https://thesis.eur.nl/col/7023/ List of Publications en https://thesis.eur.nl/pub/51391/ Fri, 20 Dec 2019 00:00:01 GMT <div>Rahman, Md Mizanur</div> Drawing from an ethnographic, in this research, I examine an art-based approach on statelessness, I explored how an artistic approach employed by a Dutch NGO and its partner organization present a different perspective on statelessness. Furthermore I have also critically reflected on artistic approach towards statelessness. I show how art can go beyond the predominant legalistic and political framing on statelessness, but still stay married to the same legal and political discourses. The artistic approach emphasizes the creation of radical empathy and feeling for stateless persons, recognizing their hope, agency and resilience power as a human and does not subscribe to the idea that statelessness is only a legal anomaly, a matter of national and international law, yet it struggles to challenge the legalistic and political nature of the problem. Thus, in this research I show how art-based approaches try to take a different path by humanizing the issue of statelessness but fail to overcome the influence of existing discourses on statelessness. I argue that art-based approach employed by these organizations is mainly trying to humanize statelessness through generating empathy for the stateless people, and by recognizing their hope and agency. But it remains a question whether art-based approach are promoting the view, perceptions, and feelings of the stateless people as the art-based approach I have observed lacks this aspect. https://thesis.eur.nl/pub/51390/ Fri, 20 Dec 2019 00:00:01 GMT <div>Honda, Yuri</div> This paper examines the factors surrounding young refugees’ lives that contribute to protracted uncertainties, and how these uncertainties associated with their social status, managing life in Geneva, and prospects for the future, would be reduced or reinforced when they make their new lives in Geneva. This research also sheds light on the kinds of coping strategies young refugees deploy to minimize their sense of lack of control and precarious survival in the context of exile in Geneva. Notably, Eritrean refugees have recently attracted attention worldwide for their exile from the political instability of their homeland. This research sheds light on certain generational group characteristics of Eritrean refugees and explores how they struggle with the situation. In Switzerland, Eritrean migrants have recently increased in numbers, among whom are mostly young people. Their context of displacement derives from the instability of their country of origin and the duty of conscription to military service at a certain age. The status of Eritrean refugee youth in Geneva is influenced by a political change that might lead to deportation. In the receiving society, there are many supportive organizations or associations which implement social assistance in various domains. For instance, AMIC (l’Association des médiatrices interculturelles) provides programs for empowering Eritrean refugee youth. This research uses a qualitative approach for investigating the uncertainty surrounding Eritrean refugee youth in Geneva, including participant observation both in AMIC’s activities and their social environment, as well as in-depth interviews with 13 young Eritreans. Based on a conceptualization of youth and protracted uncertainty, Eritrean refugee youths’ status is framed by the bureaucratic categorization of “unaccompanied minors” which creates differences among young people’s ability to access social services and makes non-qualified young adults excluded from the services. The youth age migration consists of many factors of uncertainty – memory of pre-migration period, inadequate educational background, incompatibility to new norms and unclear vision of the future. The factors which create differences among young people’s status are intersectional elements, such as arrival age, type of residence permit, and presence of family. The relationship with peers plays an important role in bringing relief and solidarity, however sometimes it leads to tension or embarrassment. Eritrean refugee youth use coping strategies to minimize uncertainty and improve their lives as much as possible by accessing social services, including doing internships that will potentially allow for future employment. Young refugees choose these strategies according to their abilities and at the same time deal with the everyday problems they face. https://thesis.eur.nl/pub/51396/ Fri, 20 Dec 2019 00:00:01 GMT <div>Thomas West, Lauren</div> Through a case study of refugee mothers and school staff in Houston, Texas, this study aims to show that critical social connections can be made for refugee mothers by building social capital through their children’s schools. Refugee mothers are more likely than men or children to encounter challenges to making new connections in their resettlement community due to linguistic barriers and duties in the home. Therefore, schools are one of the first places where