Intentions, Strategies, and Actions: How Refugees Exert Agency in the Resettlement and Humanitarian Admission Process from Jordan and Turkey to Germany

Authors

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.25071/1920-7336.41213

Keywords:

refugee resettlement, humanitarian admission, agency, Germany, Turkey, Jordan

Abstract

Although refugee resettlement is characterized by opaque decision-making of United Nations and government agencies, refugees may exert agency throughout the resettlement process. Tracing the journeys of several refugees through the resettlement and humanitarian admission processes from Jordan and Turkey to Germany, this article highlights refugees’ intentions, strategies, and actions to access and navigate the process in Jordan and Turkey. Defining agency as a combination of intention and action, without reference to a specific outcome, the article argues for a nuanced conceptualization of agency that can be employed in situations where people’s agency is very limited.

Metrics

Metrics Loading ...

Author Biography

Hanna Elisabeth Schneider, Vrije Universiteit Brussel, Brussels, Belgium

Hanna Elisabeth Schneider is a PhD researcher at Vrije Universiteit Brussel. She can be reached at hanna.schneider@vub.be.

References

Al-Majali, S. (2022, February 14). A precarious refuge: Yemeni asylum-seekers in Jordan. Sana’a Center. https://sanaacenter.org/publications/main-publications/16557

Association for Solidarity with Asylum Seekers and Migrants. (2020). 2019 activity report. https://www.eeas.europa.eu/sites/default/files/14-_asam_activity_report_2019_1.pdf

Balakian, S. (2020). Navigating patchwork governance: Somalis in Kenya, national security, and refugee resettlement. African Studies Review, 63(1), 43–64. https://doi.org/10.1017/asr.2019.53

Bandura, A. (2006). Toward a psychology of human agency. Perspectives on Psychological Science, 1(2), 164–180. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1745-6916.2006.00011.x

Barnes, B. (2000). Understanding agency: Social theory and responsible action. Sage Publicarions. https://doi.org/10.4135/9781446219140

Becker, H. S. (1963). Outsiders: Studies in the sociology of deviance. The Free Press.

Beirens, H., & Fratzke, S. (2017, May). Taking stock of refugee resettlement: Policy objectives, practical tradeoffs, and the evidence base. Migration Policy Institute Europe. https://www.migrationpolicy.org/research/taking-stock-refugee-resettlement-policy-objectives-practical-tradeoffs-and-evidence-base

Bloch, A. (2007). Methodological challenges for national and multi-sited comparative survey research. Journal of Refugee Studies, 20(2), 230–247. https://doi.org/10.1093/jrs/fem002

Bundesministerium des Innern und für Heimat (BMI). (2018a, December 11). Anordnung des Bundesministeriums des Innern, für Bau und Heimat für die Resettlement-Verfahren in den Jahren 2018 und 2019 gemäß § 23 Absatz 4 des Aufenthaltsgesetzes zur Aufnahme bestimmter Flüchtlinge unterschiedlicher Staatsangehörigkeiten oder staatenloser Flüchtlinge aus Ägypten, Äthiopien, Jordanien und aus dem Libanon sowie ggf. Über den UNHCR Evakuierungsmechanismus aus Libyen vom 11. Dezember 2018. https://www.bmi.bund.de/SharedDocs/downloads/DE/veroeffentlichungen/themen/migration/humanitaere-aufnahmeprogramme/aufnahmeanordnung-7.pdf;jsessionid=ECDFC12FC62803DE7447DD9156E444DE.1_cid373?__blob=publicationFile&v=1

Bundesministerium des Innern und für Heimat (BMI). (2018b, December 21). Anordnung des Bundesministeriums des Innern, für Bau und Heimat vom 21. Dezember 2018 für die Humanitäre Aufnahme gemäß § 23 Absatz 2 Aufenthaltsgesetz zur Aufnahme von Schutzbedürftigen aus der Türkei in Umsetzung der EU—Türkei Erklärung vom 18. März 2016. https://resettlement.de/wp-content/uploads/HAP19_aufnahmeanordnung-8.pdf

Creswell, J. W. (2013). Qualitative inquiry and research design: Choosing among five approaches (3rd ed.). SAGE Publications.

de Haas, H. (2021). A theory of migration: The aspirations–capabilities framework. Comparative Migration Studies, 9(1), Article 8. https://doi.org/10.1186/s40878-020-00210-4

Emirbayer, M., & Mische, A. (1998). What is agency? American Journal of Sociology, 103(4), 962–1023. https://doi.org/10.1086/231294

