Asylum Seekers and the State. Whose Threat? Whose Security?
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ASYLUM SEEKERS AND THE STATE. WHOSE THREAT? WHOSE SECURITY? by ALEXANDRIA JAYNE INNES Submitted to the graduate degree program in the Department of Political Science and the Graduate Faculty of the University of Kansas in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy. _________________________________________ Chairperson Dr. Brent J. Steele _________________________________________ Dr. Hannah E. Britton _________________________________________ Dr. Thomas W. Heilke _________________________________________ Dr. Mariya Omelicheva _________________________________________ Dr. Brent E. Metz Date Defended: December 6, 2011 The dissertation committee for ALEXANDRIA JAYNE INNES certifies that this is the approved version of the following dissertation: ASYLUM SEEKERS AND THE STATE. WHOSE THREAT? WHOSE SECURITY? ______________________________ Chairperson: Dr. Brent J. Steele Date approved: December 6, 2011 ii Abstract This dissertation examines the disparity between how states define asylum seekers and who identifies him or herself to be an asylum seeker. Using interpretive methodologies I examine how states construct asylum seekers in security discourses, and the role of international geopolitics in solidifying state-based identities in state discourses. Narrative interviews with asylum seekers offer insight into how state security discourses act upon asylum seekers as individuals. I juxtapose narratives addressing the experience of being an asylum seeker with the state based analysis. I use the theory of ontological security as an analytical took capable of furthering a comprehension of the contention between state-based security discourses and decentered security that reveals the power of state-based identities and how the dominance of state-based identities in the international system actively detracts from other identities. The theory of ontological security can offer an explanation as to how and why state discourse positions asylum seekers as a threat. The biographical identity narrative within the state and the way the state acts amongst its international peers offers insight into the ways migrants contest state identity and state security. By intersecting the security literature that assumes the state and the migration literature that problematizes the state I make an intervention. This intervention is situated within the human security paradigm, in which I offer a decentered human security that incorporates the logic of ontological security without the state, whereby human security does not have to rely on state based identities. iii Acknowledgements This dissertation has been a work in progress for a long time - probably since I was in high school and I was asked to mentor a new student who was seeking asylum with her mother from Afghanistan. I have a multicultural family and migration has always been something that is a fact of life rather than a problem but then I have had few constraints on the moves I‘ve made over the years. Exposure to constraints on migration led me to want to understand where they come from and why. I am first to admit that I still do not fully understand the ―why‖ part of that question. My research for this project began in Kansas and took me to Athens, Greece where I interviewed a number of people seeking asylum. This was thanks to the willingness of the participants and the assistance of Caritas Hellas, Doctors of the World, Praxis, and the Greek Refugee Council. All of these organizations do incredible work despite being badly in need of resources. The following year I continued the research in my hometown of Newcastle-upon-Tyne in the UK. Again, I met a number of people who were kind enough to share their experiences with me. Thanks to the West End Refugee Service and everyone at Walking With - as you know, this project would not exist without all of you! Thanks along with enormous respect are due my committee, in particular my mentor, adviser and chair Brent. I have such great admiration for your work and I hope I can do justice to your mentorship. Thanks for having faith in my ability to pull this off! And thanks to former grad student colleagues Baris and Cristian who have answered numerous questions, given me advice, and soothed my anxieties. My parents have been and continue to be an unfailing source of support - both mental and pecuniary (thanks for all the meals and the petrol when I stayed with you for two months!). I am lucky that my parents are the most open-minded and encouraging people I know - despite no doubt having reservations about the logic of going to grad school in the US, moving half-way across the world, and marrying some bloke from Wisconsin, they have continuously offered me advice, support, and encouragement. And have kept me supplied with Tetley teabags. The two people who probably bore the brunt of my stress when things were going badly and elation when things were going well are my sister and my husband. So thanks, Anna, for being an all-round super hero and