scholarly journals Asylum Seekers’ and Refugees’ Decision-Making in Transit in Indonesia

2019 ◽  
Vol 175 (4) ◽  
pp. 419-445 ◽  
Author(s):  
Antje Missbach
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Asylum Seekers ◽  
Longitudinal Research ◽  
Life Story ◽  
Ethical Challenges ◽  
Decision Making Processes ◽  
Migration Strategies ◽  
Life Story Interviews ◽  
In Transit ◽  
Asylum Seekers And Refugees

Abstract Asylum seekers and refugees currently living in Indonesia tend to see Indonesia as a transit rather than a destination country, despite the fact that their stays are increasing in length. Based on contact with Muhamad (not his real name), a young refugee from Iran currently residing in Indonesia whose adjustment and development I observed over four years, I illustrate the changing priorities in his decision-making, the constant flux of circumstances and context, and the extreme complexity of primary and secondary factors that come into play in planning for the future. Combining a macro perspective with a case study, in which I present excerpts from several life-story interviews, helps to exemplify these generic migratory challenges and distil a range of relevant parameters that influence the decision-making of asylum seekers and refugees in transit. A (self-)critical reflection on ethical and methodological challenges underpins my analysis and argument, not least because politicians and policymakers are increasingly interested in influencing migratory decision-making processes to gain political advantage. Of particular interest in my analysis is the role of Australia’s deterrence policies in asylum seekers’ decision-making. Despite the ethical challenges associated with studying migratory decision-making—as public knowledge of migration strategies can also suppress aspirations of mobility—I argue for more in-depth and longitudinal research. At the very least, this is because more intensive, yet considerate studies of decision-making will help us to take seriously the migratory aspirations of people with limited choices.

International Institutions and Individualized Decision-Making: An Example of UNHCR's Refugee Status Determination

2008 ◽  
Vol 9 (11) ◽  
pp. 1779-1804 ◽  
Author(s):  
Maja Smrkolj
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Asylum Seekers ◽  
International Institutions ◽  
Health Conditions ◽  
Refugee Status ◽  
Security Forces ◽  
High Commissioner ◽  
Sudanese Refugees ◽  
Individualized Decision ◽  
Asylum Seekers And Refugees

In autumn 2005 a group of Sudanese asylum seekers and refugees discontented with the unbearable conditions in the United Nations High Commissioner for Refuges (UNHCR) office in Cairo started a sit-in protest near the office. The protesters were, besides venting their anger at the suspension of Refugee Status Determination procedures for Sudanese refugees due to the ceasefire between the Sudanese government and Sudan's People Liberation Army, also making their frustrations heard regarding UNHCR's lengthy procedures, its failure to provide them with proper assistance, the high numbers of rejected applications, improper interviews and their general treatment by UNHCR's personnel as well as their difficult social and health conditions which had been aggravated by the lack of proper assistance. They were demanding that this situation be remedied and calling for transparent and fair procedures. Shortly thereafter they were joined by many more protesters so that in the following three months a group of between 1,800 and 2,500 people stayed around UNHCR's premises. However, meetings and negotiations with UNCHR eventually failed. The crisis ended in a tragedy. On December 30, 2005 the Egyptian security forces proceeded with the forcible removal of the protesters from the venue in an action in which 28 refugees were killed, more than half of which were children and women, with several protesters missing after the events. The Cairo incident illustrates what the cited report on the events has rightly called “a tragedy of failures and false expectations” regarding international humanitarian and human rights institutions.

scholarly journals Ethical challenges in researching and telling the stories of recently deceased people

2020 ◽  
pp. 174701612095250
Author(s):  
Glenys Caswell ◽  
Nicola Turner
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Review Process ◽  
Extended Period ◽  
Ethical Review ◽  
Ethical Challenges ◽  
Decision Making Processes ◽  
The Dead ◽  
Conducting Research ◽  
Ethical Review Process ◽  
Deceased People

This paper explores ethical challenges encountered when conducting research about, and telling, the stories of individuals who had died before the research began. Cases were explored where individuals who lived alone had died alone at home and where their bodies had been undiscovered for an extended period. The ethical review process had not had anything significant to say about the deceased ‘participants’. As social researchers we considered whether it was ethical to involve deceased people in research when they had no opportunity to decline, and we were concerned about how to report such research. The idea that the dead can be harmed did not help our decision-making processes, but the notion of the dead having limited human rights conferred upon them was useful and aided us in clarifying how to conduct our research and disseminate our findings.