European Council. (2016, March 18). EU–Turkey statement [Press release]. https://www.consilium.europa.eu/en/press/press-releases/2016/03/18/eu-turkey-statement/

European Council on Refugees and Exiles. (2017, December 31). Country report: Turkey. 2017 update. Asylum Information Database (AIDA). https://asylumineurope.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/03/report-download_aida_tr_2017update.pdf

European Council on Refugees and Exiles. (2022, July). Country report: Türkiye. 2021 update. Asylum Information Database (AIDA). https://asylumineurope.org/reports/country/turkiye/

Garnier, A., Jubilut, L. L., & Sandvik, K. B. (Eds.). (2018). Refugee resettlement: Power, politics, and humanitarian governance. Berghahn Books. https://doi.org/10.3167/9781785339448

Garnier, A., Sandvik, K. B., & Jubilut, L. L. (2018). Introduction: Refugee resettlement as humanitarian governance: Power dynamics. In A. Garnier, L. L. Jubilut, & K. B. Sandvik (Eds.), Refugee resettlement: Power, politics, and humanitarian governance (pp. 1–27). Berghahn Books. https://doi.org/10.3167/9781785339448

Giddens, A. (1984). The constitution of society: Outline of the theory of structuration. University of California Press.

Goffman, E. (1961). Asylums: Essays on the social situation of mental patients and other inmates. Anchor Books.

Grote, J., Bitterwolf, M., & Baraulina, T. (2016). Resettlement and humanitarian admission programmes in Germany: Focus-study by the German national contact point for the European Migration Network (EMN) (Working paper 68). Federal Office for Migration and Refugees. https://www.bamf.de/SharedDocs/Anlagen/EN/EMN/Studien/wp68-emn-resettlement-humanitaere-aufnahme.pdf?__blob=publicationFile&v=13

Hartonen, V. R., Väisänen, P., Karlsson, L., & Pöllänen, S. (2022). A stage of limbo: A meta-synthesis of refugees’ liminality. Applied Psychology, 71(3), 1132–1167. https://doi.org/10.1111/apps.12349

Helfferich, C. (2012). Einleitung: Von roten Heringen, Gräben und Brücken. Versuche einer Kartierung von Agency-Konzepten [Introduction: Of red herrings, ditches and bridges. Attempts at mapping agency concepts]. In S. Bethmann, C. Helfferich, H. Hoffmann, & D. Niermann (Eds.), Agency: Qualitative Rekonstruktionen und gesellschaftstheoretische Bezüge von Handlungsmächtigkeit (pp. 9–39). Beltz Juventa.

Human Rights Watch. (2022, October 24). Turkey: Hundreds of refugees deported to Syria. https://www.hrw.org/news/2022/10/24/turkey-hundreds-refugees-deported-syria

Janmyr, M. (2022). Sudanese refugees and the “Syrian refugee response” in Lebanon: Racialised hierarchies, processes of invisibilisation, and resistance. Refugee Survey Quarterly, 41(1), 131–156. https://doi.org/10.1093/rsq/hdab012

Latouche, A. (2023). Repoliticising gendered vulnerability: The blind spots of vulnerability-focused humanitarian programmes in Greece. In M. Adelina & A. Pérez-Caramés (Eds.), Migration patterns across the Mediterranean (pp. 179–194). Edward Elgar Publishing. https://doi.org/10.4337/9781800887350.00019

Lewis, D. C., & Young, S. S. (2018). Parallel pasts, presents and futures: Narratives of Cambodian and Karen refugees in the United States. In A. Garnier, K. B. Sandvik, & L. L. Jubilut (Eds.), Refugee resettlement: Power, politics, and humanitarian governance (pp. 183–202). Berghahn Books. https://doi.org/10.3167/9781785339448

Menetrier, A. (2021). Implementing and interpreting refugee resettlement through a veil of secrecy: A case of LGBT resettlement from Africa. Frontiers in Human Dynamics, 3, Article 594214. https://doi.org/10.3389/fhumd.2021.594214

Müller-Funk, L. (2019, October). Adapting to staying, or imagining futures elsewhere: Migration decision-making of Syrian refugees in Turkey (IMI working paper no. 154). International Migration Institute. https://www.migrationinstitute.org/publications/adapting-to-staying-or-imagining-futures-elsewhere-migration-decision-making-of-syrian-refugees-in-turkey

Ozkaleli, U. (2021). Agency in multiple temporalities: Being Syrian women, becoming widows and refugees, remaining pious. Women’s Studies International Forum, 89, Article 102538. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.wsif.2021.102538

