Architectures of asylum: Making home in a state of permanent temporariness

2020 ◽  
Vol 68 (5) ◽  
pp. 628-650
Author(s):  
Anna Marie Steigemann ◽  
Philipp Misselwitz
Keyword(s):  
Social Relationships ◽  
Asylum Seekers ◽  
Spatial Dimension ◽  
Spatial Knowledge ◽  
Refugee Camps ◽  
Ethnic Segregation ◽  
Spatial Practices ◽  
Place Of Origin ◽  
Spatial Appropriation ◽  
Management Approaches

Urban research in Germany has started to address the socio-spatial distribution and architectures of so-called collective accommodation for asylum seekers, refugee camps, and new forms of ethnic segregation triggered by refugee movements in recent years. The spatial practices of refugees themselves within these processes have not yet been a subject of substantive research. Combining research methods from social and architectural sciences, this article investigates the physical, material, social and symbolic appropriation processes and the spatial dimension of homemaking by Syrian refugees currently housed in refugee accommodation in Berlin, Germany. What spatial knowledge is mobilized at the place of asylum in order to turn the accommodation into a home? How do spatial practices and knowledge hybridize practices of the place of origin, experiences made during the flight and the arriving and uncertain period of stay at an unfamiliar place of asylum? How do spatial appropriation processes collide with humanitarian logics and technocratic emergency management approaches at the place of asylum? With these questions, the article focuses on the ways in which refugees perceive, adapt to, appropriate and alter their new urban environment physically and socially, and how they thereby draw on existing and evolving stocks of urban knowledge, urban experiences and social relationships. It argues that to develop a homelike space in temporary accommodation, arriving refugees mobilize knowledge at the place of asylum which can only be understood as a re-figuration process that is equally at work in the case of other migrants, migration and translocal processes. Studying these urban re-figurations thus helps us to reveal how the interplay of refugees’ agency and their knowledge and the technocratic regime – as a state of permanent temporariness – affects the making of a ‘home’.

Confines

2019 ◽  
pp. 161-193
Author(s):  
Joseph P. Reidy
Keyword(s):  
Social Relationships ◽  
Vantage Point ◽  
Refugee Camps ◽  
Confined Space ◽  
Simple Characterization ◽  
War Effort

Confined space offers an instructive vantage point into the reconfiguration of social relationships that were central to the emancipation process. In homes and kitchens throughout the slave states, enslaved house servants devised strategies for asserting greater control over their labor and their lives, even when escape to freedom was out of reach. Women and men hired to work in the shops and factories that supported the Confederate war effort interacted with new casts of characters with new possibilities for stretching their customary boundaries and shedding their usual constraints. For freedom-seeking refugees who reached Union lines, refugee camps (generally called "contraband camps") offered shelter and employment, though often under the watchful eyes of proselytizing Northerners. Cities presented special conditions for the breakdown of slavery, as the experience of Washington, D.C., illustrates. The D.C. emancipation act of April 1862 set in motion a contested process that defies the simple characterization of immediate emancipation.

Body-Space-Relation in Parkour : Street Practices and Visual Representations

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ines Braune
Keyword(s):  
Visual Representations ◽  
Spatial Knowledge ◽  
Media Representations ◽  
Local Moment ◽  
Spatial Practices ◽  
Digital Discourse ◽  
Tactile Contact ◽  
The Media ◽  
Media Practices

Parkour today is a global subcultural scene that combines street with media practices. Parkour consists of a local moment, fundamentally concerned with the materiality of the street, and simultaneously of a global digital discourse, which involves millions of parkour actors. While the spatial knowledge requires a very close knowledge and tactile contact of the surface’s nature of space, the media representations seem to reflect an opposite image, namely the detachedness of space. In this chapter, I will address the question of space-making and spatial practices in Morocco and the relation to parkour’s visual representations.

scholarly journals Biopolitics, borders, and refugee camps: exercising sovereign power over nonmembers of the state†

2017 ◽  
Vol 45 (1) ◽  
pp. 41-60 ◽  
Author(s):  
Olga Zeveleva
Keyword(s):  
National Identity ◽  
Asylum Seekers ◽  
The State ◽  
State Of Exception ◽  
Refugee Camps ◽  
Sovereign Power ◽  
The Government ◽  
Treat All ◽  
Refugees And Asylum Seekers ◽  
The Relationship

This article addresses the relationship between the concepts of national identity and biopolitics by examining a border-transit camp for repatriates, refugees, and asylum seekers in Germany. Current studies of detention spaces for migrants have drawn heavily on Agamben's reflection on the “camp” and “homo sacer,” where the camp is analyzed as a space in a permanent state of exception, in which the government exercises sovereign power over the refugee as the ultimate biopolitical subject. But what groups of people can end up at a camp, and does the government treat all groups in the same way? This article examines the German camp for repatriates, refugees, and asylum seekers as a space where the state's borders are demarcated and controlled through practices of bureaucratic and narrative differentiation among various groups of people. The author uses the concept of detention space to draw a theoretical link between national identity and biopolitics, and demonstrates how the sovereign's practices of control and differentiation at the camp construct German national identity through defining “nonmembers” of the state. The study draws on ethnographic fieldwork at the Friedland border transit camp and on a discourse analysis of texts produced at the camp or for the camp.