scholarly journals Portuguese refugee law in the European context: the case of sexuality-based claims

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nuno Ferreira
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Asylum Seekers ◽  
Legal Framework ◽  
Legal Scholarship ◽  
Academic Literature ◽  
European Context ◽  
Refugee Law ◽  
Migration History ◽  
Asylum Seekers And Refugees

Portugal’s migration history has been extensively explored in academic literature, including in legal scholarship. Yet, very little attention has so far been directed towards Portuguese refugee law. This may be due to the relatively low number of asylum seekers that Portugal receives, but that does not justify neglecting the study of the Portuguese socio-legal framework applicable to asylum seekers and refugees. This article addresses this gap by analyzing the framework in a European context, enhancing the analysis with a case study of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transsexual, and intersex (LGBTI) asylum seekers. The analysis explores the evolution of the current legal framework, the procedures and remedies available to asylum seekers, the substantive standards applied in decision-making, and the broader socio-legal resources offered to asylum seekers. Several shortcomings and possible avenues of improvement are also identified.

Beyond the matrix of oppression: Reframing human smuggling through instersectionality- informed approaches

2017 ◽  
Vol 21 (1) ◽  
pp. 46-56 ◽  
Author(s):  
Gabriella Sanchez
Keyword(s):  
Social Interactions ◽  
Asylum Seekers ◽  
Human Smuggling ◽  
Irregular Migration ◽  
Late Modernity ◽  
Irregular Migrants ◽  
Criminological Research ◽  
The Matrix ◽  
Migration Strategies ◽  
In Transit

What are the challenges and the advantages of using an intersectionality-informed approach in criminological research? In this essay I raise that question via an analysis of human smuggling discourses. Tragic events involving the deaths of irregular migrants and asylum seekers in transit are most often attributed to the actions of the human smuggler— constructed as the violent, greed-driven, predator racialized, and gendered as a male from the global South. Most academic engagements with smuggling often failing to notice the discursive fields they enter, have focused on documenting in detail the victimization and violence processes faced by those in transit, in the process reinscribing often problematic narratives of irregular migration, like those reducing migrants to naïve and powerless creatures and smugglers as inherently male, foreign and criminal bodies. I argue that essentialized notions of identity prevalent in neoliberal discourses have permeated engagements with migration, allowing for human smuggling’s framing solely as an inherently exploitative and violent practice performed by explicitly racialized, gendered Others. In what follows I start to articulate the possibility of reframing human smuggling, shifting the focus from the mythified smugglers to the series of social interactions and sensorial experiences that often facilitated as demonstrations of care and solidarity ultimately lead to the mobility, albeit precarious, of irregular migrants. Through a critical engagement with the concept of intersectionality I explore how smuggling—as one of multiple irregular migration strategies—can be unpacked as constituting much more than the quintessential predatory practice of late modernity performed by criminal smugglers preying on powerless victims, to be instead acknowledged as an alternative, contradictory, highly complex if often precarious path to mobility and safety in and from the margins.

Hosting Asylum-Seekers and People Transiting through Milan as an Opportunity for Social Innovation

2020 ◽  
Vol 39 (3) ◽  
pp. 363-380
Author(s):  
Giuliana Costa
Keyword(s):  
Social Workers ◽  
Asylum Seekers ◽  
Social Innovation ◽  
Local Governance ◽  
Local Level ◽  
Forced Migration ◽  
Welfare Policies ◽  
Unique Approach ◽  
In Transit ◽  
Asylum Seekers And Refugees

Abstract The State is responsible for hosting and protecting asylum-seekers and refugees, while policies and programmes are, instead, implemented at the local level. Local governance of forced migration can either reinforce exclusionist drivers imposed by national laws or effectively shape them through innovative practices, at times overcoming what is perceived as inadequate legislation, to manage the issue inclusively. This article describes Milan’s asylum-seekers and migrants in transit hosting system in 2014–2016 and discusses the extent to which the experience constituted an opportunity for social innovation in local welfare policies. Giving asylum-seekers sanctuary and dealing with the high and rapid inflow of people in transit created a unique approach (for Italy) that is still under-researched, unlike that of cities such as Amsterdam and Barcelona. The components of the “Milan Model” are identified, contextualised, and scrutinised by 46 interviews with key informants, including executives of Milan Municipality, managers of the city’s hosting facilities, social workers, journalists, Italian scholars, national and local social movement leaders, and volunteers and representatives of nationally coordinated associations.

