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- Convenor:
-
John R. Campbell
(School of Oriental & African Studies)
- Location:
- Khalili Lecture Theatre
- Start time:
- 16 April, 2009 at
Time zone: Europe/London
- Session slots:
- 1
Short Abstract:
Long Abstract:
Accepted papers:
Session 1
Policies acted: the effect of pluralism and policies on Eritrean refugees
Lily Harmon-Gross
(University of Tennessee)
Paper short abstract:
not used
Paper long abstract:
Eritrean refugees have been migrating to Ethiopia for approximately 7 years. By registering with UNHCR, they hope to have the opportunity for resettlement in a Western country. The process of time-case resettlement has been slow, leaving many Eritreans stranded in Ethiopia for up to six years; UNHCR policies are further confounded by US polices on terrorism and immigration quotas. UNCHR and the US government have just announced that a group resettlement to the US has been approved for the majority of residents of Shimelba refugee camp. In presenting a case study of the experiences and attitudes of encamped and urban Eritrean refugees in Ethiopia, I will illustrate the "front-end" of refugee resettlement and forced migration. The intersection of US policies on immigration, international institutions that monitor these processes, local political opposition groups that insert themselves into the resettlement process, and the experiences of individuals seeking resettlement to a third country must be explored to understand the effects these processes have on the overall Eritrean diaspora community, and on Eritrean identity and consciousness. I suggest that the upcoming group-resettlement of Shimelba residents to the US has triggered a shift in subjectivity among the camp members towards that of rights-bearing citizenship. By noting patterned articulations of human rights and an emergent rights consciousness, we see where UNHCR humanitarian policy fails by defining protection narrowly, even while engendering refugees' human rights awareness. I reexamine US policies that leave some refugees stranded, and Ethiopian government policies that short-circuit the human rights regime for refugees.
Seeking asylum, autonomy, and human rights: Eritreans in Germany and the United States
Tricia Redeker-Hepner
(University of Tennessee, Knoxville)
Paper short abstract:
not used
Paper long abstract:
Drawing on preliminary, comparative ethnographic data collected in the United States and Germany, as well as previous extensive research on Eritrean transnational communities and patterns of governance (Hepner 2008, 2009), this paper outlines an ongoing research agenda analyzing the relationship between increasing flows of new refugees and asylum seekers from Eritrea and the emergence of new Eritrean organizations and discourses based on human rights. The central question addressed is what kind of relationship obtains between the rising numbers of new refugees and the development of these new human rights organizations in German and American Eritrean communities. A working hypothesis is that asylum seekers undergo a transformation of politico-legal subjectivity through the asylum process, but the relationship between consciousness and political action is unclear. In both Germany and America, the Eritrean government maintains a strong transnational presence, as do opposition movements. New asylum seekers find both their legal cases and their attempts to formulate human rights discourse and action impeded by the transnational interference of their sending country and the conflicted dynamics of diasporic life. At the same time, the growth of Eritrean organizations seeking autonomy and a definitive rights-based agenda on behalf of both refugees and citizens at home suggests that human rights concepts and the culturally productive aspects of law and policy may represent mechanisms for both peacebuilding and structural and political transformation in Eritrean communities marked by political violence, intolerance, and transnational repression.
Paper short abstract:
not used
Paper long abstract:
Since the European Union successively closes down immigration routes, Israel has become an interesting intermediate stage for African migrants using the North-Eastern route to Europe. While their agency is strongly restricted by impecuniousness and immigration law, they have to carefully gather information on legal and illegal possibilities to stay or move and find ways to decide strategically and act creatively. International refugee agencies and national immigration authorities more often refuse than provide suitable support and future perspectives, but conditions and policies change from place to place, from country to country. Sometimes a legal procedure may indeed be wiser than subjecting oneself to an illegal smuggler's arbitrariness to reach a relatively safe status or a further stage in the migration to the First World. Such general problems and processes of strategic decision-making will be shown exemplarily in the case of migrants from Eritrea, who made it via Khartoum and Cairo to Jerusalem. Fieldwork and interviews have been done in Cairo and Jerusalem.