Refugee law and refugee lives: Recent Episodes
Refugee law and refugee lives
A podcast series of the TemPro research project, were we explore the increasingly temporary terms of asylum in Europe and globally. Hosts: Kari Anne Drangsland and Jessica Schultz
Music by Pedro Carmona-Alvarez
Country-of-origin information (COI) plays a crucial role in European asylum systems, forming the basis for decisions on refugee status. All European states produce COI, and specialized units dedicated to this work are becoming increasingly common. In this episode, we talk with Jasper Van der Kist about how COI is produced and used, and how its legitimacy is established and contested within asylum processes across Europe.
In this episode, we welcome German-based researcher Lena Rose to discuss how religious expertise is mobilized and contested in German asylum appeals, and delve into the pivotal role pastors play as informal expert witnesses in conversion-related asylum cases. Join us as we explore the intriguing question: What can the treatment of religious expertise in courts and law reveal about the ongoing conflicts over the rightful place of religion in the nation-state?
In this episode we talk with Helga Eggebø at Nordlandsforskning about the income requirement for permanent residence in Norway with a particular view to the situations of refugees and ask: Does the income requirement undermine the egalitarian principle of the Norwegian welfare state?
Opptak fra arrangementet Paradigmeskiftet i dansk asylpolitikk – og norske erfaringer. Del 1: Lansering av boken 'Paradigmeskiftets konsekvenser' om paradigmeskiftet i dansk asylpolitikk ved forfattere og redaktører. Del 2: Panelsamtale om den nye midlertidigheten i norsk asylpolitikk slik den ser ut fra Bergen (37:00 min).
Wo findet man Schutz? Im Gesetz? Bei der Arbeit? Durch Teilhabe an der Gesellschaft? Und was ist, wenn das Land, das Dich schützt, von Dir verlangt, das Territorium der Botschaft des Landes, aus dem Du geflohen bist, zu betreten, um gültige Ausweise zu erhalten bzw. Dein Aufenthaltstitel zu verlängern? Bist Du dann geschützt?In dieser Folge sprechen wir mit Kefyat Junaid, Mitbegründerin der Initiative Defund Syrian Embassy. Aus ihren unterschiedlichen Perspektiven als Geflüchteter Mensch, Jurastudentin, ehemalige Literaturstudentin und Aktivistin lädt uns Kefyat zu einem Gespräch darüber ein, wo man in Deutschland Schutz findet, über das Verhältnis von Arbeit, Mobilität und Schutz und über die Arbeit der Defund Syrian Embassy. Das Kollektiv Defund Syrian Embassy, kurz DSE, besteht aus Aktivist:innen syrischer Abstammung, die sich dafür einsetzen, die sehr kostspielige Nationalpassbeschaffungspflicht für syrische Geflüchteter in Deutschland, die das Assad-Regime in Syrien in hohem Maße mitfinanziert, auszusetzen. Link: Defund Syrian Embassy, https://twitter.com/DefundSYembassyWhere do you find protection? A conversation with Kefyat Junaid from Defund Syrian EmbassyWhere do you find protection? In law? In work? Through participation in society? And what if the country that protects you sets as a condition for the durability of your protection that you to enter the embassy of the country you fled to get valid ID-cards? Are you then protected? In this episode we talk with Kefyat Junaid, co-founder of the initiative Defund Syrian Embassy. From her intersecting perspectives as a refugee, a law student, a former student of literature and activist, Kefyat invites us into a conversation on where one finds protection in Germany, about the relation between labour, mobility, and protection and about her work to defund the Syrian Embassy.
In this episode we talk with Constantin Hruschka, Senior Research Fellow at the Max Planck Institute of Social Law and Social Policy in Munich, about the changes towards temporary protection in Germany since 2015. Doing this we draw historical lines back to earlier guest worker policies, the temporary protection of Bosnian and Kosovar refugees in the 1990s, as well as to important legal reforms such as the “asylum compromise” in 1992/1993 and the Immigration Act of 2004.
The point of departure of our conversation is the coalition agreement that the Scholz-government launched in the autumn of 2021. In its coalition agreement the government announced a “paradigm shift” in its asylum and residence policy. This self-declared “paradigm shift” includes the introduction of new legal pathways into a secure and durable residence in Germany for refugees and rejected asylum seekers. These pathways are mainly defined in terms of labour, self-sufficiency and language skills. Yet, this emphasis on new pathways to a durable future in Germany feeds into a legal landscape that since 2015 has increasingly framed protection as a temporary solution. In other words, refugees should only be protected for a limited time, and then they should return.
