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AEGIS European Conference on African Studies
11 - 14 July 2007
African Studies Centre, Leiden, The Netherlands
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The everyday moral evaluation of asylum seekers in France
| Panel |
8. Refugees and the Law in Europe
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| Paper ID | 59 |
| Author(s) |
Kobelinsky, Carolina
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| Paper |
No paper submitted
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| Abstract | Refugees and immigrants have become in the last decades a major political issue in France. When “the Hexagon” decided to close its frontiers to labor immigration in 1974, suspicion and victimization turned out to be the balancing scales which constantly swing from one to another as if involved in a dynamic play of tensions. Not so long ago, refugees and immigrants were considered (perceived and treated) as two different categories. Nowadays the boundaries between asylum seekers and immigrants seem to have become blurred in the discourses as well as in the policies developed. Asylum has weakened and turned into what it is now called “suffered immigration”, the necessity of controlling flux and the promotion of a “chosen immigration”. In this context, the refugee status became an almost exceptional resource: less than 20% of demands receive a positive answer. People who endanger their lives to leave, those who run away from death, those who escape hunger; they are all labeled as “clandestines”. Mistrust surrounds every asylum seeker and it is now possible to talk about “true” and “false” refugees.
The institutional treatment in reception centers cannot escape from suspicion and judgment either. The moral evaluation of asylum seekers is two-fold: on the one hand, there is a doubt about the truth of the story at the base of the refugee status’ application; on the other hand, asylum seekers are judged depending on their everyday activities and attitudes towards the institution and its members.
Based on a long-lasting ethnographic study in centers for asylum seekers in the Parisian suburbs which are supported by the state and managed by NGOs, the aim of this paper is to explore the representations constructed by social workers and the way they operate in everyday interactions.
The basic assumption of this presentation is that everyday institutional treatment received by those who seek refuge can tell us about the contemporary politics of asylum in France and its impact on refugee rights.
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