Ozkul, D., & Jarrous, R. (2021). How do refugees navigate the UNHCR’s bureaucracy? The role of rumours in accessing humanitarian aid and resettlement. Third World Quarterly, 42(10), 2247–2264. https://doi.org/10.1080/01436597.2021.1928487

Raithelhuber, E. (2012). Ein relationales Verständnis von Agency. Sozialtheoretische Überlegungen und Konsequenzen für empirische Analysen [A relational understanding of agency: Social theoretical considerations and consequences for empirical analyses]. In S. Bethmann, C. Helfferich, H. Hoffmann, & D. Niermann (Eds.), Agency. Qualitative Rekonstruktionen und gesellschaftstheoretische Bezüge von Handlungsmächtigkeit (pp. 122–153). Beltz Juventa.

Sandvik, K. B. (2009). The physicality of legal consciousness: Suffering and the production of credibility in refugee resettlement. In R. Wilson & R. D. Brown (Eds.), Humanitarianism and suffering: The mobilization of empathy (pp. 223–244). Cambridge University Press.

Sandvik, K. B. (2011). Blurring boundaries: Refugee resettlement in Kampala—Between the formal, the informal, and the illegal. PoLAR: Political and Legal Anthropology Review, 34(1), 11–32. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1555-2934.2011.01136.x

Scheer, A. (2012). Soziale Bedingungen von Agency. Soziologische Eingrenzungen einer sozialtheoretisch nicht auflösbaren Paradoxie [Social conditions of agency: Sociological limitations of a paradox that cannot be resolved in social theory]. In S. Bethmann, C. Helfferich, H. Hoffmann, & D. Niermann (Eds.), Agency. Qualitative Rekonstruktionen und gesellschaftstheoretische Bezüge von Handlungsmächtigkeit. (pp. 99–121). Beltz Juventa.

Schneider, H. (2021). Implementing the refugee resettlement process: Diverging objectives, interdependencies and power relations. Frontiers in Political Science, 3, Article 629675. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpos.2021.629675

Stürner, J. (2019). Tailored to whom? Rethinking resettlement as a participatory strategy to empower refugees and hosting municipalities. Migration Policy Practice, 4(3), 9–13. https://publications.iom.int/system/files/pdf/mpp_39.pdf

Thomson, M. J. (2012). Black boxes of bureaucracy: Transparency and opacity in the resettlement process of Congolese refugees. PoLAR: Political and Legal Anthropology Review, 35(2), 186–205. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1555-2934.2012.01198.x

Thomson, M. J. (2018). Giving cases weight: Congolese refugees’ tactics for resettlement selection. In A. Garnier, L. L. Jubilut, & K. B. Sandvik (Eds.), Refugee resettlement: Power, politics, and humanitarian governance (pp. 203–222). Berghahn Books. https://doi.org/10.3167/9781785339448

Tobin, S., & Alahmed, M. (2019, April 4). Beyond the work permit quotas: Corruption and other barriers to labour integration for Syrian refugees in Jordan. Chr. Michelsen Institute. https://www.u4.no/publications/beyond-the-work-permit-quotas

UNHCR. (n.d.). How to seek help as a refugee or an asylum seeker in Türkiye? https://help.unhcr.org/turkiye/how-to-seek-help/

UNHCR. (2011). Chapter 1—Resettlement within UNHCR’s mandate: International protection and the the search for durable solutions. In UNHCR resettlement handbook (pp. 9–42). https://www.unhcr.org/protection/resettlement/3d464b239/unhcr-resettlement-handbook-chapter-1-resettlement-unhcrs-mandate-international.html

UNHCR. (2020a). Projected global resettlement needs 2021. https://www.unhcr.org/protection/resettlement/5ef34bfb7/projected-global-resettlement-needs-2021.html

UNHCR. (2020b). Resettlement data finder. Retrieved October 10, 2020, from https://rsq.unhcr.org/en/#H4nc

Welfens, N., & Bonjour, S. (2020). Families first? The mobilization of family norms in refugee resettlement. International Political Sociology, 15(2), 212–231. https://doi.org/10.1093/ips/olaa022

Willis, P. E. (1978). Learning to labour: How working class kids get working class jobs. Saxon House, Teakfield.

Published

2024-09-30

How to Cite

Schneider, H. E. (2024). Intentions, Strategies, and Actions: How Refugees Exert Agency in the Resettlement and Humanitarian Admission Process from Jordan and Turkey to Germany. Refuge: Canada’s Journal on Refugees, 40(2), 1–17. https://doi.org/10.25071/1920-7336.41213

Similar Articles

<< < 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 > >> 

You may also start an advanced similarity search for this article.