refugee mothers may find opportunities for building social capital. Using Bourdieu and Coleman’s approach to social capital as obtained by individuals, this study assesses the challenges that refugee mothers experienced after their initial arrival and how increased social connections may have eased their transition to living in the US and understanding a new educational system. By looking at practices of schools in providing opportunities for refugee mothers to access bonding, bridging, and linking social capital opportunities, this study found that Houston area schools needed to assess their inclusivity and make structural changes to parental involvement and leadership approaches. Expanding the theory of social capital in relation to schools beyond students and to parents is especially critical for underrepresented groups such as refugee mothers. https://thesis.eur.nl/pub/51397/ Fri, 20 Dec 2019 00:00:01 GMT <div>Williams, Tyler</div> This research examines whether CEE migrants are represented in current Dutch technology discourses, and the impact of emerging technologies on Polish migrant labor in the Dutch horticultural value chain. Employing a Global Value Chain approach as an analytical lens, this paper injects labor process theory and science and technology studies into GVC to ad-dress two gaps often omitted or under-studied: labor and the role of new technology. Meth-ods to examine these issues included a desk review of government and industry documents and a series of formal interviews and informal conversations with industry, unions, and work-ers. Understanding that migrant labor and technological innovation are twin pillars of Dutch horticulture, this research demonstrates the silence of labor in official documents while bringing to light impacts of this technology on Polish migrants. This paper concludes by presenting responses to my research questions, suggestions for additional research, and broader suggestions for readers to critique national strategies and their communication. https://thesis.eur.nl/pub/51385/ Fri, 20 Dec 2019 00:00:01 GMT <div>Chapman, Christal Ruth-Ann</div> The purpose of this study is to analyse the various ways in which civil society has mobilised against the practice of criminalising humanitarian actors who bring migrants into Italy and Greece subsequent to search and rescue in the Mediterranean Sea, an offence referred to as ‘facilitating entry’ in the EU. This research is extremely pertinent at this time given the significant increase in criminalisation of humanitarian assistance since the 2015 EU Refugee Crisis. As an on-going problem, the criminalisation of humanitarian assistance has wider implications for both migrants and EU citizens involved in humanitarian work. By looking at both the legal and non-legal forms of mobilisation involved, the aim is to consider how civil society, especially humanitarian actors, justify their actions, and challenge their criminalisation. Based on thirteen semi-structured interviews with researchers, activists and lawyers in different EU member states, qualitative data was obtained on on-going practices of harassment, suspicion, tightening access, and other forms of criminalisation. Secondary sources have also been an important source of data, including court cases, investigative reports, policy reports and academic articles. The findings reveal that humanitarians rely on both legal and moral justifications for their continued search and rescue activities. Additionally, these acts of criminalisation can be conceptualised as acts of lawfare being engaged in by states. Finally, there are various challenges to and potential for legal mobilisation by civil society, which would ultimately need to be weighed before determining whether to pursue strategic litigation against states. Whilst civil society has in fact mobilised against this practice of criminalisation in both legal and non-legal ways, needed policy and legislative reform to curb this practice of criminalisation has not yet occurred. Much will depend on the outcomes of court cases currently working their way through regional and international courts, however, one cannot be certain how these will be decided. https://thesis.eur.nl/pub/55963/ Fri, 18 Dec 2020 00:00:01 GMT <div>Yelewere, Vitus Domevi</div> This study examines the call to transform migrant remittances such as diaspora investments in their country of origin to support national development agenda. Applying concepts of transnationalism, remittances and diaspora engagement, evidence is shown about perceived impact of diaspora investments in national development. Using fourteen interviews and two field observations, the findings suggest that there are no strong connections between dias-pora investments and government initiatives that claim to support diaspora involvement in the development of their country of origin. It also appears that the diaspora investments are small scale enterprises largely situated in southern Ghana. They are driven by the desire of the diaspora to earn extra income, future plans of returning