The Dispersal And Social Exclusion Of Asylum Seekers

This book establishes asylum seekers as a socially excluded group. It provides an overview of historic and contemporary dispersal systems, and it investigates the policy of dispersing asylum seekers across the UK and how this dispersal impacts their lives. It argues that deterrent asylum policies increase the sense of liminality experienced by individuals. The book challenges assumptions that asylum seekers should be socially excluded until they receive refugee status, and it illustrates how asylum seekers create their own sense of 'belonging' in the absence of official recognition.

This book is an interdisciplinary attempt to understand the contemporaneous human condition of asylum seekers through analysis of their entrapment and the resultant new forms of resistance that have emerged to combat it. Based on qualitative research data, the chapters support the claim that asylum seekers are entrapped in social, legal and economic precariousness amidst the complex relationship between individual agency and social structure. By exploring the practices and lived experiences of asylum seekers and other parties involved in their migration and reception, the authors explore the structural and individual agency factors that entrap asylum seekers in precarious livelihoods and lead to marginalization and social exclusion. A bold and timely study, this edited collection will be essential reading for academics and students of criminology, sociology, anthropology, urban studies and social policy.

European governments are now engaging in one of the largest exercises in social engineering that the continent has seen since the Second World War. Hundreds of thousands of asylum seekers and refugees in Europe are now being denied their basic right to choose where they live and are instead being compulsorily dispersed. Spreading the 'burden' is: · the first book-length study of dispersal policies; · explicitly comparative in nature and written by three national experts; · highly topical and controversial as the review of dispersal policies is under way in many countries; · a valuable case-study of how society deals with 'outsider' groups and space. The book is essential reading for national and local policy makers, those interested in human rights, social policy and refugee studies, as well as human geographers and sociologists.

Refugees are forced to gamble with their lives to flee conflicts, and if they arrive at their intended destination unscathed, they may face the turbulent prospect of asylum defined by a meagre existence, social exclusion, poverty, and even homelessness. Operating at different scales and imagined places, homelessness and asylum seeking are issues of fundamental social justice typically viewed as a problem of cities and crises of national and international concern respectively. However, over the past two decades in particular, the increasing and volatile numbers of asylum seekers arriving in the West have created a new form of homelessness, mainly hidden, often vulnerable, and located in the interstices of international and local displacement. Considering refugee settlement in London, England, and Toronto, Canada, this book argues that this new form of homelessness also requires a new perspective in order to be properly understood, and this perspective should come from refugees themselves. Two main questions are considered: “How do refugees conceive, locate, and reconstruct ‘home’ in the asylum and settlement process?” and “How do national and residential dynamics affect refugees’ sense of home or homelessness?” Drawing on structuration theory amongst other ideas, the book examines the relationship between “refugeeness” and homelessness, and how each is shaped in the countries of asylum. Managed migration strategies in Canada and deterrent migration strategies in the UK have a profound effect on refugees’ perceptions of belonging and acceptance, equality, and the desire and ability to make a home for themselves. In addition to shaping notions of belonging, national support and services (or the lack thereof) structure the pathways to homelessness, revealing distinct trajectories amongst refugees in London and Toronto. The author’s proceeds from the sale of this book will be contributed to the Canadian Council for Refugees.

Will Somerville presents a comprehensive account of immigration policy since 1997, providing an in-depth account of policy and legislation since Tony Blair and New Labour were first elected.

Migration and Insecurity addressess an important but rarely considered aspect of migration: how are migrants and refugees received in their new homes? What defines inclusion and exclusion for migrants, and how does this affect the concept of 'belonging' in a transnational society? In these essays, the distinguished contributors discuss the places in which migrants and refugees construct and experience their belonging, and situate this discussion in the context of the international system and government policy. Chapters interrogate the notion of ...

This open access book describes how the numerous arrivals of asylum seekers since 2015 shaped reception and integration processes in Europe. It addresses the structuration of asylum and reception systems, and spaces and places of reception on European, national, regional and local level. It also analyses perceptions and discourses on asylum and refugees, their evolvement and the consequences for policy development. Furthermore, it examines practices and policy developments in the field of refugee reception and integration. The volume shows and explains a variety of refugee reception and integration strategies and practices as specific outcome of multilevel governance processes in Europe. By addressing and contextualizing those multiple experiences of asylum seeker reception, the book is a valuable contribution to the literature on migration and integration, societal development and political culture in Europe.

The book provides an essential background to understanding debates surrounding immigration and refugee policy. It examines different theoretical approaches to immigration and explores links between immigration policy, welfare and social exclusion, as well as documenting migrants' experiences in negotiating and challenging these policies.