Solidarity at the Margins: Arendt, Refugees, and the Inclusive Politics of World-Making

Abstract

The world is facing its greatest refugee crisis since the Second World War, with more people forcibly displaced than at any time since 1945 1 and a deepening xenophobic backlash taking hold in the United States, Australia, Britain, and Europe. While the numbers of displaced have steadily increased, opportunities for repatriation, resettlement, or local integration have progressively decreased, leaving an alarming number of people either forcibly encamped or pushed into a clandestine existence, at risk of arrest, imprisonment, and deportation. Most attention to the plight of refugees-including failures to protect or to provide for their human rights-has centered on how states should satisfy their international legal obligations, and on how international institutions should augment compliance with legal rules. 2 Our claim, however, is that these developments necessitate a focus on how forced migration also stimulates voluntary forms of political interaction between refugees and non-refugees, and that doing so serves as a vital corrective to the problematic depoliticization of the legalist approach. It is noteworthy, for instance, that the question "what is political solidarity?" is rarely asked in the international legal context of the refugee debates. This chapter, by contrast, seeks to illuminate the political practices ordinary people may take by acting neither for nor against but rather with refugees, through the work of Hannah Arendt. Arendt famously articulated a relational and interaction-oriented approach to political recognition with her notion of a "right to have rights." We argue that Arendt's notion can counter the formal legalism dominating this topic, when supplemented by the underutilized yet fruitful theme of solidarity in Arendt's work. Taking our cue from Arendt's contention that political equality and solidarity are co-requisites for reciprocal recognition of the subjects of rights, we then examine representative examples of solidaristic interaction that aim to counteract the "rightlessness" of refugees today, and consider how such collective action promotes shared freedom as inclusive world-making practices. 1 "Figures at a Glance," United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, accessed 3 August 2017, http://www.unhcr.org/uk/figures-at-a-glance.html. 2 The recently adopted UNGA New York Declaration (19 September 2016), for example, calls on states to enhance the international community's capacity to respond to mass displacement, through implementation of a Comprehensive Refugee Response Framework (CRRF). The CRRF is premised, however, on reaffirmation of the existing (and unmodified) international refugee regime. In this regard the New York Declaration reinforces the authoritative status of what Ian Hurd calls "international legalism"; How to Do Things with International Law

The aporia of refugee rights in a time of crises: the role of brokers in accessing refugee protection in transit and at the border

“…Brokers play a very important and vital role within the global refugee regime (Tuckett 2018, p. 246). Academic literature has explored examples of solidaristic interaction between refugees and non-refugees (Hayden and Saunders 2019), as well as the obstacles faced by populations trying to access refugee status; for instance, Karamanidou and Schuster (2011) discuss the difficulties refugees encounter when trying to access the asylum-seeking process in the European context. Similarly, Taylor and Rafferty-Brown (2010) analyse the difficulties asylum-seekers in Indonesia experience in obtaining access in their refugee status determination process and make recommendations to mitigate the difficulties identified, while Antje Missbach (2015) focuses on the complexities of transit migration in Indonesia from the perspective of the migrants before they arrive in Australia.…”

Hannah Arendt and International Relations

“…This implies that Arendt thinks human rights engagements without reliable sites of power and lasting institutions are limited. Regarding human rights issues, including refugee crises, then, Arendt's thoughts not only question how to recognize new entities for rights but also how to form a durable power to address those problems while enlarging the scope of solidarity for power (Hayden & Saunders, 2019;Horst & Lysaker, 2019;Miller, 2007).…”

The lex of the earth? Arendt’s critique of Roman law

“…Regarding the migration and refugee crisis, for instance, we need a durable power taking a specific role for addressing it. This certainly relates to the important issue of how to enlarge the scope of solidarity for power (Hayden and Saunders, 2019; Horst and Lysaker, 2019). But, Arendt also assures us that action and power need institutions that provide them with stability and durability.…”