The Truth from the Body: Medical Certificates as Ultimate Evidence for Asylum Seekers

2005 ◽  
Vol 107 (4) ◽  
pp. 597-608 ◽  
Author(s):  
DIDIER FASSIN ◽  
ESTELLE D'HALLUIN
Keyword(s):  
Asylum Seekers ◽  
The Body

The Politics of Transgender Asylum and Detention

2019 ◽  
Vol 12 (3) ◽  
pp. 1-16 ◽  
Author(s):  
Debanuj DasGupta
Keyword(s):  
National Security ◽  
Asylum Seekers ◽  
The Body ◽  
Immigration Law ◽  
Detention Centers ◽  
Gender Binary ◽  
Oppositional Politics ◽  
Security Procedures

Immigration procedures related to asylum and detention are based on sex/gender binaries. Such binaries frame the bodies of undocumented transgender asylum seekers as unintelligible to immigration law and subject them to intense trauma. The experiences of trauma and death of transgender detainees within detention centers is a spatialized experience. The assignment of detention cells based on birth gender, denial of hormones and live saving treatments constitute a racialized and gendered torture upon the body of the transgender detainee. The article attends to the narratives of transgender detainees within detention cell by analyzing the script of “ Tara's Crossing,” a play based on the narratives of transgender detainees and asylum seekers. The play was produced by LGBTQ immigrant right activists soon after the attacks on 9/11 and the intensification of detention and deportation as a part of national security procedures. Drawing upon the script of Tara's Crossing, along with activist archives such as flyers, newsletter articles, and radio interviews of Balmitra Vimal Prasad, the protagonist of the play, the article analyzes the ways in which the sex/gender binary is reiterated within the detention cell, as well as asylum procedures. I turn to the activism around Tara's Crossing and the present-day activism of transgender immigrants in order to show how trauma experienced by transgender detainees holds potential for creating coalitional oppositional politics.

Refugees as the Other: Large-group identity, terrorism and border psychology

2018 ◽  
Vol 51 (3) ◽  
pp. 343-358 ◽  
Author(s):  
Vamık D. Volkan
Keyword(s):  
Asylum Seekers ◽  
Group Identity ◽  
The United States ◽  
The Body ◽  
Islamic State ◽  
Refugee Crisis ◽  
Host Countries ◽  
Medical Problems ◽  
Large Group ◽  
The City

On 27 August, 2015 two vessels with 550 migrants on board sank off the Libyan coast, and more than 400 persons were estimated to have drowned. Some credit this event as having coined the phrase ‘European refugee crisis’ that is still used to describe the present refugee situation in Europe. On 13 November 2015 a series of coordinated terrorist attacks took place in Paris and a northern suburb of the city. When a Syrian passport that belonged to an asylum seeker was found near the body of one of the gunmen, fear of Islamic State militants disguised as asylum seekers or refugees spread. This event, linked to similar tragedies that have occurred in many other countries before and since, evolved as a major symbol linking newcomers, and refugees in general, to terrorism and extreme forms of Islam. When observing newcomers and local people in different host countries, in addition to accompanying societal reactions to multiple traumas, medical problems, legal, political, financial and other practical issues and security concerns, there is always an increased investment in large-group identity by both refugees and persons in the host countries. This article does not explore the psychology of asylum seekers, immigrants or refugees. It describes what large-group identity is, how it develops and why a population’s preoccupation with physical borders increases. Its aim is to examine shared psychological processes in European countries and the United States that manifest when perception of newcomers as the dangerous Other takes place.

Theorizing ‘Subhuman’

The Rohingya ◽  
2020 ◽  
pp. 167-194
Author(s):  
Nasir Uddin
Keyword(s):  
Asylum Seekers ◽  
The Body ◽  
Human Society ◽  
Bare Life ◽  
State Structure ◽  
Life And Death ◽  
Human Community ◽  
The World ◽  
New Perspective ◽  
Asylum Seekers And Refugees

Chapter 7 discusses people’s critical ‘living conditionality’ created by the state. Besides, rather than looking at such vulnerable conditions as taken for granted for the stateless people, this chapter critically engages with the body of scholarship on citizenship, asylum seekers, stateless people and refugees, arguing whether these theories generated by academics otherwise are legitimizing the dehumanization process perpetrated by the states in various forms. This chapter offers a new perspective to contribute theoretically to the scholarship on the stateless, non-citizens, asylum seekers, and refugees by critical engagement with the idea of ‘bare life’, ‘rejected people’, ‘precarious life’ and so on, introducing a new concept—‘subhuman’. This chapter argues that ‘subhuman’ is a category of people who are born in the human society but have no space in the human community; they are born in the world, but the world doesn’t own them in any state structure, and they always live on the borderline of ‘life’ and ‘death’.

