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Anatomy of a crisis

Governing Youth Mobility Through Vulnerability

Bibliographic Data

ID3617441
AuthorsLauren Heidbrink (0000-0002-2375-8047, California State University System, corresponding author)
Year2021
Volume47
Issue5
Pages988-1005
Publication date2021-04-04
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessNo
TypeARTICLE
VenueNew Community (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0047-9586 • E-ISSN: 1469-9451
PublisherInforma UK Limited (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1080/1369183x.2020.1797479
OpenAlexW3044850312
LanguageEN
Citations received28
References cited43

In 2018, the Italian Coast Guard rescued 190 migrants onboard an overcrowded vessel from Libya. Held at sea for five days, the Italian government finally permitted the Coast Guard to dock in Catania, Sicily, yet refused to allow the migrants to disembark. This article begins by dissecting the anatomy of this crisis, tracing the diverse actors and institutions involved in its creation and resolution through first-hand accounts. Multi-sited ethnographic research reveals how a diverse set of actors enlisted a hierarchy of vulnerability to secure the release of migrants onboard, privileging unaccompanied asylum-seeking children in particular. The article examines how this hierarchy has proven effective in legislating specialised protections and services and accessing limited humanitarian aid. However, a hierarchy of vulnerability has two paradoxical yet mutually reinforcing consequences. First, focusing on the vulnerabilities of increasingly narrow categories of individuals, such as unaccompanied children, distracts from examining how state policies produce vulnerability. Second, the humanitarian organisations’ emphasis on vulnerability re-inscribes social boundaries, making state protections and services progressively difficult to access. In so doing, both the state and humanitarian organisations govern youth mobility through vulnerability

Computer security · Criminology · Ethnography · Hierarchy · Political science · Refugee · Sociology · Anthropology · Law · Migration and Exile Studies · Migration, Health and Trauma · Migration, Refugees, and Integration

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Unique citing works28
Citations per year7
Citation span2022 - 2026 (5)
Citation velocitycurrent
Highly citedNo
Citation typesNeutral: 27
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