scholarly journals Ethics-based auditing of automated decision-making systems: intervention points and policy implications

AI & Society ◽  
2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jakob Mökander ◽  
Maria Axente
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Knowledge Exchange ◽  
Policy Implications ◽  
Main Function ◽  
Governance Mechanism ◽  
Ethical Challenges ◽  
Human Decision ◽  
Decision Making Processes ◽  
Software Lifecycle ◽  
Automated Decision Making

AbstractOrganisations increasingly use automated decision-making systems (ADMS) to inform decisions that affect humans and their environment. While the use of ADMS can improve the accuracy and efficiency of decision-making processes, it is also coupled with ethical challenges. Unfortunately, the governance mechanisms currently used to oversee human decision-making often fail when applied to ADMS. In previous work, we proposed that ethics-based auditing (EBA)—that is, a structured process by which ADMS are assessed for consistency with relevant principles or norms—can (a) help organisations verify claims about their ADMS and (b) provide decision-subjects with justifications for the outputs produced by ADMS. In this article, we outline the conditions under which EBA procedures can be feasible and effective in practice. First, we argue that EBA is best understood as a ‘soft’ yet ‘formal’ governance mechanism. This implies that the main responsibility of auditors should be to spark ethical deliberation at key intervention points throughout the software development process and ensure that there is sufficient documentation to respond to potential inquiries. Second, we frame AMDS as parts of larger sociotechnical systems to demonstrate that to be feasible and effective, EBA procedures must link to intervention points that span all levels of organisational governance and all phases of the software lifecycle. The main function of EBA should, therefore, be to inform, formalise, assess, and interlink existing governance structures. Finally, we discuss the policy implications of our findings. To support the emergence of feasible and effective EBA procedures, policymakers and regulators could provide standardised reporting formats, facilitate knowledge exchange, provide guidance on how to resolve normative tensions, and create an independent body to oversee EBA of ADMS.

Making Do: How a Somali Refugee Woman Experiences Social Mobility Amidst Precarity in Transit in Indonesia

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-17
Author(s):  
Antje Missbach ◽  
Trish Cameron
Keyword(s):  
Asylum Seekers ◽  
Forced Migration ◽  
Fundamental Rights ◽  
Somali Woman ◽  
Refugee Protection ◽  
Refugee Woman ◽  
Somali Refugee ◽  
The Right ◽  
In Transit ◽  
Asylum Seekers And Refugees

Abstract This article presents an account of Faduma, a Somali woman currently living in Jakarta, Indonesia, in order to illustrate the creativity, resilience and adaptability required to make do as a refugee with little to no formal support in a rather hostile environment. For Faduma, Indonesia presents such an environment. As it offers no formal protection for asylum seekers and refugees and only tolerates their temporary presence without guaranteeing them any fundamental rights, such as the right to work, it can be characterised as a ‘deviant destination’ for refugees in search of durable and effective solutions. This article analyses Faduma's strategies, embedded in the macro-political context of forced migration, the Global North's externalised border policies, the absence of safe pathways, and the lack of proper refugee protection in Southeast Asia, for finding informal employment, attaining new skills and education, and forming strategic friendships with Indonesians and expatriates as a means of dealing with racism, exploitation and multifaceted precarity. We selected Faduma's case from amongst a number of encounters that we had with Somali refugees in Indonesia because of her extraordinary involvement with the Somali community. While the current toleration of refugee activities by Indonesian authorities enables refugees to survive in transit, we argue that such unintentional and informal protection is not a durable approach for larger groups of refugees enduring prolonged periods of waiting.

scholarly journals The Ethical and Practical Challenges of Archiving Refugee Accounts: Reflections from Two Research Projects in the UK

2021 ◽  
Vol 150 (1) ◽  
pp. 51-69
Author(s):  
Emma Stewart ◽  
Marnie Shaffer
Keyword(s):  
Asylum Seekers ◽  
Best Practice ◽  
Qualitative Data ◽  
Statistical Data ◽  
Ethical Challenges ◽  
Sensitive Material ◽  
Relative Paucity ◽  
The Difference ◽  
The Uk ◽  
Asylum Seekers And Refugees

