Suchergebnisse

An empirical examination of contemporary refugee practices in BritainWeaves together theories of hospitality and labelling, applying them to the refugee regimeExpands the theoretical framework of hospitality, with development towards an understanding of externalised humanitarian hospitalityUnderpinned by rich empirical material: 34 interviews and 30+ years of archival research on government framing of the refugeeExamines three empirically grounded case studies on the British asylum system from the national, regional and grass-roots level: British internal asylum policies (1990–2017), British external policies during the Mediterranean Crisis (2010–17) and a counter-analysis of hospitality practices at the British local level (2015–17)Refugees in Britain intertwines theories of hospitality and labelling, and applies them to the British refugee regime. This allows for deeper insights into the notions of power, identification, responsibility, language and externalisation.Gillian McFadyen argues that the British refugee regime has developed towards an externalised humanitarian hospitality. The British practice is geographically projected beyond the territorial confines of the state in order to both control and exclude the refugee. In tandem, McFadyen engages with counter-discourses by examining local practices of British hospitality and showing acts of solidarity that challenge the statist logic. The result is a theoretically informed account of the British approach to externalisation and geographical seclusion of refugees, particularly in response to the current Mediterranean Crisis

This book provides a multi-faceted way of assessing the British approach to refuge on local, state and regional levels, by intertwining the theories of hospitality and labelling before applying them to the study of refugees.

Since 1990 when Britain witnessed a spike in asylum applications, consecutive governments have adopted a stance towards asylum, whereby the interests of the state supersede those seeking asylum. By employing Jacques Derrida's notion of hospitality and the politics of labelling, the article identifies five ways in which Conservative, New Labour and Conservative Liberal Democratic coalition governments have sought to establish the label of a genuine asylum seeker. Drawing upon parliamentary archives, the article presents a narrative of an idealised refugee figure that has been created through consecutive British governments, at the expense of the asylum seeker. Individuals who do not meet the genuine criteria are branded as failed, bogus asylum seekers, or more recently, immigrants, who abuse the system. The article argues that what we are witnessing within the British asylum system is the politics of hostipitality, whereby hostility is the overriding reaction to the asylum seeker.