Our Relations to Refugees: Between Compassion and Dehumanization*

Abstract

After the so-called refugee crisis of 2015-2016 European reactions to foreigners had come to the fore and we are seeing xenophobic political and populist movements become increasingly mainstream. The massive rejection of refugees/asylum seekers taking place has made their conditions before, during and after flight, increasingly difficult and dangerous. This paper relates current xenophobia to historical attitudinal trends in Europe regarding Islam, and claims that a much more basic conflict is at work: the one between anti-modernism/traditionalism and modernism/globalization. Narratives on refugees often relate them to both the foreign (Islam) and to "trauma". In an environment of insecurity and collective anxiety, refugees may represent something alien and frightening but also fascinating. I will argue that current concepts and theories about "trauma" or "the person with trauma" are insufficient to understand the complexity of the refugee predicament. Due to individual and collective countertransference reactions, the word "trauma" tends to lose its theoretical anchoring and becomes an object of projection for un-nameable anxieties. This disturbs relations to refugees at both societal and clinical levels and lays the groundwork for the poor conditions that they are currently experiencing. Historically, attitudes towards refugees fall somewhere along a continuum between compassion and rejection/dehumanization. At the moment, they seem much closer to the latter. I would argue that today's xenophobia and/or xeno-racism reflect the fact that, both for individuals and for society, refugees have come to represent the Freudian Uncanny/das Unheimliche.

Working with traumatized refugees on the Balkan route

“…This first empathetic contact is needed to confront the overwhelming power of dehumanization, a destructive process that forms the basis of interpersonal violence and which is ingrained in many supposedly democratic institutions (Jović, ; Varvin, ). Grotstein (, p. 269) said that “Dehumanization is the obverse of empathy”, and we often see a lack of empathy for refugees these days (Varvin, ).…”

‘Just black sometimes’: analytic tools applied at the frontlines of social upheaval, part 1

“…Varvin, a Norwegian psychoanalyst, writes about helper interactions with refugees and notes that these ‘seem to represent an encounter with the “Uncanny”—an unfamiliar but nevertheless known entity, whose human characteristics are diminished or completely denied’ (Varvin , p. 360). Helpers whose job it is to care for refugees are exposed to an aspect of the deep unconscious that they may not understand or even be aware of.…”

Refugees, their situation and treatment needs

“…Refugees/asylum seekers have become the chosen strangers of the European political scene. They become victims of a growing fundamentalism in Europe where Europe's relation to Muslims are at stake (Varvin, ). Refugees are often identified with Islam and the general public's image of Muslims is more and more characterized by solid prejudices (Muslims support, terror, Islam is a violent political ideology, etc.).…”