4375 - Refugee Experiences: Borders, Security, Resettlement and Second Generation

Session Submission Type: Invited Session

Description

This special session focuses on the experiences of refugees as they navigate different stages of the process – from flight and borders, to resettlement and to second generation growing up within the context of refugee families. The current global context of increased border controls and securitization, greater insecurities and exclusions and targeted and racialised hostility towards refugees and asylum seekers makes this panel topical and significant. This session will expand our scope of understanding by moving away from policy and politics and instead focusing on the lived experiences of those subjected to contemporary regimes and at different stages of the refugee and asylum process, within different geographical contexts through the lens of family, feelings and emotions. Three speakers will discuss the cases of Great Britain, the United States and a comparative analysis of Canada, United States, and Mexico. The discussant will address the three papers and include some wider reflections on the need to place race and racism more centrally within any analysis of forced displacement.

Description

This proposed session focuses on the experiences of refugees as they navigate different stages of the refugee and asylum process – from flight and borders to resettlement and refusal. The current global context of increased border controls and securitization, greater insecurities and exclusions and targeted and racialised hostility towards refugees and asylum seekers makes this panel topical and significant. This session will expand our scope of understanding by moving away from policy and politics and instead focusing on the lived experiences of those subjected to contemporary regimes and at different stages of the refugee and asylum process, within different geographical contexts through the lens of family, feelings and emotions. Three speakers will discuss the cases of Great Britain, the United States and a comparative analysis of Canada, the EU, United States, and Mexico. The discussant will address the three papers and include some wider reflections on the need to place race and racism more centrally within refugee and forced migration studies.

Sub Unit

• Special Sessions

Session Organizer

• Alice Bloch, University of Manchester

Individual Presentations

• Confronting Remote Controls: How Refugees Navigate the Externalization of U.S. Borders - David Scott FitzGerald, University of California-San Diego

• Islamophobia, Racialization and Somali Refugee Youth - Cawo Mohamed Abdi, University of Minnesota

• Stories about the Past through the Lens of the Present: Second Generation Refugees Making Sense of their Parent’s Exile - Alice Bloch, University of Manchester

Discussant

• John Solomos, University of Warwick