to Ghana and financial support for family members back home. https://thesis.eur.nl/pub/55962/ Fri, 18 Dec 2020 00:00:01 GMT <div>Salihi, Rabia</div> Afghanistan signed a ‘return, readmission, and reintegration’ agreement with the European Union in 2016, the Joint Way Forward, and legally entered the assisted voluntary return and reintegration (AVRR) schemes. However, the refugees only reaped the aftermath of this decision, many reporting to have received little to none of the assistance they were promised before return. Besides, their narrative of the voluntariness of their return also seems to be very colourful and is an interesting area to investigate what they perceive as voluntary and how they define these programmes. Drawing upon 25 interviews with Afghans who were returned during 2015-2018 from multiple European states, this research analyses these return ‘decisions’ and its voluntariness and the assistance provided for returns that have taken place under AVRR programs in the Afghan context. This research will attempt to understand and analyse this missing narrative of returnees within the global migration governance and politics, including an investigation into the role of the IOM, the EU and few other European States, and the Afghan government. https://thesis.eur.nl/pub/55448/ Fri, 18 Dec 2020 00:00:01 GMT <div>Brand, Ewa</div> Since 2004, many Polish migrants have moved to the Netherlands looking for work and financial stability. Among them are also lesbian women, a long forgotten and ignored group in social research. This paper tries to overcome this shortcoming by looking into the experi-ences of Polish lesbian women in the Netherlands and in the transnational space between Poland and the Netherlands. I first examine how the life of Polish lesbian women in the Netherlands is affected by the current political and religious discourse in Poland. I then ex-plore how these women experience being a part of a transnational family. Finally I look how these women evaluate their life in the Netherlands. To understand the experiences of lesbian women, qualitative interviews were conducted. To understand and analyse how their lives are shaped by migration and by their position as homosexual migrant women of different socioeconomic backgrounds, I have used intersec-tionality as the core conceptual framework. Additionally, I used the concepts of transnation-alism, othering and sexual citizenship to analyse the implications of their peculiar identity on their experiences as migrants. This paper also engages with literature on migration, sexuality and gender (in)equality. The study reveals that the lives of Polish lesbian women in the Neth-erlands are influenced by the political situation in their country of origin, but also by the connectedness with their families. Furthermore, the intersections between their different identities are often a source of challenge, but can also become a source of opportunities. https://thesis.eur.nl/pub/61070/ Fri, 17 Dec 2021 00:00:01 GMT <div>Creed, Xander</div> The capacity to deport migrants without a legal claim to reside in a territory has proliferated in recent times legitimated by the obligation to readmit own-nationals, only tempered by the principle of nonrefoulement. This process oftentimes relies on a wide range of actors to facilitate a migrant’s return, leading to a diffusion of responsibility to adhere to nonrefoulement. Moreover, there remains an ongoing tension concerning the provision of security, either at the national or human level. Exemplary of this trend are bilateral agreements such as the Agreement on Immigration Matters between Ireland and Nigeria signed in 2001 focused on the readmission of irregular Nigerian migrants, and the use of AVRR programs such as the EUIOM Joint Initiative founded in 2016. Taking both a quantitative and a discursive account of human security conditions in Nigeria, this paper highlights the diverse understandings of governance actors, conceptualized as discourse coalitions, for what constitutes conditions suitable for a safe, dignified return. To overcome the limitations of a national security approach, which even at its most critical does not account for the lived experience, this paper develops a Human (In)Security Index, locating the human security conditions at a national level for Nigeria from 2000 to 2020. This reveals marked health insecurity, prolonged food, political, personal and community insecurity, and a trend towards increasing environmental insecurity; economic security is the only dimension which remains relatively secure. Overall, Nigeria scores as a relatively insecure country over the timeframe. Concurrently, this paper locates governance actors within discourse coalitions, uncovering disparate understandings of (in)security in Nigeria. Drawing on Irish and Nigerian news articles from 2000 to 2021 and promotional videos from the EU-IOM Joint Initiative, a critical discourse analysis locates governance actors’ understanding on (in)security in Nigeria. From this, the included governance actors were situated