed in their use of these frames as well as the use of sources, news values, and tone of coverage. We discuss each of these frames as well as the implications of the differing coverage.

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When States Fail: The Politics of Orthodox Churches, Forced Displacement and Humanitarian Structures in Serbia and Ukraine

Journal of Refugee Studies ◽

10.1093/jrs/feaa005 ◽

2020 ◽

Author(s):

Lucian N Leustean

Keyword(s):

Humanitarian Aid ◽

Religious Communities ◽

State Failure ◽

Orthodox Church ◽

Refugee Crisis ◽

Forced Displacement ◽

The Social ◽

State Governance ◽

European Refugee Crisis ◽

The Government

Abstract In Serbia, during the 2015 European refugee crisis, the Orthodox Church mobilized communities in providing humanitarian aid before local authorities and the government issued an organized response. Two years later, in December 2017, with the support of the Orthodox Church, Ukraine exchanged war prisoners with the separatist authorities in Donbas. In both countries, the social and political involvement of Orthodox Churches in dealing with forced displacement was unprecedented. Drawing on literature review and interviews with 25 representatives of governmental and civil-society bodies, members of the clergy and academics, this article explores the ways in which, in Serbia and Ukraine, when states fail to offer support for populations affected by violence, religious communities have been among the first actors to take over state governance and provide human security. It argues that, by doing so, Orthodox Churches become open to politicization from state authorities. The article contributes to the study of religion and forced displacement by linking the politicization of Orthodox Churches to the concept of state failure.

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Massification, Marketisation and Loss of Differentiation in Pre-Entry Marketing Materials in UK Higher Education

Social Sciences ◽

10.3390/socsci8110304 ◽

2019 ◽

Vol 8 (11) ◽

pp. 304

Author(s):

Elizabeth Knight

Keyword(s):

Higher Education ◽

Information Needs ◽

Well Being ◽

Widening Participation ◽

Equity Issues ◽

Higher Education System ◽

Student Cohorts ◽

The Government ◽

The Uk ◽

Uk Higher Education

Since the mid-1970s, the higher education system in the UK has massified. Over this period, the government policy drivers for higher education have shifted towards a homogenised rationale, linking higher education to the economic well-being of the country. The massification of higher education has involved a widening of participation from traditional students to new and diverse student cohorts with differing information needs. The increased positioning of students as consumers by higher education means the student choice process has become complex. Drawing on a recently conferred doctorate, this article asks whether the messages sent by institutions about the motivation for undertaking a degree have changed during the recent period of massification of UK higher education. It asks how such changes are reflected, overtly or in coded form, in the institutional pre-entry ‘prospectus’ documents aimed at students. Taking a discourse-historical approach, the work identifies six periods of discourse change between 1976 and 2013, analysing prospectuses from four case-study institutions of different perceived status. The research finds that the materials homogenise gradually over the period and there is a concordant concealment of the differential status, purpose and offer of the institutions, alongside an increase in the functional importance of the coded signalling power of the differential prestige of undergraduate degrees within the UK. This research’s finding that the documents produced by institutions have become increasingly difficult to differentiate highlights equity issues in provision of marketing in terms of widening participation and fair access aims.

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The Intolerable Death of Alan Kurdi

The Politics of Compassion ◽

10.1332/policypress/9781529200423.003.0004 ◽

2018 ◽

pp. 51-76

Author(s):

Ala Sirriyeh

Keyword(s):

Turning Point ◽

Syrian Refugees ◽

Refugee Crisis ◽

Refugee Policies ◽

The Uk

This chapter examines the role of compassion in the phenomenon of witness bearing by telling the tragic story of Alan Kurdi, a three-year-old Syrian boy who drowned on September 2, 2015, along with his mother, five-year-old brother, and other Syrian refugees when their boat capsized after leaving Bodrum in Turkey. A series of photographs of Alan taken by photo-journalist Nilüfer Demir have come to symbolise a perceived turning point in the emotional script of refugee reception in Europe. Drawing on the iconic visual testimony of Alan Kurdi's death, this chapter explores how compassion was mobilised in critiques of the restrictive policies and lack of action by the UK during the refugee crisis. It first considers how compassion has been used to mobilise resistance to restrictive government refugee policies before discussing the responses to Alan's death and how they engaged with a discourse of compassion.

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Nonrecording the “European refugee crisis” in Greece

Focaal ◽

10.3167/fcl.2017.770104 ◽

2017 ◽

Vol 2017 (77) ◽

pp. 36-49 ◽

Cited By ~ 34

Author(s):

Katerina Rozakou

Keyword(s):

Essential Element ◽

The State ◽

State Failure ◽

Border Control ◽

Refugee Crisis ◽

Starting Point ◽

European Refugee Crisis ◽

The Government ◽

Absolute Knowledge

This article explores nonrecording on the borders of Europe during the “European refugee crisis” in 2015. It examines the ambiguous practices of border control and the diverse actors involved. Taking the island of Lesvos as its starting point, the article interrogates how state functionaries manage an “irregular” bureaucracy. Irregular bureaucracy is approached as an essential element of state-craft , rather than an indication of state failure. Nonrecording is thus a crucial site of contestation between the state, nonstate agents, and the government, as well as between Greece and “Europe.” Nevertheless, despite the prevalence of irregularity, the imagery associated with ideal bureaucracy—a system of absolute knowledge, control, and governance of populations—is powerful; and yet, the actors are fully aware that it is a fantasy.