How then, might we understand the different logics that underpin German discourse on asylum and protection?
Further readings: Hruschka, C and Rohmann, T. (2021). Excluded by crisis management? Legislative hyperactivity in post-2015 Germany. International Migration 00:1–13.
Nomos: https://www.nomos-shop.de/nomos/titel/genfer-fluechtlingskonvention-id-73947/
In today’s podcast we talk with Hani, a Syrian citizen and refugee in Norway, about the relationship between mobility, labour, and the sense of being ‘protected’ in one’s country of residence. Drawing on Hani’s own experiences of being a refugee in Jordan and Norway, we also grapple with the question of what makes for a durable solution in the context of forced migration. Tackling these issues, we circle in on broader debates about the international refugee regime today. The international system of refugee protection was designed to seek “permanent solutions for the problems of refugees” (UNHCR Statue). Conventional accounts foresee three permanent or durable solutions that can bring refugees’ exile to an end; local integration in a first country of asylum, resettlement to a third country and repatriation. Yet lately these solutions have come under criticism by scholars who problematize how conventional accounts define the problem of exile in terms of physical dislocation rather than as a problem of the denial of refugee’s political rights, as well as downplay that mobility might be part of the solution for displaced people. Hani’s reflections go to the core of these debates. To protect Hani’s anonymity, we have altered his name and his voice.
Readings: Aleinikoff, Alexander T. and Zamore, Leah. (2019) “The Arc of Protection. Reforming the Interational Refugee Regime”. Standford University Press. Long, Katy (2014). “Rethinking ‘Durable Solutions’. The Oxford Handbook of Refugee and Forced Migration Studies. Red: FIddian-Qasmiyeh, Elena et.al.
Since the turn of the millennium, several European countries have introduced language and knowledge of society requirements for residence rights and citizenship. Such requirements contribute in different ways to insecurity regarding the future and the duration of protection for people who have been granted refugee status.
In this episode Prof. Cecilie Hamnes Carlsen at Western Norway University of Applied Sciences speaks about the consequences of making political rights and stable protection for refugees depended on language and knowledge of society (KoS) tests. Based on extensive research in the field, she explains how language and KoS-tests work as tools of selection that systematically disfavours groups of people, such as those with low levels of literacy, women, and people with health issues such as PTSD. Highlighting how language tests reduce the number of refugees who acquire permanent residence and citizenship and work to exclude people from basic human rights and social inclusion, Carlsen argues that language tests should be understood in terms of structural racism.
References mentioned in this podcast: McNamara, T. (2020). The Anti-Shibboleth: The Traumatic Character of the Shibboleth as Silence. Applied Linguistics: 1–19
Rocca, L., Carlsen, C. H., Deygers, B. (2020). Linguistic Integration of Adult Migrants: Requirements and Learning Opportunities. Strasbourg: CoE Conseil de l'Europe - brochure A4 portrait (coe.int)
Shohamy, E. (2007). Language tests as language policy tools, Assessment in Education, 14:1, 117-130
Goodman, S.W. (2010). Integration Requirements for Integration's Sake? Identifying, Categorising and Comparing Civic Integration Policies, Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies, 36:5, 753-772
Goodman, S.W. (2011) Controlling Immigration through Language and Country Knowledge Requirements, West European Politics, 34:2, 235-255
Oers, R. V., & Kostakopoulou, T. (2010). A re-definition of belonging?: Language and integration tests in Europe. Martinus Njihoff Publishers.
Further readings: Carlsen, C. H. & Rocca, L. (2021) Language Test Misuse. Language Assessment Quarterly 18(5):477-495. Full article: Language Test Misuse (tandfonline.com)
Carlsen, C. H. (2021) Social justice & structural racism – the role of language, language tests and language testers. Presentation at The 1st international ALTE conference. April 21st 2021 Social justice and structural racism: the role of language, language tests and language testers - YouTube
This podcast episode takes it point of departure in waiting as a prominent characteristic of both migration control and the migratory experience in Europe. Together with Prof. in anthropology, Shahram Khosravi, we explore the role of time and temporality in how states seek to regulate and control migration, and how one might understand, make sense of and convey knowledge about prolonged waiting both as mode of power and lived experience. Khosravi discusses how waiting is racialised, gendered and classed, and how waiting should be understood in terms of colonialism. He also reflects on the differentiated conditions of waiting under the COVID-pandemic.