Since the 2015 ‘refugee crisis’, the lens of researchers has been increasingly focused upon asylum seekers and refugees around the world. Nevertheless, working in the field of refugee studies poses several methodological and data challenges. For example, there is a relative paucity of detailed statistical data on refugee stocks, which has led to researchers favouring the collection of personal, qualitative stories from refugee populations. Although this produces a substantial volume of rich narratives, these can be geographically and temporally specific. The collection of qualitative data is also expensive, time consuming, and labour intensive. Therefore, alongside the increasing institutional and mandatory demands to deposit qualitative material in open access repositories, there is growing recognition of the value of archiving refugee accounts. There are also significant challenges in archiving refugee interview transcripts to enhance broader knowledge. In this paper, we discuss the process of archiving refugee accounts to highlight the practical and ethical challenges of depositing sensitive material. Specifically, we draw upon the archival process that was required upon completion of two Research Council funded projects in the UK. This involved the preparation and depositing of interview transcripts from over 100 refugees. Key challenges that arose included the need to uphold interviewees’ confidentiality, the process of anonymisation, and determining the level of access to grant future users. Subsequent issues have involved responding to data requests, permitting selective release of data, and stipulating conditions for release. We then reflect more widely upon the tensions we encountered between procedural and micro-ethics, namely the difference between decisions based upon rules rather than judgement. In doing so, we consider key processes and highlight best practice to be adopted in the future archival of refugee stories.

Cognitive Processing of Miscommunication in Interactive Listening: An Evaluation of Listener Indecision and Cognitive Effort

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-17
Author(s):  
Jennifer M. Roche ◽  
Arkady Zgonnikov ◽  
Laura M. Morett
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Cognitive Processing ◽  
Language Processing ◽  
Cognitive Effort ◽  
Mouse Tracking ◽  
Computer Mouse ◽  
Decision Making Processes ◽  
Computer Mouse Tracking ◽  
Listening Task ◽  
Processing Effort

Purpose The purpose of the current study was to evaluate the social and cognitive underpinnings of miscommunication during an interactive listening task. Method An eye and computer mouse–tracking visual-world paradigm was used to investigate how a listener's cognitive effort (local and global) and decision-making processes were affected by a speaker's use of ambiguity that led to a miscommunication. Results Experiments 1 and 2 found that an environmental cue that made a miscommunication more or less salient impacted listener language processing effort (eye-tracking). Experiment 2 also indicated that listeners may develop different processing heuristics dependent upon the speaker's use of ambiguity that led to a miscommunication, exerting a significant impact on cognition and decision making. We also found that perspective-taking effort and decision-making complexity metrics (computer mouse tracking) predict language processing effort, indicating that instances of miscommunication produced cognitive consequences of indecision, thinking, and cognitive pull. Conclusion Together, these results indicate that listeners behave both reciprocally and adaptively when miscommunications occur, but the way they respond is largely dependent upon the type of ambiguity and how often it is produced by the speaker.

“It's Not Humanly Possible to Do Everything”: Perspectives on Intervention Decision-Making Processes of Parents of Children with Autism Spectrum Disorders

2015 ◽  
Vol 22 (1) ◽  
pp. 13-21 ◽  
Author(s):  
Erinn Finke ◽  
Kathryn Drager ◽  
Elizabeth C. Serpentine
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Individualized Education Program ◽  
Children With Autism ◽  
Autism Spectrum ◽  
Sources Of Information ◽  
Individual Decision ◽  
Decision Making Processes ◽  
Spectrum Disorders ◽  
Interview Methodology ◽  
Communication Interventions

Purpose The purpose of this investigation was to understand the decision-making processes used by parents of children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) related to communication-based interventions. Method Qualitative interview methodology was used. Data were gathered through interviews. Each parent had a child with ASD who was at least four-years-old; lived with their child with ASD; had a child with ASD without functional speech for communication; and used at least two different communication interventions. Results Parents considered several sources of information for learning about interventions and provided various reasons to initiate and discontinue a communication intervention. Parents also discussed challenges introduced once opinions of the school individualized education program (IEP) team had to be considered. Conclusions Parents of children with ASD primarily use individual decision-making processes to select interventions. This discrepancy speaks to the need for parents and professionals to share a common “language” about interventions and the decision-making process.

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