The Liminal Process of Seeking Asylum in the Global North: Accessing Education in Greek Refugee Camps and US Border Areas

• In Event: Policy and Politics of Education

Proposal

In the Global North, particularly along the borders of the United States and the European Union, the international right of seeking asylum has continued to be a political, social, and ethical question of how to treat people who are escaping danger and persecution. With more than 100 million people displaced today (UNHCR, 2023), the Global North is grappling with how, and if, it will process asylum claims. In both Europe and the US, trends indicating a lack of respect for asylum seekers’ human rights and well-being have accelerated (Council of Europe, 2020; Sanchez, 2022). Since the EU accepted almost 2 million asylum seekers in what the media deemed Europe’s “refugee crisis” in 2015-2016, receiving countries such as Greece and Italy have struggled to create a safe, humane “context of reception” for asylum seekers (Esposito et al., 2019; Portes and Rumbaut, 2014; Gowayed, 2022). Similarly, in the United States, concerns about the country’s asylum system have risen as 2022 saw a record number of people coming to the US-Mexico border, and tents and facilities sprung up to assist the thousands of people seeking asylum (Sanchez, 2022; CBP, 2022). Specifically, these “contexts of reception” refer to how a host society, including the government policies, public sentiments, labor market and educational systems, receives newcomers (Portes and Rumbaut, 2014). My research focuses on the context of reception in relation to a key enabling right for people seeking asylum in the Global North: access to education. My research inquires to what extent education is provided, if at all, and what are the relevant factors that aid or hinder education for school-age children in the context of reception in the EU and the US? How do parents and guardians navigate the provision or lack of education?

As a voice of protest against continuing perspectives of coloniality in academia, my research aims to deconstruct the colonial mindset that the Global North, particularly the migration and education policies of the EU and the US, are excluded from “development” discourse in the field of education (Escobar, 2007; Takayama et al., 2007). With my research rooted in questions surrounding borders in the “at arrival” stage of seeking asylum, questions of the Global North and the Global South begin to blur. In the field of education in emergencies, I intend to contribute to a breaking down of Global North and Global South binaries by arguing that there is an emergency situation at the EU and US borders (Council of Europe, 2020; Gowayed, 2022) as people seeking asylum are denied basic rights such as the right to education (Homem, 2016).

My research utilizes Gowayed’s (2022) human-centric approach to understand how liminality within the process of seeking asylum impacts children’s access to education. In my work, liminality refers to the uncertainty and limbo-like state during the process of awaiting life-changing decisions (Aleinikoff and Owen, 2021; Merikoski, 2022). Within the field of sociological work on migration, a human-centric approach asks how people experience arriving in a new country and respects the humanity of those individuals above the protocols of border systems (Gowayed, 2022). Specifically, the current protocols at national borders are interrogated for lacking a human-centric approach and, furthermore, representing the “cause of the crisis” defined by violent border policing and detention of asylum seekers (Gowayed, 2022). Synthesizing a human-centric approach with previous research in refugee education, I employ Dryden-Peterson’s (2015) work on mapping and analyzing the distinct stages of gaining legal protection for forcibly displaced people in relation to education. I recognize the gap in the literature regarding the educational integration of students at the “at arrival” stage (Dryden-Peterson, 2015) or “context of reception” (Portes and Rumbaut, 2014; Jensen, 2021) that is characterized by liminality.

Within the field of refugee education, much of the existing literature focuses on people who have already gained refugee status (Dryden-Peterson, 2015; Russell et al., 2020). However, the process of refugee resettlement is quite distinct in legal and practical aspects from asylum-seeking procedures. While resettled refugees often arrive to a host country under a protected legal status, asylum seekers arrive in a new country and upon arrival begin a legal process of many months or years (Aleinikoff and Owen, 2021). In the existing literature on the asylum-seeking process, the majority of research has focused on the holistic psychological and sociological impacts of the asylum-seeking process on individuals, communities, and national identity (Esposito et al., 2019; Stark et al., 2015; Merikoski, 2022; Aleinikoff and Owen, 2021; Gowayed, 2022). Regarding education, there is a dearth of research on how the inhumane and protracted nature of obtaining asylum impacts students’ access to education along the borders of the EU and the US.

Considering the “at arrival” stage and context of reception in Europe and the US, my research analyzes access to education at two borders of the Global North: the maritime border of the EU, as represented by the Greek islands of Lesvos and Samos, and the US-Mexico border, at the cross points of McAllen, Texas and San Diego, California. My research employs a qualitative approach that is informed by semi-structured interviews with parents or guardians of school-aged children (under 18 year olds) who are currently in or recently completed the asylum process. Additionally, semi-structured interviews with NGO staff members and observational data collected at the NGO locations informs this research about access to education on such borders. Drawing on data from 35 interviews and observational data collected over two months, I argue that the criminalization of people seeking asylum in the Global North denies school-aged children the right to education as refugee camps and detention centers consistently fail to provide an environment suitable for learning. Informed by interviews, observational data, and decolonial literature, I argue that existing colonial attitudes impact the Global North’s approach toward people seeking asylum to create such barriers to education for people seeking safety at the US and EU borders.

Author

• Victoria H Jones, Columbia University Teachers College