Paper short abstract:

After years of tightening borders and complicating bureaucracy for asylum seekers, in 2022 the EU set all this aside for people fleeing Ukraine. Drawing on ethnographic research in Austria, this paper challenges binary categorizations surrounding forced migrants, and especially who it leaves behind.

Paper long abstract:

Historically unprecedented, the EU has declared immediate temporary protection for the 3.4+ million people who have fled Ukraine, effectively erasing the convoluted bureaucratic processes typically involved in fleeing one’s country. At the same time, this varies greatly from the current experiences of asylum seekers from non-European countries, as well as the previous treatment of people from other regions of the world during the mid-2010s “refugee crisis”.

Adopted on 4 March 2022, the “Temporary Protection Directive” grants Ukrainians immediate, non-bureaucratic, protection within the EU at least until 3 March 2023. In Austria, this enables arriving Ukrainians to be helped “quickly and unbureaucratically,” according to Austria’s Ministry of the Interior. This temporary protection grants medical care, education, and full access to the labor market. In other words, a new category was essentially created -- a category that does not cover other forced migrants, many of whom have also fled devastating wars.

This rightful acknowledgment of Ukrainians’ abhorrent situation is important and also brings to light major discrepancies. In this paper we seek to explore and problematize the binary categorizations surrounding Ukrainian forced migrants compared to others, particularly from the Middle East. Using illustrations from our ethnographic research in Austria (2018-2020), we discuss stereotypes, challenges, and ongoing discrimination. We aim to better understand the arbitrary legal and sociopolitical categorizing of migrants by examining the narratives contributing to this categorical binary, as well as its potential for harm.