The Refugee as Invasive Other

Bibliographic Data

ID4188271
AuthorsMichael Ignatieff (0009-0009-7302-3549, corresponding author)
Year2024
Volume91
Issue1
Pages211-220
Publication date2024-03-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessNo
TypeARTICLE
VenueSocial research (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0037-783X • E-ISSN: 1944-768X
PublisherProject MUSE (PUBLISHER • US)
DOI10.1353/sor.2024.a923118
OpenAlexW4393346368
LanguageEN
Citations received8

A liberal politics is, in moral principle at least, a universalist politics: a politics that assumes that there is no "other"; there is only "us," all entitled to equal treatment. This ideal inspired the 1951 Refugee Convention, which now faces a crisis of consent in Western societies because of the sheer numbers of people claiming refugee protection. Public opinion is also turning against the universalist premise. Citizens ask why they should extend citizenship rights to strangers and why their state shouldn't be able to exclude whom it wants from its borders. How to respond to this crisis of consent? By defending the universalist right of persons in distress to seek asylum, but also by appealing to citizens to reconceive their relationship to strangers as a gift: they give welcome to strangers as a gift that confers obligations on the beneficiary, namely the obligation to live by the rules of the society that made the gift of asylum

Convention · Czech · Human rights · Persecution · Political science · Politics · Refugee · Slovak · Sociology · COVID-19, Geopolitics, Technology, Migration · Jewish and Middle Eastern Studies · Law · Middle East Politics and Society · Migration, Refugees, and Integration · Sociopolitical Dynamics in Russia

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