Political life beyond accommodation and return: rethinking relations between the political, the international, and the body

2013 ◽  
Vol 39 (4) ◽  
pp. 949-968 ◽  
Author(s):  
EEVA PUUMALA
Keyword(s):  
Asylum Seekers ◽  
Political Authority ◽  
The Body ◽  
Political Life ◽  
Political Agency ◽  
The Political ◽  
Sovereign Power ◽  
Moving Body ◽  
Ethnographic Data

AbstractThis article explores political agency in the interstices of the bodily politics of asylum. It shows how its practices make bodily surfaces and how alternative forms of political authority emanate from bodies. Relying on Jean-Luc Nancy's ontology of the body, it examines forms of political agency that are enacted by people often considered as abjective subjectivities in the spaces of the international. Deriving from interviews conducted with failed asylum seekers, the article sheds light on agencies and resistances embedded in and extant despite the governmental efforts to solve the problem of the moving body. Ethnographic data and interviews with the failed asylum seekers show how they take control over their lives, not as separate, sovereign subjects, but in relation to their political surroundings and others. In a way, the failed asylum seekers produce and practice their own politics that both takes part in and exceeds the limits set by sovereign politics. By exploring political agency from underneath and beyond sovereign power and governmentality, the article presents a reading of the intertwining of the international, political, and bodily.

Events of the Body Politic: A Nancian Reading of Asylum-seekers’ Bodily Choreographies and Resistance

2011 ◽  
Vol 17 (4) ◽  
pp. 83-104 ◽  
Author(s):  
Eeva Puumala ◽  
Tarja Väyrynen ◽  
Anitta Kynsilehto ◽  
Samu Pehkonen
Keyword(s):  
Asylum Seekers ◽  
Body Politic ◽  
The Body

scholarly journals LEGAL INTERPRETATION OF DIRECTORATE GENERAL OF IMMIGRATION DECREE NUMBER IMI-0352.GR.02.07 OF 2016 CONCERNING THE HANDLING OF ILLEGAL IMMIGRANTS THAT SELF DECLARED AS AN ASYLUM SEEKERS OR REFUGEES IN IMMIGRATIVE SELECTIVE POLICY: HIERARCHY THEORY OF LEGAL

2019 ◽  
Vol 2 (1) ◽  
pp. 109-128
Author(s):  
M. Alvi Syahrin ◽  
Brianta Petra Ginting
Keyword(s):  
Asylum Seekers ◽  
Recipient Country ◽  
The Body ◽  
Illegal Immigrants ◽  
Director General ◽  
Population Movement ◽  
Hierarchy Theory ◽  
Theory Approach ◽  
Legal Norms ◽  
Asylum Seekers And Refugees

Displacement is a form of population movement that has different characteristics than other forms of population movement. The movement of population, both in the national territory and those that have crossed national borders, is an event that has long existed in human history and is increasingly happening now. The increasing number of asylum seekers and refugees to the territory of Indonesia, has caused social disturbances, political security, and even order in the community. The number of their arrival is not proportional to the completion rate or placement to the recipient country (Australia). To deal with the problem of asylum seekers and refugees entering and residing in the territory of Indonesia, the government issued a Director General of Immigration Decree Number: IMI-0352.GR.02.07 of 2016 concerning the Handling of Illegal Immigrants who Self Declare as Asylum Seekers and Refugees. This regulation not only affirms Indonesia's position in favor of refugee humanitarian policies, but also makes it incompatible with the legal principles of establishing legislation. The formulation of the problem examined in this paper is how the legal position of Director General of Immigration Decree in the immigration selective policy with a hierarchical theory approach to legal norms. The research method used is normative legal research that is qualitative in nature with mixed logic (deductive and inductive). From the results of the study can be known several legal facts as follows. The legal status of Director General of Immigration Decree Number: IMI-0352.GR.02.07 in 2016 creates disharmony in the legal order (immigration) in Indonesia. Article 7 of Law Number 12 of 2011 has established a sequence of laws and regulations which form the basis for the implementation of all legal regulations in Indonesia. The provisions of this article are in line with the Hierarchical Theory of Legal Norms (Hans Kelsen) which explains that lower norms, valid, sourced and based on higher norms. However, this theory is not negated in the formation of these regulations, where in the body the norms conflict with each other with higher legal norms above. The existence of this regulation has created norm conflicts that lead to the absence of legal certainty. As for the higher regulations that contradict these regulations are as follows: The 1945 Constitution of the Republic of Indonesia, Law Number 6 of 2011 concerning Immigration, Government Regulation Number 31 of 2013 concerning Regulations for Implementing Law Number 6 of 2011 concerning Immigration, and Regulation of the Minister of Law and Human Rights Number M.HH-11.OT.01.01 of 2009 concerning Organization and Work Procedures of Immigration Detention Houses. Conflicting legal norms include: Definition of Detention Center, Determinant Definition, Refugee Handling, UNHCR and IOM Authority in Refugee Handling, Discovery, Collection, Immigration Oversight, Funding, and Sanctions.  

