Status Eligibilities: The Eligibility to Exist and Authority to Act in Refugee–Host Relations

Abstract

This study of refugee resettlement contributes a novel conceptual framework to the sociology of forced migration. Drawing on interviews with Syrian refugees in their first year of resettlement in Ontario, Canada, we demonstrate how successful sponsorship counters the “non-person” status associated with refugee recognition. During displacement, refugees mobilize their pre-conflict roles to secure self-rescue against forces of conflict. During resettlement, refugees assert their eligibility to exist and authority to act as “persons” in a reception context that challenges the normative authority of their pre-conflict social roles. Refugee–host interactions that affirm pre-conflict social roles provide the basis for shared trust and enhance the experience of resettlement, confirming statuses which counter the structural violence of refugee role confinement.

Structures and Strategies for Social Integration: Privately Sponsored and Government Assisted Refugees

“…Settlement workers were friendly with the GARs but they were not their friends. PSRs labeled their relationship with their sponsors like that of a "family," which other scholars (e.g., Kyriakides et al, 2019;Macklin et al, 2020) have also noted. However, as Macklin et al (2020) suggest, this label could denote a sustained relationship of intimacy, affection, and multi-faceted support but may also signal hierarchy, dependence and inequality.…”

“…PSR couples noted that they did not know their sponsors when they arrived and didn't know what to expect from them (see Kyriakides et al, 2018Kyriakides et al, , 2019. Sawson said, "We arrived in Canada not knowing who was bringing us here [ … ] then we stayed in Lori's home for 25 days."…”

“…The relationship between PSRs and their sponsors was also affected by ambiguous and evolving expectations (Kyriakides et al, 2019). In a focus group discussion a male PSR respondent said that another PSR family was given a used car by their sponsor but he was not, and a woman complained that the apartment rented by their sponsors was too small for their large family.…”

Caring for Refugees: Questioning the Public-Private Dichotomy in Canadian Resettlement

“…The next chapter looks for the hidden caring relations within the GAR program, finding that the broad bureaucratic category obscures the diverse caring relations in practice.Some of the literature on private sponsorship examines the micro-level relationships between sponsors and sponsored refugees. Scholars have analyzed this relationship drawing on concepts of a "pastoral rationality," 230 a "master-dependent relationship," 231 kinship metaphors,232 frameworks of Orientalism,233 the re-establishment and recognition of pre-conflict social roles,234 and the achievement of stability for refugees by the end of the sponsorship period 235. Similar to care ethics, many of these scholars identify the power dynamics and hierarchies inherent in the sponsorship relationship.…”

“…Similar to care ethics, many of these scholars identify the power dynamics and hierarchies inherent in the sponsorship relationship. The work of Kyriakides and colleagues counters a narrative of passive refugees by calling PSRs "persons of self-rescue" and comes close to a care ethics idea of responsiveness by highlighting how refugees respond to the care they receive and how they may exercise agency in determining the goals for the sponsorship relationship 236.…”