Interwar and Post-War Apparatuses of Displacement Response in Comparative Perspective
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INTERWAR AND POST-WAR APPARATUSES OF DISPLACEMENT RESPONSE IN COMPARATIVE PERSPECTIVE A thesis submitted to The University of Manchester for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in the Faculty of Humanities 2019 REBECCA F. VINEY-WOOD SCHOOL OF ARTS, LANGUAGES AND CULTURES Table of Contents List of Abbreviations .................................................................................................... 5 List of Illustrations and Maps ........................................................................................ 7 Abstract ........................................................................................................................ 9 Declaration and Copyright Statement .......................................................................... 10 Notes on Translations and Conventions of Presentation .............................................. 11 Acknowledgements ..................................................................................................... 12 Dedication .................................................................................................................. 14 Introduction ................................................................................................................ 15 Statement of Question ............................................................................................. 15 Historiography and Concepts .................................................................................. 17 Methodology ........................................................................................................... 27 Project Origins ........................................................................................................ 32 Aims and Research Questions ................................................................................. 36 Methods .................................................................................................................. 39 Chapter Outline ....................................................................................................... 42 I: The Interwar Nansen Apparatus from Geneva to Kirin, Harbin, and Shanghai ......... 48 The Stimulus of Displacement and the Institutional Structure of the Apparatus ....... 50 The Patterns and Challenges of Russian Displacement in China .............................. 59 ‘The time is past for such temporary charity’: Dr James A. Greig and the Establishment of a Delegation in China, 1923-1926 ................................................ 63 The Legal Status of Refugees, Welfare Provisions and a New Delegate in China, 1925-1931 ............................................................................................................... 71 ‘A very difficult refugee problem’: Charles E. Metzler and the Delegation in Shanghai, 1933-1937 .............................................................................................. 78 Conclusion .............................................................................................................. 85 II: Objects Which Acted: The Unpredictability of Nansen passports within the Interwar Apparatus ................................................................................................................... 87 The Authority and Agency of Passports .................................................................. 90 The Introduction of Nansen passports in a World of Increased Passportisation ........ 95 ‘Typewritten on a plain piece of paper’: Non-Standardised Nansen passports in the Context of Iraq, 1930 ............................................................................................ 101 2 Unexpected Encounters: How Nansen passports brought together Jewish Russian Refugees in the United Kingdom with Other Actors from the Apparatus ............... 105 ‘No crime other than to be born and to exist’: Nansen passport Bearers and Western European Criminal Justice Systems ....................................................................... 116 Conclusion ............................................................................................................ 120 III: The Bridging Period: Reponses to Displacement from the Latter Half of the Interwar Era to the Establishment of the UNHCR ................................................................... 123 The Protection of Refugees Cannot Go on Forever: Attitudes towards Displacement in the 1930s ........................................................................................................... 125 Ad hoc Responses to Displacement during the Second World War ........................ 132 At War’s End: Divisive and Divided Responses to European Displacement in the Early Post-War Period........................................................................................... 141 Conclusion ............................................................................................................ 151 IV: ‘No great plan’: International Law, Voluntary Agencies, and Refugee ‘Passports’ in the post-1950 Apparatus ........................................................................................... 153 A ‘degree of independence and prestige’: The Return of a High Commissioner for Refugees ............................................................................................................... 155 Legal ‘fonctionnaires’: International Lawyers and the Further Cultivation of Expertise in Refugee Law ..................................................................................... 160 ‘Bad cases make bad law, no cases make no law’: The Importance of Individual Cases and Actors in the post-1950 Apparatus ........................................................ 165 Voluntary Agencies at the Boundaries of the Apparatus ........................................ 174 Separating the Identity and Travel Functions of Documents for Refugees and Stateless People .................................................................................................... 180 Conclusion ............................................................................................................ 194 V: ‘What Are You Going to Do About the Chinese Refugees?’ The UNHCR and Yunnanese ‘Refugees’ in Post-Independence Burma, 1953-1954 .............................. 196 The Context of Burma and Chinese Displacement in the Early 1950s .................... 198 Meiktila Camp ...................................................................................................... 204 Aamir Ali and the Tentative Moves of the Agency of the Western Apparatus in Burma ................................................................................................................... 207 Colonial Era Mentalities and Internationalist Ideas: Heterogeneous Opinions within the Apparatus ........................................................................................................ 215 ‘Refugees Should Be Treated as POWs’: The Limits of the Western Apparatus in Expanding Its Activities in Burma ......................................................................... 219 Conclusion ............................................................................................................ 224 Conclusion ................................................................................................................ 227 3 Components of the Apparatuses: Context, Devices, and Actors ............................. 228 Significance, and Avenues for Future Research ..................................................... 235 Bibliography ............................................................................................................. 239 Archival and Library Collections .......................................................................... 239 Correspondence and Interviews ............................................................................. 239 Online Collections ................................................................................................ 240 Newspapers and Media ......................................................................................... 240 Secondary Sources ................................................................................................ 241 Word count: 87,092 4 List of Abbreviations BRC British Red Cross DP Displaced Person CARE Cooperative for American Relief Everywhere CCOP Consultative Committee of Private Organizations CMHM Cotter Medical History Museum CRA Christian Relief Association CTD Convention Travel Document CER Chinese Eastern Railway CIA Central Intelligence Agency CIM Chinese Inland Mission ECOSOC UN Economic and Social Council ERC Ecumenical Refugee Commission EU European Union ExCom Executive Committee of the UNHCR FDR Federal Republic of Germany (West Germany) GDR German Democratic Republic (East Germany) ICMC International Catholic Migration Commission ICEM Intergovernmental Committee for European Migration ICRC International Committee of the Red Cross ICRR International Committee for Russian Refugees IGCR Intergovernmental Committee on Refugees ILO International Labour Organisation IRO International Refugee Organisation JDC (American) Joint Distribution Committee KRISY NET Kosovo Refugee Information Systems and Network KT Kuomintang, name for the Chinese Nationalist Forces LON League of Nations (Also referred to as ‘The League’) LONSEA League of Nations Search Engine LTD London Travel Document LNA League of Nations Archive LWF Lutheran World Federation NGO Non-Governmental Organisation