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The Devil Is in the Detail: Challenging the UK Government’s 2019 Impact Assessment of the Extent of Online Marketing of Unhealthy Foods to Children

International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health ◽

10.3390/ijerph17197231 ◽

2020 ◽

Vol 17 (19) ◽

pp. 7231

Author(s):

Mimi Tatlow-Golden ◽

Daniel Parker

Keyword(s):

Impact Assessment ◽

Well Being ◽

Online Marketing ◽

World Health ◽

Unhealthy Food ◽

Digital Devices ◽

Department Of Health ◽

The Government ◽

The Uk ◽

The Impact

Background: How much unhealthy marketing do children see on digital devices? Marketing of unhealthy food and beverages has long been identified as a factor in children’s preferences, purchase requests and consumption. Rising global obesity mandates States to craft environments that protect children and young people’s health, as recommended by the World Health Organization, among others. However, assessing the impact of marketing restrictions is particularly challenging: the complexity of digital advertising markets means that measurement challenges are profound. In 2019, the UK Department of Health published an Impact Assessment that applied a novel method aiming to calculate costs and benefits of restricting unhealthy food and beverage advertising on digital devices (planned for implementation by 2022). It estimated UK digital unhealthy marketing to children at 0.73 billion advertising impressions annually, compared to television impacts of 3.6 billion. Aim and Method: We assessed this conclusion by reviewing the UK Department of Health/Kantar Consulting’s Online Baseline Methodology (the “Government Model”). We examined the model’s underlying premise and specified the seven analytic steps undertaken. For each step, we reviewed industry and academic evidence to test its assumptions and the validity of data applied. Results: We found that, in each step, the Government Model’s assumptions, and the data sources selected, result in underestimates of the scale of digital advertising of unhealthy foods—at least tenfold, if not substantially more. The model’s underlying premise is also problematic, as digital advertising spend data relate poorly to digital advertising exposure, leading to further underestimation of market scale. Conclusion: We conclude that the Government Model very substantially underestimates the impact of digital unhealthy food advertising restrictions on health. This analysis has relevance for global policy and for the impact of regulation on children’s health and well-being.

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#1forEquality: The Story of an Unlikely Victorious Campaign in the Making

Journal of Human Rights Practice ◽

10.1093/jhuman/huz036 ◽

2019 ◽

Vol 11 (3) ◽

pp. 554-568

Author(s):

Koldo Casla

Keyword(s):

Human Rights ◽

Best Practice ◽

Well Being ◽

Added Value ◽

Strategic Choices ◽

Negative Effects ◽

Public Authorities ◽

Political Actors ◽

The Government ◽

The Uk

Abstract The UK government proudly affirms that the country has some of the strongest equalities legislation in the world, including the Equality Act 2010. For it to be true, however, the government should implement the legislation in its entirety, including the socio-economic duty (section 1 of the Act). That duty would require public authorities to actively consider how their decisions and policies of the highest strategic importance can increase or decrease inequalities of outcome. Regrettably, successive governments have failed to commence the duty, and therefore it is not technically binding on public authorities. It is encouraging that the duty was brought to life in Scotland in 2018 and the Welsh Government has announced they will follow suit in 2020. The socio-economic duty is potentially a useful lever to understand and address the structural causes of material inequalities and their negative effects on human rights and well-being. This article presents and draws conclusions from the strategic choices made by the people running #1forEquality, the national campaign to bring the socio-economic duty to life. The article introduces four key factors that contributed to making progress between 2017 and 2019, despite the limited resources available: a) the added value of merging advocacy and epistemic communities working on equality and on human rights; b) the engagement with political actors at key stages of the process; c) the combination of ‘naming and shaming’ and best practice; and d) the celebration of smaller victories along the way.

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Migration and the Mediterranean: The EU’s Response to the “European Refugee Crisis”

Transnational Security Cooperation in the Mediterranean ◽

10.1007/978-3-030-54444-7_5 ◽

2020 ◽

pp. 75-113

Author(s):

Arne Niemann ◽

Julia Blöser

Keyword(s):

Refugee Crisis ◽

European Refugee Crisis ◽

The Mediterranean

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Mental Health and Psychosocial Needs of Syrian Refugees: A Literature Review and Future Directions

Advances in Social Work ◽

10.18060/21633 ◽

2018 ◽

Vol 18 (3) ◽

pp. 833-852 ◽

Cited By ~ 2

Author(s):

Asli Cennet Yalim ◽

Isok Kim

Keyword(s):

Literature Review ◽

Well Being ◽

The United States ◽

Social Work Practice ◽

Syrian Refugees ◽

Refugee Crisis ◽

Psychosocial Needs ◽

Future Directions ◽

Syrian Refugee ◽

Syrian Refugee Crisis

Since 2011, the Syrian refugee crisis has resulted in a massive displacement of Syrians, inside and outside of Syria. The enormous psychosocial needs of displaced Syrians have been documented by various reports and studies. With expected arrivals of Syrian refugees resettling in the United States in the near future, the intensity of the challenges for both resettlement agencies and the Syrian refugees themselves are expected to increase. A literature review was conducted for publications produced between March 2011 and January 2017. Academic and grey literature were explored to provide an overview of the psychosocial well-being and cultural characteristics of Syrians. Additionally, current models were analyzed to identify future directions for social work practice. It is vital to understand the Syrian refugee crisis through a multidisciplinary lens. Responding to the challenges found among Syrians requires deliberate consideration for sociocultural, historical, and political issues that uniquely describe them and their contexts. Identifying psychosocial needs may facilitate other aspects of resettlement outcomes, such as employment, education, and social integration. Incorporating a holistic model that reflects trauma-informed and human rights perspectives into clinical as well as policy practices is critical for better overall resettlement outcomes for Syrian refugees, and refugee populations in general.

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