Refugee Protection Meets Migration Management

UNHCR as a Global Police of Populations

Bibliographic Data

ID3635792
AuthorsStephan Scheel (0000-0002-5065-3726, Open Geospatial Consortium, corresponding author), Philipp Ratfisch (North-West State Technical University, corresponding author)
Year2014
Volume40
Issue6
Pages924-941
Publication date2014-06-03
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessNo
TypeARTICLE
VenueNew Community (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0047-9586 • E-ISSN: 1469-9451
PublisherInforma UK Limited (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1080/1369183x.2013.855074
OpenAlexW2039126170
LanguageEN
Citations received64
References cited24

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

Asylum seeker · Forced migration · Governmentality · Mandate · Migration studies · Political science · Politics · Population · Public relations · Refugee · Sociology · Gender Studies · Law · Migration, Health and Trauma · Migration, Refugees, and Integration · Peacebuilding and International Security · Public Administration

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