scholarly journals The medico-legal assessment of asylum seeker victims in Italy

2019 ◽  
Vol 29 (1) ◽  
pp. 47-55
Author(s):  
Francesca Magli ◽  
Lorenzo Franceschetti ◽  
Lidia Maggioni ◽  
Enrico Angelo Muccino ◽  
Vera Gloria Merelli ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Asylum Seekers ◽  
Physical Violence ◽  
The Body ◽  
Legal Medicine ◽  
Age Group ◽  
Affected Area ◽  
Changing Patterns ◽  
Forensic Professionals ◽  
The University ◽  
And Training

Introduction: Changing patterns of migration hasrequired states andgovernments to respond to the specific medical and legal needs of asylum seekers. Based on medical assessments undertaken at the University Institute of Legal Medicine, the present study aims to describe the cases of asylum applicants who have suffered from physical violence, including torture, and the variables involved. Methods: Over a 10-year period, 225 survivors were examined by clinical forensic professionals from the University Institute of Legal Medicine. Results:85% of asylum applicants came from Africa, 87% were male, and the most common age group was 26-40 years old. 46% of applicants fled their country for political reasons. Blunt force injuries were reported in 45% of cases, the trunk was the most affected area of the body (40%), and applicants presented with an average of two different mechanisms of lesions and an average of four lesions each. Discussion/conclusion:Assessment of physical violence on asylum seekers requires the cooperation of professionals with different skillsets and training.

Addressing vulnerability: what role does marketing play?

2019 ◽  
Vol 33 (6) ◽  
pp. 660-670 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lilliemay Cheung ◽  
Janet R. McColl-Kennedy
Keyword(s):  
Social Change ◽  
Social Marketing ◽  
Asylum Seekers ◽  
Social Issues ◽  
Forced Migration ◽  
The Body ◽  
Theory And Practice ◽  
Service Systems ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Refugees And Asylum Seekers

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to critically explore the connection between social marketing and transformative service research (TSR), providing a conceptual framework and implications for both theory and practice. The research explores the role marketing plays in a political deterrence campaign and its impact on service systems in meeting the needs of refugees and asylum seekers. Design/methodology/approach This qualitative research is based on 24 in-depth interviews with service providers, and refugees and asylum seekers and a critical discourse analysis examining campaign materials including political press statements, news media articles and government policy documents. Findings This paper explores where social marketing and TSR intersect in their aims to promote social change. TSR calls on marketers to address vulnerability related to social issues such as poverty, forced migration and discrimination. The research provides evidence that service systems actors use practices of resistance to challenge dominant discourses in attempts to relieve suffering for refugees and asylum seekers. Research limitations/implications The authors contribute by extending the body of work that investigates how service systems can relieve suffering. The study also examines how marketing tactics and strategies underpin a political campaign designed to deter asylum seekers crossing sovereign borders. The research makes three important contributions. First, the research focuses on a significant international problem of better understanding how service systems can relieve suffering for refugees and asylum seekers. Second, it examines how oppositional discourses impact on service systems’ ability to create and sustain social change. Third, it investigates how service systems actors deploy practices of resistance to enact social change. Originality/value This research highlights the important role of engaging as consumer-citizens to address social change, particularly for vulnerable groups, such as refugees and asylum seekers.

scholarly journals Biometrics as imperialism: age assessments of young asylum seekers in Denmark

Race & Class ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 62 (1) ◽  
pp. 24-45
Author(s):  
Nanna Dahler
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Asylum Seekers ◽  
The Body ◽  
Decision Making Process ◽  
Unaccompanied Minors ◽  
Physical Data ◽  
Medical Documents ◽  
Colonial Violence ◽  
The Relationship

This article explores medical assessments of the age of unaccompanied minors seeking asylum in Denmark, to show how, through the medical and bureaucratic aspects of the process, it serves as an imperialist technology of control, as those judged under 18 have greater protection in the asylum system. Since the biggest group of people who are age-estimated in Denmark are Afghans, the author looks at the relationship between Denmark and Afghanistan and draws on interviews with people who underwent the process. By connecting medical documents with biometric measurement in colonial contexts and the current expansion of biometric surveillance, the author argues that the collection of intrusive physical data from Afghan minors is to be understood as a colonial mapping of the body. The Danish Immigration Service’s age decision-making process articulates a form of administrative rule that works to depoliticise questions of dispossession and death, and is a form of colonial violence enabled by humanitarian discourse and law.

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