Paradoxical infrastructures of asylum: Notes on the rise and fall of tent camps in Denmark

2018 ◽  
Vol 8 (2) ◽  
pp. 143-160 ◽  
Author(s):  
Zachary Whyte ◽  
Rebecca Campbell ◽  
Heidi Overgaard

AbstractAsylum policies in the Global North have increasingly turned towards populist policies of deterrence, as states attempt to make themselves seem as unattractive as possible to would-be asylum seekers. This article examines one such case: the tent camps for asylum seekers that were hastily erected in Denmark in early 2016. However, while the tent camps surely are an instance of symbolic politics, we argue that to understand their daily operation, attention must also be paid to their infrastructural qualities. Drawing on two months of fieldwork at a tent camp in Næstved, this article examines the ways in which asylum policy and infrastructure interact to shape the daily lives and interactions of camp residents and staff. We propose two paradoxical frames for the analysis, which we term ‘spectacular obscurity’ and ‘successful failure’. The tent camps were trumpeted as symbolic politics, while their daily operation remained obscured, only to burst in to scandal as reports emerged of threatening and violent behaviour on the part of the staff. The tent camps’ infrastructure was constantly failing, as both material and social support broke down, but at the same time these failures successfully formed the basis for the everyday interactions that structured life in the camps. We conclude by questioning the effect of the policies of deterrence as mediated through particular infrastructures, suggesting that the materialities of the tent camps played a more significant role than supposed by policy makers, and that paradoxes of infrastructure provide a useful perspective through which to analyse migration management more broadly.

2019 ◽  
pp. 1-20
Author(s):  
David Scott FitzGerald

Most refugees do not have a legal way of reaching safety in the rich democracies of the Global North. There is no legal line where they can register and wait as their number advances. Obtaining a resettlement slot is like winning the lottery. The only realistic way to reach the Global North is to reach its territory and then ask for asylum. Rich democracies typically abide by the principle of non-refoulement but deliberately and systematically shut down most legal paths to safety. An architecture of repulsion based on cages, domes, buffers, moats, and barbicans keeps out asylum seekers and other migrants. Australia, Canada, the United States, and the European Union have converging policies of remote control to keep asylum seekers away from their territories. The catch-22 for refugees is that rich democracies are essentially telling them, “We will not kick you out if you come here. But we will not let you come here.”


2021 ◽  
pp. 089198872199681
Author(s):  
Kerry Hanna ◽  
Clarissa Giebel ◽  
Hilary Tetlow ◽  
Kym Ward ◽  
Justine Shenton ◽  
...  

Background: To date, there appears to be no evidence on the longer-term impacts caused by COVID-19 and its related public health restrictions on some of the most vulnerable in our societies. The aim of this research was to explore the change in impact of COVID-19 public health measures on the mental wellbeing of people living with dementia (PLWD) and unpaid carers. Method: Semi-structured, follow-up telephone interviews were conducted with PLWD and unpaid carers between June and July 2020. Participants were asked about their experiences of accessing social support services during the pandemic, and the impact of restrictions on their daily lives. Results: 20 interviews were conducted and thematically analyzed, which produced 3 primary themes concerning emotional responses and impact to mental health and wellbeing during the course of the pandemic: 1) Impact on mental health during lockdown, 2) Changes to mental health following easing of public health, and 3) The long-term effect of public health measures. Conclusions: The findings from this research shed light on the longer-term psychological impacts of the UK Government’s public health measures on PLWD and their carers. The loss of social support services was key in impacting this cohort mentally and emotionally, displaying a need for better psychological support, for both carers and PLWD.


Author(s):  
Muhammad Shoaib Farooq

Purpose Although entrepreneurial behaviour is considered a key element for economic development, yet very less is known about the determinants of factors leading towards entrepreneurial intention and behaviour. In order to bridge this gap, the purpose of this paper is to investigate the role of social support and entrepreneurial skills in determining entrepreneurial behaviour of individuals. Developing on the base of the theory of planned behaviour (TPB), this study investigates the relationship between social support, entrepreneurial skills and entrepreneurial behaviour along with existing constructs of the TPB (i.e. attitude, subjective norms, perceived behavioural control and entrepreneurial intention). Design/methodology/approach Data was collected from 281 respondents using a simple random sampling method, and the variance-based partial least-squares, structural equation modelling (PLS-SEM) approach was used for testing the proposed conceptual model. Findings Findings of this study have validated the proposed model, which have an explanatory power of 68.3 per cent. Moreover, findings reveal that social support and entrepreneurial skills have a significant impact on entrepreneurial intention of individuals. However, an unanticipated and non-significant relation between subjective norms and entrepreneurial intention is also found. Research limitations/implications Due to the limited scope of this study, a multi-group analysis is not possible, which is considered as a limitation of this study. Moreover, due to time constraints, this study is conducted within a specified time-frame; however, a longitudinal study over a period of three to six years can overcome this limitation. Practical implications Findings of this study are expected to have substantial implications for policy makers, future researchers and academicians. Outcomes of this study can help to better understand the cognitive phenomenon of nascent entrepreneurs. Moreover, it is expected that this study can serve as a torch-bearer for policy makers to develop better entrepreneurial development programmes, policies and initiatives for promoting self-employment behaviour. Originality/value Findings of this study are a unique step forward and offer new insights towards a better understanding of the determinants of entrepreneurial behaviour. Moreover, this study extends Ajzen’s (1991) TPB in the context of entrepreneurial behaviour. By introducing and investigating the impact of two new variables, i.e. social support and entrepreneurial skills in the TPB and by validating the proposed model with PLS-SEM approach, this study makes a sizeable theoretical, methodological and contextual contribution in the overall body of knowledge.