within discourse coalitions based on their shared understanding, non-dependent on the reality exhibited by the index. This results in a non-exhaustive three-fold typology in which coalitions understand Nigeria as: 1) unsafe for return, 2) safe for return, and 3) unsafe but return is possible. None of the analysed actors acknowledge the dimension of food (in)security, or the increasing environmental insecurity of Nigeria, signalling the saliency of a human security framework to articulate overlooked dimensions necessary for dignified human life – this is particularly relevant for actors seeking to resist practices of deportation, or those seeking to better abide by international human rights norms. https://thesis.eur.nl/pub/76300/ Thu, 18 Dec 2025 00:00:01 GMT <div>Rachna Rai</div> This research paper examines how does “skill” shape gendered experiences of the North Indian female migrants working in Information and Technology (IT) sector in UAE at the intersections of gender, class, race, nationality. To understand this, the paper explores valuation and devaluation of skill in the home and host country. Drawing the social construction of skill framework (Steinberg, 1990; Liu-Farrer et al., 2021) and intersectionality (Crenshaw, 1989), this study analyses how skill recognition is mediated through gendered expectations operating at multiple scales. The study uses the primary data collected from qualitative interviewing and secondary data sources. Through examining the case of North Indian female migrants working in IT sector in UAE, this study demonstrates how gendered skill recognition operates across professional contexts in both home and host countries. It contributes to migration scholarship by revealing how public discourse on skilled migration reproduces gender hierarchies through ostensibly neutral categories of skill and merit. https://thesis.eur.nl/pub/76295/ Thu, 18 Dec 2025 00:00:01 GMT <div>Tuncer, Ceren</div> This study explores how non-EU international graduates from Dutch higher education institutions experience the transition from study to employment in the Netherlands, with particular attention to the Orientation Year and the subsequent move to the Highly Skilled Migrant (HSM) scheme. Despite an apparent mismatch between the volume of international graduates and actual labor market opportunities, the factors affecting the retention of domestically trained graduates have received little attention. To address this gap, this research will investigate the intersections of labor market entry, migration governance, and the lived experiences of migrant students using the analytical lenses of aspirations/capabilities and temporal governance. Drawing on in-depth interviews with non-EU alumni who are currently utilizing the Orientation Year to seek employment or have made the subsequent transition to the HSM permit, the study highlights the complex and intersecting dynamics of post-study mobility in the Netherlands by foregrounding the tension between the framing of international graduates as desirable talent with the restrictive governance structures that condition their stay beyond their studies. https://thesis.eur.nl/pub/76294/ Thu, 18 Dec 2025 00:00:01 GMT <div>Forrest, Grace Isobel Florence</div> This research explores the personal navigations, experiences, and perspectives of migrants in the New Jersey tri-state area, in response to the 47th presidential administration of the United States of America’s apparent use of social media as a tool of securitization. This research takes place from July to September 2025, involving 16 non-citizens of the U.S. with insecure documentation status1. It evaluates the unprecedented implications of securitization carried out through digital platforms, and what this means for the nexus of migration and security studies. As illustrated through different axes of Securitization Theory, Donald Trump’s second presidential term uses social media as a way to securitize migration to the general American public, in turn creating a real-time space where immigrant communities evaluate their navigational agency within these platforms. Members of these communities engage in Everyday Security to ensure their own security, prominently through methods such as restricted self-expression, increased use of community-focused information sharing, as well as avoiding social media completely also to dissimilate from “migrant identity”. Further analysis shows these lived experiences navigated through core emotions of anger, grief, and hope. Ultimately, this research reveals how security has evolved from a top-down procedure from political elites to bottom-up processes when social media is a primary tool of securitization. It allows targeted individuals to provide security through their own choices in real-time due to the interactive nature of these digital spaces. In reflection of this work, expansion of Everyday Security theory must be conducted, focusing on the agency and power granted to individuals when social media is used as a tool of securitization by respective governments.