I Am Nobody Here: Institutional Humanism and the Discourse of Disposability in the Lives of Criminalized Refugee Youth in Canada

Abstract

This article uses the concept of “institutional humanism” to explicate how the ideology of humanism is deployed through a biopolitical “discourse of disposability” to dehumanize, objectify, and animalize racialized and criminalized refugee youth in Canada, setting them in opposition to mainstream Whites who are deemed normal, rational, and autonomous—in essence, human. This article identifies four mechanisms of disposability: the expulsion of criminalized refugee youth from school and the labor market, the “revolving door” of the criminal justice system, the creation of deportability, and disinvestment in programs for youth. The treatment of criminalized refugee youth as disposable is part of an epistemological and ontological exercise that creates and enforces a boundary between those defined as human and those who are excluded from the set of “bodies that matter.” The study was conducted through qualitative interviews with criminalized refugee youth and professional adults who work with them. The interview data are set within the web of theoretical relationships among humanism, posthumanism, animalization, institutional policy, and categorizations based on race, gender, class, ability, age, and immigration status, demonstrating how these theoretical nodes attain bolder relief when operationalized under performativity.

The Lived Experience of Youth Justice Policy: Responsibilization in a Carceral State

“…While the rehabilitative emphasis within youth justice goes largely unquestioned, those who do question Canada's approach to youth justice policy have called attention to populations that are overrepresented and disproportionately impacted by the youth justice system. This is evidenced by researchers that assert, despite the success of the YCJA in reducing the incarceration of youth, youth justice remains a punitive system by disproportionately impacting marginalized populations, including racialized (Fitzgerald & Carrington, 2011;Francis, 2018), Black (Kolivoski, Goodkind & Shook, 2017;Mullings, Morgan & Quelleng, 2016;Owusu-Bempah, 2014;Rankin & Winsa, 2013;), and Indigenous youth (Bania, 2017;Cesaroni, Grol & Fredericks, 2019;Corrado, Kuehn &Margaritescu, 2014;Rudin, 2018). Prejudice and bias that becomes embedded into systems and institutions can contribute to the systemic oppression of already disadvantaged groups (Dumbrill & Yee, 2019).…”

“…Prejudice and bias that becomes embedded into systems and institutions can contribute to the systemic oppression of already disadvantaged groups (Dumbrill & Yee, 2019). For criminalized youth outside of the dominant groups, attention must be paid to their experiences of oppression resulting from forms of systemic oppression (de Finney, Dean, Loiselle & Saraceno, 2011;Drake, Fergusson & Briggs, 2014;Francis, 2018;Hannah-Moffat, 2013). Thus, some scholars critique the emphasis youth justice places on risk-based analysis and interventions and the lack of accompanying attention to underlying systemic factors impacting the individuals who are criminalized (Alvi, 2012;Gray, 2013;Hannah-Moffat, Maurutto & Turnbull, 2009).…”

“…They would be just like us if these circumstances improved'' (Young 2007b, p. 5 as cited by Alvi). Ali (2008) calls attention to the role of power structures resulting from colonization and the social and political conditions that perpetuate the othering of second-generation youth in Canada, factors of relevance to the othering of justice-involved youth (Francis, 2018). The othering of youth through their construction as risky illustrates how fear, morality, and other value laden framings become justification for understanding youth through a lens of risk, and subsequently how risk becomes a significant factor in youth justice policy (Armstrong, 2004;Besley, 2009;Goddard, 2012).…”

“…The notion of what constitutes family continues to evolve, with family including non-traditional family members, and "[l]arge numbers of children and youth live in non-traditional family arrangements" (Tyyskä, 2014, p. 61). However, within the context of youth criminalization youth disproportionally represent socially disadvantaged, minoritized and communities that have experienced various forms of oppression (Chan & Chunn, 2014;Fitzgerald & Carrington, 2011;Francis, 2018;Salole & Abdulle, 2015). Within many communities, youth have had to create informal family networks of support.…”

“…The concern of a standardized approach to addressing youth offending that is rooted in neoliberal policy approaches is that there is a lack of willingness to consider the intersectional nature of the social issues that contribute to youth exclusion and their offending behaviour (Francis, 2018).…”