Protection Seekers’ Lived Experience of Vulnerability in Times of Stricter Migration Policy: The Case of Norway

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Be Thou Exalted, Volume 2: The Lord My Shepherd Holds Me: Vocal

Pages 25-27 in Be Thou Exalted, Volume 2: Vocal

Vulnerable Protection Seekers in Norway: Regulations, Practices, and Challenges

This research report presents some of the intermediate research results of the VULNER project, based on the first phase of the project, which consisted of mapping out the vulnerability assessment mechanisms developed by state authorities in Norway, including how they are implemented on the ground through the practices of the public servants in charge. The following research questions are addressed: What do the relevant domestic legislation, case-law, policy documents, and administrative guidelines reveal about how “vulnerabilities” are being assessed and addressed in the countries under study? Do the relevant state and/or aid agencies have a legal duty to assess migrants’ vulnerabilities, and if yes, using which procedures, when and how? Following which legal and bureaucratic criteria? How do decision-makers (street-level bureaucrats) understand and perceive the ‘vulnerabilities’ of the migrants they meet on a daily basis? How do they address these ‘vulnerabilities’ through their everyday practices? What is their stance on existing legal requirements towards ‘vulnerable’ migrants? Which loopholes do they identify? To that end, the objective of the legal enquiry was to analyse and reflect upon how ‘vulnerability’ is being developed as a legal and bureaucratic concept in the Norwegian regulations. Legal sources include national laws and regulations related to immigration and welfare (health, child welfare, and social security), as well as more than a hundred administrative guidelines. The main policy documents included in the analysis consist of white papers, resolution proposals, and written political interventions.publishedVersio

Possibilities and realities of return migration

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Elites and Emulators: The Evolution of Iraqi Kurdish Asylum Migration to Europe

Research on migration’s internal dynamics has focused on labour migration and drawn heavily on cumulative causation theory. It is often believed that pioneer labour migrants of middling socioeconomic selectivity facilitate the migration of others in their networks by reducing the costs and risks of migration through practical assistance. Expanding migrant networks can allow for labour migration to grow although macrostructural conditions change. For asylum migration in the context of armed conflict, the mechanisms whereby migration grows may very well differ. For one thing, pioneer asylum migrants in such contexts are often social elites. What is the relationship between the movement of these elites and that of subsequent asylum migrants? This article traces the evolution of Iraqi Kurdish asylum migration to Europe from its inception by elite pioneer migrants to its continuation by non-elites, during four decades of altered contextual conditions. The analysis is based on 106 semi-structured interviews with Iraqi Kurdish migrants. An evolving interplay between exogenous and endogenous dynamics is observed, and so are commonalities with the social processes that underpin labour migration. The basic principles of cumulative causation seem to be operating, yet there is little to indicate that established migrants functioned as ‘bridgeheads’ for newcomers. The empirical analysis feeds into a concluding conceptual discussion in which I argue that, compared to labour migration, asylum migration from conflict-affected areas may be relatively less driven by the interpersonal networks that reduce costs and risks, and relatively more driven by what the article coins ‘emulation’, the observational learning of migration

Vulnerable Protection Seekers in Norway: Regulations, Practices, and Challenges

This research report presents some of the intermediate research results of the VULNER project, based on the first phase of the project, which consisted of mapping out the vulnerability assessment mechanisms developed by state authorities in Norway, including how they are implemented on the ground through the practices of the public servants in charge. The following research questions are addressed: What do the relevant domestic legislation, case-law, policy documents, and administrative guidelines reveal about how “vulnerabilities” are being assessed and addressed in the countries under study? Do the relevant state and/or aid agencies have a legal duty to assess migrants’ vulnerabilities, and if yes, using which procedures, when and how? Following which legal and bureaucratic criteria? How do decision-makers (street-level bureaucrats) understand and perceive the ‘vulnerabilities’ of the migrants they meet on a daily basis? How do they address these ‘vulnerabilities’ through their everyday practices? What is their stance on existing legal requirements towards ‘vulnerable’ migrants? Which loopholes do they identify? To that end, the objective of the legal enquiry was to analyse and reflect upon how ‘vulnerability’ is being developed as a legal and bureaucratic concept in the Norwegian regulations. Legal sources include national laws and regulations related to immigration and welfare (health, child welfare, and social security), as well as more than a hundred administrative guidelines. The main policy documents included in the analysis consist of white papers, resolution proposals, and written political interventions.publishedVersio

Gendered Vulnerability And Return Migration

This article discusses gendered conceptions of vulnerability at play in destination states’ formulation and implementation of return policies. Based on qualitative interviews in Norway with asylum reception centre personnel, social workers who work with irregular migrants, and asylum seekers whose asylum applications have been rejected, this article argues that some forms of vulnerability are more easily recognized by authorities, frontline personnel and migrants themselves. Conceptual blind spots have consequences for access to assistance and protection, and may exacerbate vulnerabilities. While return and reintegration programmes offer particular benefits for returnees considered ‘vulnerable’, research by the authors has found an unwillingness to apply this label beyond female victims of human trafficking for the purpose of prostitution. The reasons for this, this article argues, are both institutional and cultural

Flyktningers sårbarhet : Hvordan blir flyktningers sårbarhet forstått, vurdert, ivaretatt og skapt gjennom lovverk og forvaltningspraksis?

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Flyktningers sårbarhet : Hvordan blir flyktningers sårbarhet forstått, vurdert, ivaretatt og skapt gjennom lovverk og forvaltningspraksis?

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