On not seeking asylum: Migrant masculinities and the politics of refusal

Newhouse, Léonie

doi:10.1016/j.geoforum.2021.01.024

Cited by 8 publications

(6 citation statements)

References 92 publications

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“…Refusals are 'agentive decisions' including a decision not to do something, id est to apply for asylum (Newhouse 2021) or engage with state-provided antenatal care. As Tuck and Yang (2014) note, refusal is not an end, but a beginning; a standpoint from which a different action or alternative path can be taken.…”

Section: Reading For Refusalmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Hence, refusal is not only generative but can also be radically transformative (Campt 2019) by directing transformative efforts toward selfgovernance (Honig 2021). By refusing what is offered by oppressive structures, institutions and agents, marginalised individuals are able to draw attention to what is sought instead (Newhouse 2021).…”

Section: Reading For Refusalmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The guidance provided by this NHS Trust clearly recognises the impact of charging on women's mental health and also indicate that those who advise them of their intention not to engage in antenatal care may also face further scrutiny by referral to a safeguarding team. Clearly, this may lead some to turn away or refuse to receive antenatal care, id est make an agentive decision (Newhouse 2021), and seek to care for themselves during pregnancy outside of NHS maternity services (Bhungalia 2020).…”

Section: Necessary But Chargeablementioning

confidence: 99%

“…She clearly demonstrates knowledge of the process, indicating that she is aware that moves to more suitable (separate house) temporary accommodation have been arranged for other expectant mothers in the same situation. This highlights that in attempting to transform (Campt 2019) her own situation during her pregnancy, Asma is drawing on pathways developed by others that she has been made aware of through networks that she has developed with other women (Newhouse 2021). Asma's correspondence continues to draw on the path forged by these other women.…”

Section: Self-advocacymentioning

confidence: 99%

“…We analyse the complex relationship the women had to state-provided maternity care and frame this within a lens of refusal. We argue that reading for refusal in maternity care turns our gaze upon how such 'care' is not only embedded in the harms and violence of the UK's border regime but actively creates the violent conditions that lead women to make agentive decisions (Newhouse 2021) to refuse care earlier in their pregnancies. In the UK context, the complex forms of refusal we elucidate are particularly linked to the harms created by changes to the National Health Service (NHS) charging regime and its impacts on bordered women living in the UK.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 4 more Smart Citations

Reading for refusal in UK maternity care: entangling struggles for border and reproductive justice

Cassidy,

Amiri,

Davidson

2023

Fennia

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Research has shown that women with insecure immigration statuses in the United Kingdom (UK) are more likely to register later in their pregnancy with National Health Service (NHS) maternity care providers. This late engagement with healthcare services is framed in academic debates as one of the key reasons for poor outcomes for these women and their children during and after birth. Interventions, therefore, have focused on how to remove barriers to accessing maternity care for these women. In this paper, we argue that this approach fails to account for the agency of the women adequately, which needs to be understood in the context of state harms and violence towards women with insecure immigration statuses and, in particular, their reproductive lives. We seek to shift these debates by framing this lack of early engagement with state-provided maternity services as a form of refusal that denotes an active disengagement by bordered women from intersecting structures of harm and oppression that are embedded in the UK’s National Health Service, particularly through the charging regime. We argue that the politics of refusal in this case are embedded in struggles not only for border but also reproductive justice. Drawing on participant observation and data from secondary sources, we illustrate how refusal of early antenatal care opens pathways for bordered women to seek the care-ful conditions they need and want during pregnancy.

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Section: Reading For Refusalmentioning

confidence: 99%