The Powerful 'Truth' Producing a Refugee Crisis
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The Powerful ‘Truth’ Producing a Refugee Crisis A Regime of Truth and Discourses on Asylum Seekers and Refugees in the Netherlands Mirthe Hendriks 6866999 Utrecht University 03/08/2020 A Thesis submitted to the Board of Examiners in partial fulfilment of the requirements of the degree of Master of Arts in Conflict Studies & Human Rights The image on the cover is a political cartoon titled Asylum Seeker, made by an artist with the pseudonym NEMØ, in December of 2018. The image is published on cartoonmovement.com, where NEMØ writes that cartoons allow “to extrapolate from that reality and take our thoughts to another level, sometimes lighter, some other times darker.” 2 Supervisor: Dr. Mario Fumerton Date of submission: 03/07/2020 Programme trajectory: Research Project & Thesis Writing (30 ECTS) Word count: 26984 3 ABSTRACT The aim of this thesis is to take a critical look at the regime of truth on the ‘crisis’ of asylum seekers and refugees produced and sustained by systems of power in the Netherlands from 2014 to 2019. The dominant discourses on asylum seekers and refugees that are considered ‘acceptable’ and ‘normal’, are actually social constructs. For example, we perceive asylum seekers and refugees as a threat or as victims, and we regard the inflow of asylum seekers and refugees as a crisis. As such, it seems that systems of power allow for the discursive ‘truth’ of 'crisis' to be produced and sustained. Moreover, our perception of the refugee ‘crisis’ is used to legitimise how we treat asylum seekers and refugees. Do we want our current understanding of the inflow of asylum seekers and refugees to govern our (policy) approach? This thesis adopts a Critical Discourse Analytic approach and operationalises Foucault’s ‘regime of truth’ as an analytical frame, to study the interaction between discourse, truth, and power. This research identifies three dominant discourses on asylum seekers, refugees, and the refugee crisis in the Netherlands from 2014 until 2019: the threat/securitisation discourse, humanitarian discourse, and human rights discourse. Powerful media and political apparatuses have status and are sanctioned to produce these dominant discourses, while asylum seekers and refugees are unheard. I argue that the regime of truth in Dutch society suspends asylum seekers and refugees between victimhood and malevolence. The systems of power that produce and sustain this regime of truth are inherently unequal and work to legitimise structural and symbolic violence against asylum seekers and refugees in the Netherlands. This thesis contributes by uncovering power relations and deconstructing established ways of knowing in discourses on the ‘crisis’ of asylum seekers and refugee. 4 ACKNOWLEDGMENTS First and foremost, I wish to express my deepest gratitude to my supervisor, dr. Mario Fumerton, for pushing me to take this thesis to the next level. The constructive feedback you provided was undeniably helpful and much appreciated. Your passion motivated me in the completion of this research. I would like to think that you helped me become a critical- thinker and independent researcher. I also would like to thank my fellow students Ali Maleki and Sharon Chamman for their useful advice and our enjoyable talks. Your critical and positive feedback helped me tremendously. You kept me going when I wanted to throw my laptop out the window. Moreover, a special thanks to Lia Kleuskens for her pep-talks and thoughtful suggestions, and to Emma Bakker for the much-needed (online) coffee breaks. Furthermore, I would like to express my gratitude to my friends and family. I am so appreciative of your continued support. Thank you for always believing in me and being with me every step of the way. 5 TABLE OF CONTENTS INTRODUCTION ................................................................................................................................ 8 CHAPTER 1. THE DISCURSIVE REPRESENTATION OF ASYLUM SEEKERS AND REFUGEES ......................................................................................................................................... 14 1.1 THE THEORETICAL BACKGROUND - A CRITICAL APPROACH TO DISCOURSE .............................. 14 1.2 THE EMPIRICAL DEBATE - DISCOURSES ON ASYLUM SEEKERS, REFUGEES, AND THE REFUGEE CRISIS ................................................................................................................................................ 16 1.2.1 The different discourses in liberal democratic states ......................................................... 17 1.2.2 Recent dominant discourses ................................................................................................ 18 1.3 POWER IN DISCOURSES ON ASYLUM SEEKERS AND THE REFUGEES CRISIS .............................. 19 1.4 CHAPTER SUMMARY ................................................................................................................... 21 CHAPTER 2. THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK ........................................................................... 22 2.1 ANALYTICAL FRAME: 'REGIME OF TRUTH' ................................................................................. 22 2.2 UNPACKING ‘REGIME OF TRUTH’: OPERATIONALISATION ......................................................... 23 2.3 REGIME OF TRUTH ON THE ‘CRISIS’ OF ASYLUM SEEKERS AND REFUGEES .............................. 26 2.4 CHAPTER SUMMARY ................................................................................................................... 27 CHAPTER 3. METHODOLOGY ..................................................................................................... 28 3.1 RESEARCH DESIGN ...................................................................................................................... 28 3.1.1 Ontology underpinnings ...................................................................................................... 28 3.1.2 Case study - who, what, where, when ................................................................................. 29 3.1.3 Data gathering technique .................................................................................................... 30 3.2 RESEARCH METHOD .................................................................................................................... 31 3.2.1 CDA Fairclough’s three dimensional framework ............................................................... 31 3.3 ROADMAP ................................................................................................................................... 34 3.4 ETHICAL CONSIDERATIONS, LIMITATIONS AND OPPORTUNITIES ................................................ 34 CHAPTER 4. DOMINANT DISCOURSES ON ASYLUM SEEKERS, REFUGEES, AND THE REFUGEE CRISIS ............................................................................................................................. 36 4.1 LEXICALISATION- AND PREDICATION-ANALYSIS ....................................................................... 36 4.2 DISCOURSE STRANDS .................................................................................................................. 38 4.2.1 Threat/securitisation discourse ........................................................................................... 38 4.2.2 Humanitarian discourse ...................................................................................................... 42 4.2.3 Human rights discourse ...................................................................................................... 45 4.3 CHAPTER SUMMARY ................................................................................................................... 47 CHAPTER 5. DECONSTRUCTING AND CONTEXTUALISING DISCOURSES AND SYSTEMS OF POWER ..................................................................................................................... 48 5.1 DECONSTRUCTING DISCOURSES AT THE LEVEL OF INTERACTION .............................................. 49 5.1.1 Background media discourses ............................................................................................. 49 5.1.2 Background political discourses ......................................................................................... 53 5.2 CONTEXTUALIZING DISCOURSES ................................................................................................ 54 5.2.1 Timeframe comparison ........................................................................................................ 55 6 5.2.2 Political environment .......................................................................................................... 55 5.2.3 Impactful social events ........................................................................................................ 57 5.3 DECONSTRUCTING DISCOURSES AND SYSTEMS OF POWER ......................................................... 59 5.4 CHAPTER SUMMARY ................................................................................................................... 60 CHAPTER 6. REGIME OF TRUTH AND THE EFFECTS OF POWER ................................... 62 6.1 DISCURSIVE PRACTICES .............................................................................................................. 62 6.1.1 Discourses ........................................................................................................................... 62 6.1.2 Discourses understood to be true .......................................................................................