Further readings: Shahram Khosravi (ed.) Waiting – A Project in Conversation. Transcript Culture and Theory
In this podcast, we take a historical look at temporary protection status with Prof. Jens Vedsted-Hansen, who has followed the phenomenon from Denmark since the Balkan Wars in the 1990s. At that time, Bosnian refugees received temporary protection status on a group basis, as part of UN-coordinated efforts in Europe. The length of permits and access to labour markets and housing differed among countries. However, the common purpose was to ensure access to protection to people with a presumably short-term need, and whose eventual return was important to disrupt the consequences of wartime ethnic cleansing. Today, meanwhile, temporary protection is no longer exclusively linked to the specific qualities of group-based arrivals. Instead, it is embedded into the individual assessment for refugee status and pursued as a strategy to deter people from seeking asylum. Short term permits are combined with policies promoting their revocation/non-extension and reduced standards of protection in Denmark (most prominently restrictions on the right to family reunification).
Further reading: 1) Altamirano, Appelqvist, Brekke og Vedsted-Hansen (1998)m En ny flytkningpolitikk i Norden? Midlertidig beskyttelse på 90-tallet. 2) Brekke, Vedsted-Hansen, Stern (2020): https://www.udi.no/globalassets/global/european-migration-network_i/emn-norway-papers/emn-occasional-paper-temporary-asylum-and-cessation-of-refugee-status-in-scandinavia-2020.pdf 3) Tan & Vedsted-Hansen (2021), From Denmark to Damascus Human rights and refugee law dimensions of Denmark’s cessation push https://verfassungsblog.de/from-denmark-to-damascus/
This podcast explores Australia’s efforts to deter refugees who arrive on its shores by boat, by providing a temporary protection status with no right of family reunification or eventual permanent residence.
Dr. Maria O’Sullivan is an expert, not only on Australian asylum law, but on the cessation of refugee status in international refugee law. We discuss the Australian model of temporary protection as well as the international norms when it comes withdrawing refugee status when the need for protection is no longer there (cessation).
Further reading: Maria O’Sullivan, Refugee Law and Durability of Protection https://www.routledge.com/Refugee-Law-and-Durability-of-Protection-Temporary-Residence-and-Cessation/OSullivan/p/book/9780367729189
Kaldor Centre for International Refugee Law https://www.kaldorcentre.unsw.edu.au
Turkey is home to 4 million refugees including 3,6 million from Syria. Yet over 10 years after the Syrian conflict started, refugees still have temporary protection status, with limited opportunities to either return or gain Turkish nationality. What does ‘temporary protection’ mean for refugees in Turkey?
In this podcast Dr. Meltem Ineli-Ciger explains the background to the current refugee law, the different kinds of protection status in Turkey, and what rights are granted to temporary status holders. Despite the precarity of temporary status in Turkey, many Syrians have made a life there, starting families, learning the language and finding jobs mainly outside of the formal economy.
References mentioned in this podcast: Fitzpatrick, J. (2000). Temporary Protection of Refugees: Elements of a Formalized Regime. American Journal of International Law, 94(2), 279-306.
Hathaway, James C. "Making International Refugee Law Relevant Again: A Proposal for Collectivized and Solution-Oriented Protection." R.A.Neve, co-author. Harv. Hum. Rts. J. 10 (1997): 115-211.
Further reading: Meltem Ineli-Ciger & Ozgenur Yigit, Country Fiche Turkey (2020) ASILE Project https:/www.asileproject.eu/wp-content/uploads/2021/03/Country-Fiche_Turkey_Final_Pub.pdf
Meltem Ineli-Ciger, Protecting Syrians in Turkey: A Legal Analysis https://doi.org/10.1093/ijrl/eex042
In recent months, Denmark has made headlines for withdrawing the protection status of Syrian refugees from the greater Damascus area. Dr. Nik Tan explains how temporary protection has become embedded in Danish asylum policy and what legal dilemmas emerge from this practice.
Further reading: Nik Tan, The End of Protection: The Danish ‘Paradigm Shift' and the Law of Cessation. https://brill.com/view/journals/nord/90/1/article-p60_60.xml
Nik Tan and Jens Vedsted-Hansen, From Denmark to Damascus: Human rights and refugee law dimensions of Denmark’s cessation push. https://verfassungsblog.de/from-denmark-to-damascus/