This dissertation examines the processes and outcomes of the United States’ refugee resettlement policy. Specifically, I ask: how are refugees selected? How are refugees processed abroad? And how are refugees incorporated once they arrive? Drawing on statistical analysis of previously unreleased government data, 150 interviews, and nineteen months of ethnographic fieldwork across the transnational chain of resettlement, this study examines the logics of practice and patterned interactions—among refugees, civil society, and state agencies—that shape outcomes of resettlement. The predominant framework to understand resettlement posits a relatively straightforward reintegration of refugees into national citizenship regimes. In contrast, this dissertation demonstrates how constructions of refugees as “ideal beneficiaries” produced through meso-level social processes shape the distribution of scarce humanitarian resources and the experiences of refugees. I also show that refugees respond to these constructions in complex ways, sometimes internalizing them and sometimes challenging them, thereby creating social dynamics and subjectivities not accounted for by the predominant framework.
I develop the above argument across three empirical chapters, each examining a distinct stage of resettlement: selection, processing, and reception. To explain how refugees are selected, I draw attention to a transnational social system of constructing “clean cases.” These are cases that can be identified and processed in stable and predictable ways to meet US admission demands under complex constraints. This system concentrates spaces around a relatively small number of groups, undermining humanitarian ideals of distributional equality. Examining social dynamics of processing, I find that frontline practitioners in Uganda grapple with refugees’ expectations of attaining resettlement and the reality of limited spaces and long, uncertain wait times. Practitioners respond by creating physical barriers and administrative procedures that force refugees to wait and be patient. These findings challenge straightforward notions of resettlement as “solution,” showing instead that processing involves coercion and compounds traumatic waiting. Lastly, at sites of reception, I find that local actors have rescaled federal resettlement policy, but that policies diverge across Atlanta and Pittsburgh because of their distinct histories. I term these local policies “urban incorporation regimes,” and show how they valorize different aspects of refugees’ identity, leading to place-based modes of identification.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:bu.edu/oai:open.bu.edu:2144/43360 |
| Date | 12 November 2021 |
| Creators | Watson, Jake |
| Contributors | Go, Julian |
| Source Sets | Boston University |
| Language | en_US |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Thesis/Dissertation |
| Rights | Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International, http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/ |
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