Families First? The Mobilization of Family Norms in Refugee Resettlement

Welfens, Natalie; Bonjour, Saskia

doi:10.1093/ips/olaa022

Cited by 30 publications

(26 citation statements)

References 47 publications

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“…As spots for admission are scarce, only cases that count as most at risk and whose needs cannot be addressed by available services in Turkey are, or should be, referred to UNHCR's resettlement unit. Like in the broader context of humanitarian assistance and migration management, vulnerability criteria are grounded in and reproduce gendered assumptions of protection and risk (see e.g., UNHCR, 2009) (single) women and children, but also people with medical needs or disabilities and LGBTQI refugees count as those that are in need (Sözer, 2019), whereas (single) heterosexual men count as per se not vulnerable (Turner, 2019;Welfens and Bonjour, 2020).…”

Section: Initial Referralsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…They may be: single heads of families, unaccompanied girls or women, or together with their male (or female) family members" (UNHCR, 2011: 263, emphasis in original). As in NGOs' and Turkish state authorities' referrals, vulnerability assessments rely to a large extent on gendered group-based assumptions of who is at risk and who is not (see also Welfens and Bonjour, 2020). In the subsequent in-person interview, UNHCR frontline interviewers and interpreters follow a detailed and routinized protocol of how to assess in more detail what exactly refugees' past and present vulnerabilities consist of and what creates the need to be resettled to another country (see also Sandvik, 2005).…”

Section: United Nations High Commissioner For Refugee's Assessment and Submissionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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The Politics of Vulnerability in Refugee Admissions Under the EU-Turkey Statement

Welfens

Bekyol

2021

Front. Polit. Sci.

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Resettlement and humanitarian admission programs claim to target ‘particularly vulnerable’, or ‘the most vulnerable’ refugees. If the limited spots of such programs are indeed foreseen for particularly vulnerable groups and individuals, as resettlement actors claim, how is vulnerability defined in policies and put into practice at the frontline? Taking European states’ recent admission programs under the EU-Turkey statement as an example, and focusing on Germany as an admission country, this research note sheds light on this question. Drawing on document analysis, and original fieldwork insights, we show that on paper and in practice vulnerability as a policy category designates some social groups as per se more vulnerable than others, rather than accounting for contingent reasons of vulnerability. In policy documents, the operational definition of vulnerability and its relation to other criteria remain largely undefined. In selection practices, additional criteria curtail a purely vulnerability-based selection, exacerbate existing or create new vulnerabilities in their own right. We conclude that, in the absence of clear definitions, resettlement and humanitarian admission programs’ declared focus on the most vulnerable remains a discretionary promise, with limited possibilities of political and legal scrutiny.

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Section: Initial Referralsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: United Nations High Commissioner For Refugee's Assessment and Submissionmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Politics of Vulnerability in Refugee Admissions Under the EU-Turkey Statement

Welfens

Bekyol

2021

Front. Polit. Sci.

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“…Sommarribas, Petry, Marcus & Nienaber (2016) argue that prioritizing families is an important aspect of the integration criteria for resettlement to Luxembourg since families are considered easier to integrate than single persons. Welfens & Bonjour (2020) show how hegemonic norms on what family means have profound implications for who is selected for resettlement to particular countries in their case Germany. Although admitting families is considered the '"natural" thing to do' (ibid.…”

Section: Implicit Criteria: Values and Discourses On Gender Sexuality And Familymentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Western European gender and family norms on what a 'proper' refugee is, means that women and children are much more likely to be selected for resettlement, especially in comparison to single men (cf. Thomson 2018, Turner 2017, Welfens & Bonjour 2020. Refugees toil to adapt their narratives to one that will be heard and deemed worthy by the UNHCR, often by trying to differentiate oneself from others by claiming the existence of false narratives (Koçak 2020).…”

Section: Implicit Criteria: Values and Discourses On Gender Sexuality And Familymentioning

confidence: 99%

Norms and Values in Refugee Resettlement: A Literature Review of Resettlement to the EU

