Yes / The shocking pictures of a drowned Syrian boy in September 2015 spurred European governments and organisations into taking action to address the growing refugee crisis. The University of Bradford was no different and the senior management team began to look at ways of responding. Consultation was carried out with local organisations at a Bradford City of Sanctuary event and with other UK universities. This suggested that the university should: Recognise how the concept of sanctuary fits with its traditional values and the strategic plan (which includes inclusivity, diversity, internationalisation and sustainability); See this as a long-term issue. ‘Responses need to be long-term. The refugee crisis will be here for years to come.’; Recognise this as an issue that is wider than Syrian refugees. There are substantial numbers of asylum seekers and refugees escaping conflict in other countries such as Eritrea, Afghanistan and Iraq; Align with the civic and community response. The city of Bradford has a proud history of welcoming and including newcomers from all corners of the world and has responded positively to the current crisis. The City of Sanctuary initiative plays a major role in this response. The university response would follow three main principles: To build on and scale up the excellent work previously carried out at faculty level in being awarded Sanctuary in Health to then apply for a University of Sanctuary award; To develop a holistic response across the university, involving faculties, professional services and students. This should be inclusive to generate commitment, ownership and awareness across the whole university; To take a broad, inclusive definition of sanctuary, embracing academics at risk as well as student refugees and asylum seekers.

The purpose of this qualitative study was to investigate how asylum seekers may experience different interview methods in the asylum investigation in Sweden. An inductive qualitative data collection technique was used in this study, where semi-structured interviews were conducted with six asylum seekers in four different cities in Sweden. This study was influenced by the grounded theory approach in the way of creating codes, concepts and themes from the empirical data analyzed in thematic and constant comparison method. The results show three different themes, namely ‘‘the expressions of the feelings, possibilities to expressions and possibilities and difficulties.’’ as they present the asylum seekers views of different interview methods. The role theory was chosen in relation to the asylum seekers different behavior toward the interview methods. The results indicated the possibilities for different roles as: ‘‘psychological unbalanced role, technology skilled role, technology challenged role and the apprehensive role’’

This thesis aims to improve historical knowledge of Australian refugee policy between 1976 and 1983, a unique and transitional moment in the nation’s history and in international refugee movements. The discussion will be based on original evidence drawn from archival records and oral history interviews, and informed by a broad literature which recognises that refugee policy is a product of varied political imperatives and historical context. First, Chapter Three reveals that because the Fraser government could not deport the Indochinese boatpeople who sailed to Australia, it sought to approve their refugee status in order to legitimate its announcements that only ‘genuine’ refugees were being admitted. In doing so, the Fraser government was required to defend the processing of boat arrivals to the public and within the bureaucracy. Chapter Four finds that historical and political considerations informed the Fraser government’s choice not to reject or detain boat arrivals but to instead introduce legislation against people smuggling. The chapter presents new evidence to disprove claims expressed in recent academic and media commentary that the government’s Immigration (Unauthorised Arrivals) Act 1980 (Cth) marked a particularly harsh stance and that passengers on the VT838 were deported without due process, and draws from ideas within the literature concerning the need for states to promote the integrity of the refugee concept. Chapter Five contributes to international literature on refugee status determination procedure by studying the Australian government’s assessment of non-Indochinese. Through a dataset created from UNHCR archives it is found that the quality of briefing material and political considerations could influence deliberations on individual cases. Chapter Six contributes to literature on in-country processing, revealing how Australia’s programme in Chile and El Salvador was a means of diversifying the refugee intake but caused tensions between the Department of Immigration and the Department of Foreign Affairs.

This thesis investigates asylum seekers/refugees’ orientations to belonging and identity. It is based on in-depth semi-structured interviews conducted among asylum seekers/refugees residing in Scotland between 2006 and 2008 and on a media monitoring of a number of UK newspapers. The interviews were analysed for interviewees’ orientations to feelings of belonging and identity with the UK, Scotland and homelands. They were also analysed for interviewees’ perceptions (beliefs and understandings) of newspapers’ reporting of asylum and importance to their sense of national belonging and national identity forming. The monitoring provided the context of newspapers’ reporting of asylum at the time of interviews. It enabled a small-scale examination of media content with reference to interviewees’ perceptions. The thesis explores two assumptions. Firstly, asylum seekers/refugees’ national belonging and national identity formations are complex and contingent upon their everyday ‘lived’ experiences. Secondly, asylum seekers/refugees’ belonging and identity formations, as social processes of citizenship, cannot be understood in isolation from the high visibility of the asylum issue in UK media. As an empirical study, therefore, its findings are deployed to critique policymaking, theoretical and media accounts of non-British citizens’ forms of belonging to, and identification with the British ‘nation’. It is suggested that, in addition to policymaking, there are other social circumstances that would facilitate ethnic minority migrants’ national belonging and national identity formations. These factors do not only account for the prioritising of Scottishness over Britishness, but also migrants’ ‘hyphenated’ identities. This thesis will therefore provide evidence suggesting that non-citizens (ethnic minorities), have their own meanings and agency of orientating to a feeling of national belonging and national identity that is nuanced and contingent on their experiences. The thesis does not aim to establish media causality. However, it highlights the fact that newspaper coverage can evoke responses from marginalised groups and provide the context from which identities are narrated and mobilised. The thesis will improve our understanding of the practices, meanings and contestations of belonging and identity that is grounded in the ‘lived’ experiences of noncitizens. This sociological dimension to ethnic minorities’ citizenship forming is not only poorly understood, but has been dominated by theoretical and policymaking accounts in the contemporary state.

