Extractive Landscapes: The Case of the Jordan Refugee Compact

Abstract

In a climate of immigration securitization, recent years have seen a global move away from humanitarian resettlement responses in sites of displacement. Instead, wealthy governments in the Global North often finance poorer third countries and rural regions of territories to abet border enforcement. The Jordan Compact, in particular, has been upheld as an economic development model that provides an “innovative alternative” to refugee camps, as well as to protracted refugee situations. Yet, as much research shows, the direct economic gains from this trade concessions scheme have been limited. This raises the question, What value does the Jordan Compact hold with such ample evidence of failure? Importantly, how is this failure experienced by refugees in practice? Drawing on fieldwork conducted in Amman and northern Jordan, this article advances a framework centred on extractivism to better detail how value is extracted from migrants and displaced persons at the expense of their well-being. The article illuminates the disjuncture between the lack of profit achieved directly from the Jordan Compact’s trade concessions and the forms of value extracted from refugees’ immobility. Overall, I argue that these economic development policies formalize precariousness, allowing the international community to abdicate global responsibility and reap the benefits of a purported altruism.

Düzensi̇z Göç Ve Mülteci̇ Hareketleri̇ni̇n Yöneti̇mi̇nde Neoli̇beral Hegemonya Arayişlari

“…Bu düzenleme, Avrupa' dan sığınma talep eden Suriyeli mültecilerin ülke içinde kapsanması karşılığında AB'nin Ürdün' e sağlayacağı tercihli ticaret olanaklarıyla, Dünya Bankası'nın aktaracağı kalkınma yardımlarının iktisadi büyüme ve mülteci istihdamına destek amacıyla kullanılmasına dayanmaktadır (bkz. Lenner & Turner, 2018;Morris, 2020). Ürdün Mutabakatı, iktisadi kalkınmanın desteklenmesi ve mülteci emeğinin seçilmiş emek-yoğun işkollarında istihdam edilmesine odaklanan -- Betts & Collier (2017) tarafından önerilen türde nitelikli iktisadi bölgelerin kurulmasını da içeren --bazı yeni kamu-özel sektör ortaklığı biçimleri de getirmektedir.…”

“…Bu durum, Türkiye ve Ürdün gibi kalabalık mülteci topluluklarını misafir eden ülkelerde reel ücretlerin baskı altında tutulması, iş piyasalarında deregülasyon ve iş güvenliği problemlerine karşı gelişebilecek örgütlü tepkinin sınırlandırılması sonucunu doğurmaktadır (bkz. Caro, 2020;Morris, 2020). Mülteci işçilerin daha düşük ücretlerle ve güvencesiz olarak, bulabildikleri her türlü işi kabul etmek zorunda kalmaları, ev sahibi ülkelerde örgütlü işçi mücadelesi üzerinde de disipline edici bir etki yaratmaktadır.…”

Moving Targets: Social Protection as a Link Between Humanitarianism, Development and Displacement

“…Critiques of self-reliance are now widespread and it is clear that critical theoretical analysis must find an alternative language to discuss these developments (Morris 2020). The challenge is that the obvious interpretation of self-reliance is a progressive one, a way of interpreting the autonomy of refugees; yet this is not how it is being used.…”

“…7). This emphasis has been widely criticised as a justification for reducing international support for displaced people (Morris 2020) but this is the clearest link to subsequent work on social protection. Nevertheless, caution is required in interpreting these policy initiatives.…”

The international governance of refugee work: reflections on the Jordan compact

“…Decent work until recently has rarely been mentioned in relation to refugees in the Global South. In the past few years, scholars have begun to highlight the tensions between security, sovereignty, and protection motivations underlying the drive towards refugee employment (see, for example, Fakhoury, 2019;Panizzon, 2017;Ramsay, 2020), and to explore how refugee employment policies have played out at the host country level, with particular emphasis on the Jordan Compact (Gordon, 2019;Hartnett, 2018;Lenner and Turner, 2019;Morris, 2020;Razzaz, 2018). However, little has been written on the structures of governance required to establish and enforce meaningful labor protections for refugees as workers.…”