Böhm¹,

Ramsøy²,

Suter³

2021

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As a result of the refugee reception crisis in 2015 the advocacy for increasing resettlement numbers in the overall refugee protection framework has gained momentum, as has research on resettlement to the EU. While the UNHCR purports resettlement as a durable solution for the international protection of refugees, resettlement programmes to the European Union are seen as a pillar of the external dimension of the EU’s asylum and migration policies and management. This paper presents and discusses the literature regarding the value transmissions taking place within these programmes. It reviews literature on the European resettlement process – ranging from the selection of refugees to be resettled, the information and training they receive prior to travelling to their new country of residence, their reception upon arrival, their placement and dispersal in the receiving state, as well as programs of private and community sponsorship. The literature shows that even if resettlement can be considered an external dimension of European migration policy, this process does not end at the border. Rather, resettlement entails particular forms of reception, placement and dispersal as well as integration practices that refugees are confronted with once they arrive in their resettlement country. These practices should thus be understood in the context of the resettlement regime as a whole. In this paper we map out where and how values (here understood as ideas about how something should be) and norms (expectations or rules that are socially enforced) are transmitted within this regime. ‘Value transmission’ is here understood in a broad sense, taking into account the values that are directly transmitted through information and education programmes, as well as those informing practices and actors’ decisions. Identifying how norms and values figure in the resettlement regime aid us in further understanding decision making processes, policy making, and the on-the-ground work of practitioners that influence refugees’ lives. An important finding in this literature review is that vulnerability is a central notion in international refugee protection, and even more so in resettlement. Ideas and practices regarding vulnerability are, throughout the resettlement regime, in continuous tension with those of security, integration, and of refugees’ own agency. The literature review and our discussion serve as a point of departure for developing further investigations into the external dimension of value transmission, which in turn can add insights into the role of norms and values in the making and un-making of (external) boundaries/borders.

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“…For this purpose, a 1:1 mechanism was developed, establishing that for every Syrian refugee Turkey would readmit from Greece after March 2016, one Syrian would be resettled from Turkey to an EU member state (Deutsche Welle, 2018). To realize the EU's commitment to the 1:1 mechanism, the EU promised the Turkish government to admit up to 76,504 persons via resettlement and humanitarian admissions (Welfens and Bonjour, 2020).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Implementing the Refugee Resettlement Process: Diverging Objectives, Interdependencies and Power Relations

Schneider

2021

Front. Polit. Sci.

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Refugee resettlement is implemented by many different national and international stakeholders who operate in different locations and on the basis of sometimes diverging objectives. The implementation of the resettlement process has thus been characterized as multi-level governance, with resettlement stakeholders coordinating and negotiating the selection of refugees for resettlement. Still, literature on the implementation of refugee resettlement has remained very limited and has mainly focused on one specific stakeholder or stage of the process. In addition, a common conceptualization of the different stages is currently missing in academic literature. To address this research gap, the article proposes a common terminology of all stages of the resettlement process. Highlighting the diversity of resettlement programs, the article relies on a comparative case study of the German resettlement and humanitarian admission programs from Jordan and Turkey. By drawing on the concept of multi-level governance, the article examines diverging objectives and interdependencies between resettlement stakeholders, such as UNHCR and resettlement countries. As a result, the article argues that the increasing emphasis on national selection criteria by resettlement countries, including Germany, puts resettlement countries even more in the center of decision-making authority–in contrast to a diffusion of power that characterizes multi-level governance.

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Families First? The Mobilization of Family Norms in Refugee Resettlement

Cited by 30 publications

References 47 publications

The Politics of Vulnerability in Refugee Admissions Under the EU-Turkey Statement

The Politics of Vulnerability in Refugee Admissions Under the EU-Turkey Statement

Norms and Values in Refugee Resettlement: A Literature Review of Resettlement to the EU

Implementing the Refugee Resettlement Process: Diverging Objectives, Interdependencies and Power Relations

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