Paper short abstract:

Asylum seekers must learn what it means to be a “good” person in a new environment as they apply for protection and build new lives. Focusing on the NGO space as an essential locus for this learning process, this paper examines how asylum seekers demonstrate that they are “deserving” of asylum.

Paper long abstract:

Subject to constant and pervasive suspicion, asylum seekers in the Global North often must expend great energy to assert their moral agency and be perceived as “good” refugees who are not only worthy of asylum but also capable of becoming “good” citizens in the future. Navigating these difficult waters requires a keen awareness of what makes an individual “deserving” of asylum in the local context as well as a distinct ability to shift between different modes of presentation as required. Specifically, asylum seekers must be vulnerable enough to meet the requirements of refugee status, and yet also capable enough not to be perceived as a burden on society. The NGO space provides a fertile environment for observing and learning how to do this both from other asylum seekers and from NGO workers. In this paper, I examine these dynamics within an international NGO that serves as an official refugee and asylum seeker reception site in Madrid, Spain—a country that has seen dramatic increases in asylum applications over the past five years along with rising far-right nationalism and anti-immigrant sentiment. In this space, asserting moral agency involves not only gaining asylum and achieving socioeconomic stability but also developing normative practices surrounding everyday social and family life in Spain. Finally, I reflect upon the importance of centering asylum seekers’ own perspectives in theoretical discussions of migrant deservingness, and I discuss how I seek to promote my interlocutors’ moral agency through my research framing, my methodology, and the dissemination of my findings.