This paper explores the individual meanings behind the patterns of residential mobility of former asylum seekers in Sweden. While there are numerous studies of residential segregation and migration patterns amongst natives and immigrants alike, fewer have asked the actual patternmakers what driving forces lie behind their decisions to resettle. This study aims to put light on former asylum seekers’ specific experiences of their resettlements and whether the asylum process in itself affect later migration patterns during the life-course. Through in-depth interviews seven respondents told their life stories with focus on how and why they resettled during their time inSweden. The study showed how the structural factors that initiated their general migration patterns of frequent resettlements gave way over time to less frequent moves where life-course events were the main factors. The results indicate that the asylum process may indeed affect subsequent resettlements in so far that the first own accommodation type of area seem to be important to future residential area choices throughout the life-course. The findings should be of interest for further studies on a greater scale and to policy makers trying to counteract segregation in the metropolitan areas of Sweden in a time of increased refugee flows.

Due to the increased number of the amount of asylum-seekers that have migrated to Sweden lately, the topic has received increased attention. This has contributed to housing shortage and policy reforms for new migrants to arise in order to ensure that everybody gets housing. Asylum seekers often experience more difficult patterns to housing, and for LGBT asylum seekers especially since they are such a marginalised group in our society already. Housing is an important part in the initial settlement stage and good housing enables successful resettlement and that will help with the integration process. The aim of this thesis is to look at LGBT asylum seekers mobility and what constrains and opportunities they face in that process. To answer these questions qualitative method and semi-structured life story interviews have been performed with twelve LGBT asylum seekers. The result of these interviews has been presented around four different concepts that were factors contributing to their mobility. These four concepts that were found in the interviews was forced migration, homophobia, social network and freedom. These findings should be of interest for further studies in order for LGBT asylum seekers mobility patters to become more safe and secure.

Den här undersökningen gjordes för att ta reda på om svensk flyktingrapportering ändrades efter det att Sverige införde gränskontroller den 12 november 2015. Syftet var att se om rapporteringen ändrades när det politiska läget och opinionen ändrades, men även att generellt se hur flyktingrapporteringen ser ut. Både kvantitativ och kvalitativ undersökning gjordes. I den kvantitativa undersökningen jämfördes 50 artiklar från september 2015 med 50 artiklar från januari 2015. Variablerna togs fram bland annat med hjälp av gestaltningsteorin och orientalism, som båda är delar av undersökningens teoretiska ramverk. Sedan undersöktes artiklarna kvalitativt genom en kombinerad diskurs- och framinganalys för att på ett djupare plan ta reda på hur flyktingfrågan och flyktingar beskrivs. Resultaten ger en indikation på att det skett en förändring mellan september 2015 och januari 2016. Flyktingarna beskrevs bland annat mer frekvent som passiva, och mer sällan som individer. Mer generellt visar resultaten att flyktingarna oftast beskrevs som en grupp utan någon identitet. Adjektiv som kan väcka identifikation användes sällan för att beskriva flyktingarna. De beskrevs istället med adjektiv som ensamkommande och asylsökande. Den mest förekommande benämningen på flyktingar var just ordet flyktingar, följt av flyktingbarn och asylsökande. Flyktingarna beskrivs ofta som passiva i artiklarna, och de citeras sällan. De som citeras mest i artiklarna är myndighetspersoner och politiker. Dessa resultat pekar på att svenska journalister, omedvetet eller medvetet, skapar en bild av verkligheten där orientalismens mönster av världen finns kvar. Det skapas en gräns mellan ”vi svenskar” och ”de där flyktingarna”. Denna gräns förstärktes efter gränskontrollernas införande. / The aim of this study was to find out whether Swedish news reports on refugees changed after border controls were enforced on the 12th of November 2015, and thereby investigate if the changed political policies had any effect in the news reporting. Another aim was to study the general patterns in the news. Both qualitative and quantitative researches were made. Regarding the quantitative research, 50 articles from September 2015 were compared with 50 articles from January 2016. The variables were designed by means of framing theory and orientalism, both being parts of the theory framework of this study. Then the articles were analyzed qualitatively with a combined discourse and framing analysis to find out on a deeper level how refugees and the refugee situation in Sweden were described. The results indicate that there has been a change in the reporting between September 2015 and January 2016. The refugees were more frequently described as passive, and more seldom as individuals. More general, the results illustrated that, in most cases, refugees are described as a group without an identity. Identity-generating adjectives were sporadically used to describe them. Instead, they were associated to adjectives like ensamkommande (unaccompanied) and asylsökande (~asylum seeker). The most common word to describe refugees was flyktingar (refugees), followed by flyktingbarn (refugee children) and asylsökande (asylum seekers). Most frequently quoted people in the articles were government officials as well as politicians. These results indicate that Swedish journalists, consciously or not, are creating a picture of the world were the lines of orientalism still persist. A demarcation line between “us swedes” and “those refugees” is created. This line became more distinct after border controls were enforced.