still finding time to let me stay with you, to cook me meals and send me care parcels, to visit me when I was doing fieldwork, and to listen to me whinge via Skype several times per week. Last but not least, thank you Robby - you always know just what to say, you remind me not to hunch my shoulders, you tell me I‘m great when you know I need to hear it and you offer me constructive criticism even when I don‘t want to hear it, which makes me a better scholar and a better person. You know it‘s true when I say I would never have written this without your continuing encouragement. iv Asylum Seekers and the State. Whose Threat? Whose Security? Contents Introduction 1 Research Questions 5 Interpretivism, reflexivity, and theory as a verb 6 Methodology 12 Chapter outlines 19 Refugees in a World of States versus States in a World of Asylum Seekers 22 Refugees in a world of states 23 The development of the refugee definition 23 The asylum category 28 States in a world of asylum seekers 33 Asylum seekers as a challenge to the state 39 Conclusion 44 Security and the Construction of Asylum Seekers 45 Asylum seekers: collectively a threat? 47 Asylum seekers and critical conceptions of security 53 Postcolonial insights 64 Ontological security 71 Conclusion 76 The Construction of Asylum Seekers in British Discourse 78 Contextualizing contemporary discourse 80 Political discourse 88 Security Professionals 93 Fear mongers 98 Discussion 106 Conclusion 108 Greece for the Greeks and Greeks for the Immigrants 110 Refugees, asylum seekers, and political subjectivity 112 Greek national identity 115 Greek identity and migration 120 Discourse analysis: the Greek media 123 v Conclusion 137 Where is the Human in Human Security? 139 Human security 141 Framework of human rights 148 Framework of development 152 Decentering human security 156 Ontological human security 161 Conclusion 168 Ontological Insecurity and Asylum Seeker Identity 170 Ontological human security 170 Methodology 170 Asylum seeker definitions 173 Ontological insecurity 185 Failed asylum seekers and destitution 192 Conclusion 197 Conclusion 199 Research questions and answers 200 Directions for future research 207 References 210 Appendix 227 vi Introduction Looking around Viktoria Square in the centre of Athens one can clearly see the realities of international migration, to be specific, irregular and forced migration happening outside of visa and immigration programmes. Viktoria square is in North Central Athens, a space of about 250 square feet, with a kiosk selling newspapers, a metro station, a few benches dotted around, and the surrounding streets lined with cafes and bars. The apartment and office buildings that rise around Viktoria Square are tall with flat roofs, with white peeling paint and large verandahs. Graffiti and the remains of posters adorn walls and lampposts. Viktoria Square has become known as the centre of immigrant-Athens. Looking around, there are people sleeping on benches, men from Africa and Asia with goods for sale spread on large blankets, clusters of people sitting, chatting, standing, waiting. The people are not going anywhere because they do not have anywhere to go. They are not at home because presently they do not have homes to go to. Athens is one of the first ports of call for migrants seeking to enter Europe. While the migrants often consider themselves to be asylum seekers, state and European Union laws seldom agree with them. National discourses posit them as economic migrants, or more frequently ―bogus asylum seekers,‖ ―welfare tourists,‖ and ―illegal immigrants.‖ In this study I investigate the disparity between the self-conceptions of asylum seekers and national discourses constructing perceptions of asylum seekers. Millions of displaced persons seek to migrate because they cannot afford to live in their home country. This has led to a growing underground economy in human trafficking, with vulnerable persons incorporated into slavery and sex work, in addition to disenfranchised female workers in an ―offshore proletariat‖ (Sassen 1999). Despite their vulnerability, international law 1 and domestic immigration law of liberal democracies continue to separate economic migrants from forced migrants. While those economic migrants who move through the visa programmes are certainly separate from subjects of forced migration, the current distinction leaves one of the biggest motivations for migration, which is poverty, absent in the global community. Due to the absence of forced economic migration in legislation pertaining to forced migration, and due to the difference between asylum seekers self-identification and state identifications of asylum seekers, it is necessary to problematize the category of asylum seeker that is used by states at state borders, which implements the very specific criteria of the refugee definition. Asylum seekers acquire the title when seeking admission to a state, either at the border or once inside. By this nature, they are often travelling without documents and tend to come in trickles, such as small family groups or as individuals.