THE OPTIONAL PROTOCOL TO THE CONVENTION AGAINST TORTURE AND THE DETENTION OF REFUGEES

2008 ◽  
Vol 57 (4) ◽  
pp. 789-825 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alice Edwards
Keyword(s):  
Asylum Seekers ◽  
Refugee Camps ◽  
Common Occurrence ◽  
Optional Protocol ◽  
Border Zones ◽  
The World ◽  
Convention Against Torture ◽  
Degrading Treatment ◽  
Set Up ◽  
Administrative Detention

AbstractThe Optional Protocol to the Convention against Torture entered into force on 22 June 2006. It establishes a Sub-Committee for the Prevention of Torture that has authority to visit places of detention and to assess the conditions of that detention as a way to reduce the incidence of torture or cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment. Additionally, States parties are required to set up complementary national preventive mechanisms. This article explores both how these mechanisms established under the Optional Protocol could operate in the context of the detention of refugees and/or asylum-seekers, which is an increasingly common occurrence in many parts of the world, as well as whether they add value to existing international mechanisms that are already available in this field. It examines the purported applicability of the Optional Protocol to four refugee/asylum situations, namely detention at airports and other border zones; immigration (or administrative) detention, including semi-open (or semi-closed) asylum centres; closed refugee camps; and extraterritorial processing or holding centres. Reviewing definitional, jurisdictional, and practical issues that may impact on the success or otherwise of these new preventive mechanisms, this article concludes by making a number of recommendations to aid their work in the refugee/asylum context.

scholarly journals IDENTITY CRISIS AND ASSIMILATION PROBLEMS AMONG SYRIAN REFUGEE WOMEN RESIDING OUTSIDE REFUGEE CAMPS IN JORDAN

2019 ◽  
Vol 10 (4.1) ◽  
pp. 44-64
Author(s):  
Sahar Al-Shar ◽  
Muhammad Al-Tarawneh
Keyword(s):  
Cultural Differences ◽  
Social Relationships ◽  
Sense Of Belonging ◽  
Identity Crisis ◽  
Host Community ◽  
Refugee Camps ◽  
Cultural Assimilation ◽  
Structured Interviews ◽  
Refugee Women ◽  
Syrian Refugee

This article describes and analyzes the main problematic issues of social and cultural assimilation encountered by Syrian refugee women in Jordan who are not living in refugee camps, and the reasons for the identity crisis that these women experience. The data that provide this information were collected by means of semi-structured interviews from a sample of 50 of these women. The results show that most of the Syrian refugee women living outside the camps suffered from hardships that interfered with their social and cultural assimilation. There were few formal social relationships between refugee women and others in their milieu, and the refugees felt that there were distinct cultural differences in dialect, customs, and traditions between them and their Jordanian peers. The study shows that most of the participants were living in a state of social isolation resulting from identity crisis. It was difficult for them to develop a sense of belonging to the society of the country of asylum while being distracted both by day-to-day concerns and by their desire to return to their homeland. These factors limited their ability to develop good relations with the host community as a prelude to integration, assimilation, and social symmetry.

scholarly journals Sars-CoV-2 attack rate in reception and accommodation centres for asylum seekers: systematic review of outbreak media reports in Germany

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rosa Jahn ◽  
Maren Hintermeier ◽  
Kayvan Bozorgmehr
Keyword(s):  
Special Needs ◽  
Attack Rate ◽  
Asylum Seekers ◽  
Negative Binomial ◽  
Refugee Camps ◽  
Testing Strategies ◽  
Containment Measures ◽  
Media Reports ◽  
Google Search ◽  
The Impact

ABSTRACTObjectivesDespite concerns about the impact of the severe acute respiratory syndrome corona virus (Sars-CoV-2) in refugee camps, data on attack rates and effectiveness of containment measures are lacking. We aimed to (1) quantify the attack rate of Sars-CoV-2 during outbreaks in reception and accommodation centres in Germany, (2) assess differences in the attack rate based on containment measures, and (3) provide an overview of testing strategies, communication, conflicts, and protection measures for refugees with special needs.MethodsSystematic web-based review of outbreak media reports (until June 2020) on confirmed Sars-CoV-2 cases in reception centers for asylum seekers in Germany using the google search engine. Reports were screened for pre-defined inclusion criteria and complemented by snowball searches. Data on facility name, location, confirmed cases, containment measures, communication, protection strategies, and conflicts was extracted for each outbreak and reporting date. Evidence synthesis: meta-analysis and negative binomial regression.FindingsWe identified 337 media reports on 101 Sars-CoV-2 outbreaks in 99 reception and accommodation centers in Germany. The pooled Sars-CoV-2 attack rate was 13.1% (95% confidence interval, CI: 9.8-16.7). Outbreak sites implementing mass quarantine (n=76) showed higher rates (15.7; 95% CI: 11.6 - 20.2) compared to sites using conventional strategies (6.6; 95%CI: 3.1 - 11.2), yielding a rate ratio of 0.44 (95%CI: 0.27-0.72) adjusted for testing strategies, type and size of accommodation. Conflicts occurred in at least 11.8% of all outbreaks. Few sites reported specific measures to protect refugees with special needs.ConclusionMass quarantine is associated with higher attack rates, and appears to be a counter-productive containment measure in overcrowded camps. Although further research with individual-level data is required to rule out residual confounding, reception centers and refugee camps should follow the available guidelines on Covid-19 response and refrain from mass quarantine if physical distancing cannot be guaranteed.