2021 ◽  
Vol 21 (3) ◽  
Author(s):  
Salih Gulbay

There are numerous young asylum seekers and unaccompanied migrant minors around the globe. A comprehensive literature review revealed that post traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) is the most common disorder that affects the asylum seeker youth and migrant minor populations. Many of these individuals struggle with PTSD and show resilience in their daily lives while also learning, discovering, and surviving. Accordingly, therapeutic interventions directed to them must be trauma-informed, phased, engaging, empowering, and impactful to support the needs of these young people. A seven-month-long music therapy intervention experience that was applied to young asylum seekers in Spain, and found that the most effective intervention tools were Hip Hop Therapy-related interventions. This study resulted in a new intervention model, The Integral Hip Hop Methodology. This paper highlights the importance that intervention models be engaging and considerate to the necessities and preferences of the addressed population and presents The Integral Hip Hop Methodology as an example.


2021 ◽  
Vol ahead-of-print (ahead-of-print) ◽  
Author(s):  
Riccardo Cimini

PurposeThis paper includes a systematic and bibliometric review of research products that address risk culture published between 1996 and 2019.Design/methodology/approachThe Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses (PRISMA) protocol has been followed for the systematic literature review. As to the bibliometric analysis, a network helps the readers to identify the most prominent research, if any, in terms of mutual references.FindingsRisk culture has been extensively investigated under different perspectives by scholars who belong to a research community not so much integrated in terms of reciprocal references.Practical implicationsManagers, policy makers and politicians should learn that it is important to understand risk culture because the effectiveness of corporate strategies and reforms pass also through cultural values of people that determine their conduct in the everyday lives.Originality/valueBeing still lacking, this article contributes to the literature by providing a novel theoretical framework that reconciles the different approaches through which risk culture has been investigated. The framework explains that behind risk culture there are always people and their behaviour facing risk and uncertainty. In the extent, bounded rationality might produce (mis)perceptions of risks, a large variety of human behaviour, and so different risk cultures can be observed.


Author(s):  
Karen Hunt

The chapter discusses how Labour Party women engaged with the newly-enfranchised housewife between the wars. It focuses on how Labour Woman represented the working-class housewife and the degree to which it enabled her to speak for herself. It chose everyday domestic life, traditionally assumed to be beyond politics, as the way to connect with unorganised women in their homes. In its Housewife Column the relevance of politics to women’s daily lives was explored through domestic topics such food prices, housework, washing and making clothes. Even with the increasing dominance of recipes and dress patterns in the 1930s, the journal continued to see the housewife as having agency and a distinct experience shaped by class. For Labour Woman interwar domesticity was neither cosy nor rationalised and modern, it was a space which provided the means to engage with the everyday lives of ordinary women.


Author(s):  
Casey R. Barrier ◽  
Megan C. Kassabaum

The practice of enclosing open spaces with earthen mounds begins in the Lower Mississippi Valley around 3500 B.C. As the earliest recognized monumentalized landscapes in Eastern North America, these locations are thought to have provided periodic bases for the exploitation of rich natural resources and the maintenance of social relationships. Archaeological work at these early plaza sites has focused on establishing the age and stratigraphy of the associated mounds, leaving little known about the everyday activities that occurred around or between them. In this chapter, two case studies from separate areas of the Late Woodland Southeast are discussed: Feltus and Range sites. Participants in the large-scale rituals occurring in the Feltus plaza spent much of their time spatially separated, but the periodic moments of aggregation quite literally created the personal relationships, social structure, and ritual system in which they lived their daily lives. On the other hand, participants in the daily activities that occurred in the Range courtyards co-resided, but the particular relationships they shared with other individuals were negotiated in outside spaces, and the very presence and structure of the courtyard itself tied them – every day – into a much larger local community around formal, central plazas.


Author(s):  
Michael P. Poland ◽  
Chris D. Nugent ◽  
Hui Wang ◽  
Liming Chen

Smart Homes are environments facilitated with technology that act in a protective and proactive function to assist an inhabitant in managing their daily lives specific to their individual needs. A typical Smart Home implementation would include sensors and actuators to detect changes in status and to initiate beneficial interventions. This paper aims to introduce the diversity of recent Smart Home research and to present the challenges that are faced not only by engineers and potential inhabitants, but also by policy makers and healthcare professionals


2021 ◽  
pp. 55-73
Author(s):  
Rhoda Olkin

For persons who are minorities, the impact of laws can be very directly experienced in day-to-day life. The myriad laws related to disability are scattered across many laws and throughout many agencies and can be hard to locate. Some of the laws, rules and regulations help, but some also hinder, the daily lives of the disabled. How the labyrinth of laws places a burden on people with disabilities is highlighted. There are four activities in this chapter. The first has students focus on laws that affect their everyday lives. In the second activity the concept of ‘separate but not equal’ is the focus. A third activity entails a comparison of social justice versus distributive justice as it applies to disability. In the fourth activity a game of ‘Eye Spy’ concentrates on the application of disability laws.


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