Refugee Protection Meets Migration Management: UNHCR as a Global Police of Populations

Scheel, Stephan and Ratfisch, Philipp. 2014. Refugee Protection Meets Migration Management: UNHCR as a Global Police of Populations. Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies, 40(6), pp. 924-941. ISSN 1369-183X [Article]

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Abstract or Description

This article investigates the complex relationship between the practices of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) in the field of refugee protection and the more recent political rationality of ‘migration management’ by drawing from governmentality studies. It is argued that the dissemination of UNHCR's own refugee protection discourse creates certain ‘figures of migration’ allowing for justifying the build-up and perfection of border controls, which in turn enable any attempt to ‘manage’ migration in the first place. Conversely, the problematisation of population movements as ‘mixed migration flows’ allows UNHCR to enlarge its field of activitiy despite its narrow mandate by actively participating in the promotion, planning and implementation of migration management systems. Based on ethnographic research in Turkey and Morocco, this article demonstrates, furthermore, that UNHCR's refugee protection discourse and the emerging migration management paradigm are both based on a methodological nationalism, share an authoritarian potential and yield de-politicising effects. What UNHCR's recent embracing of the migration management paradigm together with its active involvement in respective practices then brings to the fore is that UNHCR is part of a global police of populations.

Item Type:

Article

Identification Number (DOI):

https://doi.org/10.1080/1369183X.2013.855074

Keywords:

Migration Policy, Refugees and Asylum, UNHCR, Morocco, Turkey

Departments, Centres and Research Units:

Sociology

Dates:

DateEvent
2014Published

Item ID:

11151

Date Deposited:

19 Jan 2015 10:07

Last Modified:

29 Apr 2020 16:05

Peer Reviewed:

Yes, this version has been peer-reviewed.

URI:

https://research.gold.ac.uk/id/eprint/11151

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