Part 3 Vulnerable Groups, 3.3 Refugees, Asylum Seekers, and Internally Displaced Persons

2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
Bielefeldt Heiner, Prof ◽  
Ghanea Nazila, Dr ◽  
Wiener Michael, Dr
Keyword(s):  
Asylum Seekers ◽  
Vulnerable Groups ◽  
Freedom Of Religion ◽  
Internally Displaced Persons ◽  
Refugee Camps ◽  
Displaced Persons ◽  
Refugee Status ◽  
Internally Displaced ◽  
Equal Right

Though it is clear that refugees, asylum seekers, and internally displaced persons (IDPs) have an equal right to freedom of religion or belief, this right is often compromised in practice. This chapter examines a number of these challenges for freedom of religion or belief at various stages of the process by which persons become forcibly displaced, seek asylum and refugee status in another State, are able to or are denied the freedom to practise religion or belief in refugee camps, or face refoulement.

Making home in exile: Everyday practices and belongings in Palestinian refugee camps

2020 ◽  
Vol 11 (2) ◽  
pp. 119-136
Author(s):  
Erin Cory
Keyword(s):  
Asylum Seekers ◽  
Street Art ◽  
Refugee Camps ◽  
Palestinian Refugees ◽  
Everyday Practices ◽  
History Of ◽  
Palestinian Refugee ◽  
The Rich ◽  
Ethnographic Analysis ◽  
Refugees And Asylum Seekers

Palestinians share a history of exile oriented towards the loss and reclamation of a homeland, often expressed through a shared visual lexicon and mythos. In the context of refugee camps, however, local visual culture and everyday practices demonstrate how Palestinian lives are also grounded in local stories and experiences. How do Palestinian refugees deploy everyday practices to create their home spaces? What can these practices reveal about refugees’ myriad belongings? And, in thinking about these practices, what can be said about how a feeling of home can be articulated in exile, which is at its heart the forced removal/dislocation from home? This article uses a comparative ethnographic analysis of two Palestinian camps in Lebanon to challenge overarching narratives of ‘Palestinianness’ by calling attention to the rich multiplicity of Palestinian refugee identities. In focusing the analysis on everyday practices – specifically street art and walking – by which residents make and experience home in the camps, the article grapples with the seeming contradictions between ‘home’ and ‘exile’ that colour the experiences of not only Palestinians, but also refugees and asylum seekers in other circumstances of protracted uncertainty, as they attempt to migrate and make home in new countries.

Researching spatial practices through Commentated Walks: “on the move” and “walking with”

2014 ◽  
Vol 3 (1) ◽  
pp. 27-42 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nathalie Raulet-Croset ◽  
Anni Borzeix
Keyword(s):  
Field Work ◽  
Spatial Dimension ◽  
Spatial Practices ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Organizational Contexts ◽  
Suburban Areas ◽  
Shared Spaces ◽  
Emergent Phenomena ◽  
The Social ◽  
Empirical Field

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to explore how the combination of a qualitative shadowing method called “Commentated Walk” and an ethnographic approach, can be used to analyze the spatial dimension of practices, when space is considered as a co-construction and as an active dimension of individual and collective practices. Design/methodology/approach – The approach is ethnographic and the empirical field work concerns the coordination in ephemeral organizations intended to manage emergent phenomena: the social “problems” often named “urban incivilities,” which occur in public and semi-public spaces in some suburban areas in France and are recurrent. Findings – In these organizations, space appears to be part of individual and collective practices, and a key resource for coordination. Shared “spaces of action” between inhabitants and local institutions contribute to coordination. As a method of data collection, Commentated Walks offer relevant insight into how actors “deal with space” in their day-to-day life or their professional practices. Walking with while talking with – the method's principals – make it possible to capture the materiality of problematic spaces as well as the feelings that the space inspires. Research limitations/implications – The use of this method is still exploratory. In further research, it would be interesting to consider such Commentated Walks in other organizational contexts, in order to explore different ways of “dealing with” space and different types of spatial competencies that people develop in using space as a resource. Originality/value – This paper proposes an original combination of methodological approaches which allows us to grasp the formation of spatial practices.

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