An emphasis in political debates and much print media in the United Kingdom (UK) on perceived issues with ethnic, religious, and cultural diversity has contributed to a narrative of worry and fear. Despite such hostile discourse, people find ways of living together with diversity every day.  The encounters which I am concerned with in the following degree project are taking place through community theatre with Mafwa Theatre in Leeds where women from asylum seeker, refugee, and wider communities are socialising and cooperating over fun and simple drama activities. The purpose of this thesis is to better understand the different participants’ lived experiences of the theatre space, how they view their role in the group, and how they perceive diversity in the group. The research questions are explored with qualitative research methods of individual interviews with Mafwa members, the facilitators, and a volunteer, participant observation during the weekly drama sessions, and document analysis of printed, online, and audio materials. With this degree project, I aim to contribute to the discussion about everyday multiculturalism and living with diversity in the UK. The theoretical framework consists of the concept of hospitality which helps me explore how hospitable spaces are shaped and negotiated by different contributors, and conviviality which embraces the complexity of social relations without romanticising them and can help us reach a better understanding of how to live together without a fear for each other’s differences.  The findings show that the different participants view the drama group as a hospitable community of acceptance and respect within a hostile environment for asylum seekers and refugees at the national level. The space offers a well-needed opportunity for the women to have fun, develop their creative skills, and escape day-to-day concerns. Moreover, the study shows that besides being proud co-producers of artistic practice, all participants are also active co-creators of shaping the hospitable space and a ‘convivial culture’. Finally, despite misunderstandings and disagreements in the group, the participants express having bonded over similarities and learned from differences rather than describing diversity as something to fear.

This thesis makes a historically grounded theoretical contribution to an emerging “critical” approach to refugee studies. Utilising the insights of Michel Foucault and Hannah Arendt, it seeks to reconceptualise academic and policy understandings of what has come to be known as “the refugee problem" through an examination and critique of its (implicit) conceptual foundations. The thesis proceeds through a series of historically-informed moves oriented by the relationship between power, subjectivity, and agency, and argues that the key to reconceptualising the refugee problem lies in understanding how these three concepts rely upon and reinforce one another in a particular historically contingent configuration. The objectives of this thesis are threefold and connected. First, it unpacks a deceptively unproblematic term, “the refugee problem” to reveal the complicity of understanding the “refugee (as) problem” in perpetuating the plight of increasing numbers of the world's population, despite the alleviation of the difficulties these people face being the professed goal of the refugee regime. Second, in so doing it contributes to a growing body of literature seeking to counter the voicelessness and abjection into which refugees and asylum seekers are cast. And third, on the basis of this, to begin a conversation about rethinking the nature of the “solutions” we seek to a reframed “refugee problem.” Engaging in a (Foucaultian) genealogical analysis of “the refugee problem”, the first half of the thesis charts the historically-contingent development of a distinct “refugee problem discourse”, revealing that the construction of refugees as passive victims of political forces is the effect both of such discourse and of the international refugee regime as a classificatory regime of truth and subjectivity, rather than an expression of any essential nature of “the refugee.” The thesis then turns to Hannah Arendt's work as a theoretical lens through which to reframe our understanding of the “refugee problem” and to investigate how to identify and open up creative forces for re-subjectification processes and “solutions” not tied to the classificatory and subjectivising logic of the refugee regime or sovereign state system.  Practices of rights claiming, and the City of Sanctuary movement in the UK are examined as two such processes, with the potential of posing “counter-narratives” of problems and solutions which challenge the technocratic, or population-management, approach of the refugee regime.

La recherche analyse le traitement réservé aux demandeurs d'asile au Canada.Plus spécialement, elle se penche sur l'interprétation et l’application de l’article 7 de la Charte canadienne des droits et libertés. La réflexion observe que la mise en œuvre des droits fondamentaux des revendicateurs du statut de réfugié est affectée, selon les époques, par des considérations à dominance « humanitaires » [arrêt Singh, 1985] ou, comme cela est le cas depuis le 11 septembre 2001, par des impératifs allégués de sécurité nationale [arrêt Suresh, 2002]. D’un point de vue analytique, la thèse considère que lorsqu'il s'agit de protéger des populations vulnérables – ce que le Canada s'est juridiquement engagé à faire – le droit public ne peut pas se limiter à la communauté de ses propres membres, citoyens et résidents. D'ailleurs, la Charte reconnaît la protection de ses droits fondamentaux à « toute personne » du fait de sa seule qualité de personne, qu'elle soit ou non citoyenne et la garde des abus. Des exceptions aux droits reconnus à l’article 7 doivent être considérées à la mesure du principe démocratique qui guide nos sociétés. Sur ce fondement, l’analyse interroge l’argumentation et les motivations de certaines décisions judiciaires et législatives qui ont déconsidérées les implications de notions porteuses de valeurs impératives, telles que l'équité, la dignité humaine, la liberté et la sécurité de l'individu, en privilégiant les intérêts étatiques conforment à la conception classique de la souveraineté. / The research analyzes the treatment of asylum seekers in Canada. In particular, it focuses on the interpretation and application of Section 7 of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. The analysis underscores how the implementation of refugee claimants’ human rights is affected, according to the times, by humanitarian considerations [Singh, 1985], or, as is the case since September 11, 2001, by the imperatives of alleged national security. [Suresh, 2002]. From an analytical point of view, the research considers that when it comes to protecting vulnerable populations - which Canada is legally bound to do- public law is not limited to the constituents of its own community, (members, citizens and residents), but also to strangers and more specifically, to refugees. Moreover, the Charter recognizes that “everyone” is entitled to the protection of his or her fundamental rights, including migrants and refugees. This protection prevents the state from acting against the life, liberty and security of the person. Exceptions to these rights recognized under Section 7 must be narrowed to the very essence of what a democratic society could allow. In this context, the research questions the arguments and justifications of some judicial and legislative decisions that have discredited the implications of carrying notions of mandatory values, such as equity, human dignity, freedom and the security of the individual, instead favoring state interests based on the classical conception of sovereignty.