1154 - Refugees: Comparative Perspectives from Above and Below

Session Submission Type: Paper Session 100min

Description

This session explores the refugee experience and its interaction with state and civil society across multiple cases. The sociology of international migration has paid little systematic attention to questions of forced migration. Much of what is known focuses on the experiences of resettled refugees in a handful of rich countries such as the United States, Canada, and Australia. There is little theorization and empirical investigation of the decision-making process through which refugees decide to leave their homes. Studies of refugee policy struggle to access practices on the ground through which state agents determine whether an applicant is a refugee and the kinds of local services they can access. The lacunae are especially large in scholarly understandings of processes in poor and middle income countries that host the vast majority of the word’s refugee population. Finally, what role do global norms play in shaping refugees’ access to services in places of settlement and resettlement, and what are the distinct mechanisms for their diffusion and articulation? Evidence from Iran, Brazil, South Africa, and international organizations in the Middle East, North Africa, Latin America, Sub-Saharan Africa, and Asia is brought to bear to answer these questions.

Sub Unit

• International Immigration

Session Organizer

• David Scott FitzGerald, University of California-San Diego

Presider

• Cawo Mohamed Abdi, University of Minnesota

Individual Presentations

• Becoming a Refugee: The Forced Migration Decision-Making of Iranian Religious Minorities - Molly Fee, University of California-Los Angeles

• From the Asylum Officials’ Point of View: Schemes of Perception and Evaluation in Refugee Status Determination - Katherine Christine Jensen, University of Texas-Austin

• Refugee Reception Offices and Contested Rights in South African Cities - Jay Johnson, University of California-Los Angeles

• Educating Refugees: The Diffusion of Global Discourses - S. Garnett Russell, Columbia University; Elizabeth Summer Buckner, University of Toronto; Sarah Horsch, Columbia University Teachers College

Discussant

• Rawan Arar