Student Number : 0413400A - MA research report - School of Social Science - Faculty of Humanities / Refugees and asylum seekers are vulnerable group that requires both national and international protection in South Africa. It is the duty and responsibility of the South African government and international community to provide adequate protection to individuals who are compelled to flee their countries of origin due to well-founded fears of persecution or other life threatening problems. Such protection must meet internationally recognized and acceptable standards for the protection and treatment of refugees and asylum seekers, as outlined in various international law and conventions. South Africa has pledged through her democratic Constitution and the Refugee Act of 1998 to protect and promote the rights of refugees and asylum seekers in her territory. The research explores how South Africa has responded to the protection of the rights of refugees and asylum seekers in the post-apartheid era. The research also explicates the relationship between human rights and refugee protection and how human rights have been used to facilitate the rights of refugees and asylum seekers in South Africa. The thesis identifies the extent of compliance with the international refugee law, which South Africa has achieved within the first decade of democracy and the roles played by nonstate actors and other stakeholders in refugee protection in South Africa. It also explores the major problems and obstacles militating against the realisation and in pursuit of the rights of refugees and asylum seekers in the post-apartheid South Africa. Finally, the findings of this research are expected to contribute to our understanding of the problems facing refugees, the government and international community, and the range of options and interventions open to policy makers in the field which will help to secure such rights.

Asylum seekers in the U.S. have faced a plethora of impediments leading to some of them abandoning their applications, which may deny them their rights under the United Nations convention on refugees. Despite the abundance of literature on the plight of these persons, no study has examined the lived experiences of asylum seekers in the U.S. from the time they apply for asylum to the time their applications are adjudicated. Using Benet's polarities of democracy as the theoretical framework, the purpose of this single participant narrative study was to explore these experiences in order to provide policy makers with a better understanding of the impacts of US Asylum policies on the rights of asylum seekers. The study's single participant was an attorney from the Congo who sought and received asylum in the U.S. Thematic analysis was applied to her responses using hand coding. Cultural challenges were identified as the dominant negative theme in the asylum-seeking process. These cultural challenges generated fear in the face of survival issues such as joblessness, poor housing, hunger, and lack of health care. These interrelated sub-themes, analyzed through the lens of the polarities of democracy, suggest that policy makers might improve the asylum-seeking process by using the theory to better understand the impacts that the process has on the rights of asylum seekers. This may allow policy makers to develop strategies to maximize the positive aspects of the polarities of democracy pairs while minimizing the negative aspects, particularly for the pairs of freedom and authority, justice and due process, and diversity and equality.

<p>This is a qualitative research study utilising a theoretical framework of democracy theory, human rights and theories on migration and irregular migrants. The purpose of this research is to explore how the new Swedish Regulation on Labour Immigration, in relation to the harmonization of migration policy within the European Union, represents and effects the perception of asylum seekers and irregular migrants on a socio-political level in Sweden. Through four semi-structured interviews this study seeks to explore the following areas: the reasons behind the compromise concerning asylum seekers in the Regulation; the exclusion of irregular migrants in the Regulation; and the correlation between the Regulation and the harmonising of migration policy within the EU. The theoretical framework, together with the statements by informants and the grounding information concerning human rights and the migration policy within the EU, constitutes the analysis. The analysis shows that the perceptions of asylum seekers and irregular immigrants as an undesirable solution to demographical challenges represent a relativistic approach to human rights. By legitimating this perception those concerned become even more vulnerable and at a higher risk of exploitation. The correlation between the contemporary democratic welfare state, international human rights law and the Regulation, together with increasing and irreversible migration flows, visualises an incompatible and diffuse organisation, which have to transform into cosmopolitan democracy and global solidarity if to survive.</p>