`A Phantom Menace and the New Apartheid': The Social Construction of Asylum-Seekers in the United Kingdom

Abstract

A succession of well-publicized incidents in Britain, and elsewhere, has highlighted the dilemma of refugees and seekers of asylum. A number of desperate human tragedies allied to some very dubious institutional practices and decisions have been a cause for concern. Drawing upon that vast corpus of information we call `common knowledge', together with other more exclusive sources of knowledge, British national newspapers and their readers, among others, are involved in the social construction of asylum-seekers. Ideas of citizenship, identity and Nation-hood are employed within a variety of discursive and rhetorical strategies that form part of an `elite' discourse, one that contributes to a `new Apartheid'. This article presents a discursive and rhetorical analysis of letters written to British national newspapers by members of the public. Asylum-seekers find themselves [re]positioned and contrasted with a variety of other social groups in such a way as to justify disregarding some of the central tenets of British democracy. Dissenting voices and a `counter' discourse are evident although very much a minority. It is argued that applied discursive work is necessary to bolster resistance and deconstruct the `new Apartheid'.

The effortful citizen: Discursive social psychology and welfare reform

“…The speaker makes an exception of people who are 'genuinely "disabled"', thereby orienting to the possibility that some people's claims to disability may not be 'genuine', which draws implicitly on a genuine-bogus distinction familiar from research on the representation of asylum seekers (e.g. Lynn & Lea, 2003). As in comment 1, working hard or making an effort is treated as a mundane activity which (almost) anyone should be able to do.…”

“…Lynn & Lea, 2003;Richardson, 2001). Nevertheless, in the interest of maintaining anonymity as far as possible, the comments reproduced in the present paper are presented minus identifying information such as the name and location of the poster.…”

Asylum‐seekers and refugees: a structuration theory analysis of their experiences in the UK

“…Perhaps as a result of this negative media response, the government has interpreted the fall in the numbers seeking asylum, as in 2003, to indicate that the UK is not allowing 'bogus' asylum seekers into the country. This has led to confusion between categories of migrants, by alternating the terms 'bogus' and 'illegal' migrants with 'asylum seekers' (Lynn and Lea, 2003). Koser (2001: 90) comments that restrictive asylum policies have 'only introduced further complexity by blurring the distinctions not just between economic migrants and political refugees, but now also legal and illegal migrants'.…”

Preadolescents' understanding and reasoning about asylum seeker peers and friendships

“…Despite this heterogeneity, the term dasylum seekerT is commonly and widely used. The topic of asylum seekers, for example, plays a major role in political and public debates in the Netherlands as well as in many other Western European countries (see Lynn & Lea, 2003;Muus, 1997). In the Netherlands, this topic was one of the main issues in the political campaigns of the recent local and general elections of 2002 and 2003.…”