Technologies Of Suspicion And The Ethics Of Obligation In Political Asylum

295 Pages·2019·2.124 MB·English

by  Bridget M. Haas, Amy Shuman

Technologies
of Suspicion
and the Ethics
of Obligation
in Political
Asylum
Edited by
Bridget M. Haas and Amy Shuman
Technologies of Suspicion and the Ethics
of Obligation in Political Asylum
SEriES in HumAn SEcuriTy
Series editors: Geoffrey Dabelko, Brandon Kendhammer, and nukhet Sandal
The Series in Human Security is published in association with Ohio
University’s War and Peace Studies and African Studies programs at the
Center for International Studies and the Environmental Studies Program
at the Voinovich School of Leadership and Public Affairs.
Technologies of Suspicion and the Ethics of Obligation in Political Asylum,
edited by Bridget M. Haas and Amy Shuman
Technologies of
Suspicion and the
Ethics of Obligation
in Political Asylum
Edited by
BriDGET m. HAAS AnD Amy SHumAn
OHiO univErSiTy PrESS i ATHEnS
Ohio University Press, Athens, Ohio 45701
ohioswallow.com
© 2019 by Ohio University Press
All rights reserved
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Haas, Bridget M., editor. | Shuman, Amy, date, editor.
Title: Technologies of suspicion and the ethics of obligation in political
asylum / edited by Bridget M. Haas and Amy Shuman.
Description: Athens, Ohio : Ohio University Press, 2019. | Series: Series in
human security | Includes bibliographical references and index.
Identifiers: LCCN 2018056335| ISBN 9780821423783 (hardback : alk. paper) |
ISBN 9780821446676 (pdf)
Subjects: LCSH: Political refugees--Government policy--Case studies. |
Political refugees--Legal status, laws, etc.--Case studies. | Asylum,
Right of--Case studies. | National security--Technological
innovations--Case studies. | Immigration enforcement--Technological
innovations--Case studies. | BISAC: POLITICAL SCIENCE / Political Freedom
& Security / Human Rights. | SOCIAL SCIENCE / Anthropology / General.
Classification: LCC JV6346 .T43 2019 | DDC 323.6/31--dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2018056335
contents

Acknowledgments vii
Introduction
Negotiating Suspicion, Obligation, and Security in
Contemporary Political Asylum Regimes
Bridget m. Haas and Amy Shuman 1
PArT i: ASylum AnD PrOTEcTiOn AS cOnTESTED cATEGOriES
chapter 1 Troubling the Ethics of Durable Solutions in the Age of Suspicion
Iraq War Refugees and the Politics of Obligation
nadia El-Shaarawi 29
chapter 2 Geographies of Aspiration and the Politics of Suspicion
in the Context of Border Control
charles Watters 47
chapter 3 A “Politics of Protection” Aimed at Mayan Immigrants
in the United States
John B. Haviland 61
PArT ii: TEcHnOlOGiES Of SuSPiciOn
chapter 4 Asylum Officers, Suspicion, and the Ambivalent Enactment
of Technologies of Truth
Bridget m. Haas 105
chapter 5 Country of Origin Information, Technologies of Suspicion, and the Erasure
of the Supernatural in African Refugee Claims
Benjamin n. lawrance 129
v
vi contents
chapter 6 The Digitalization of the Asylum Process (and the
Digitizing of Evidence)
marco Jacquemet 153
PArT iii: EnAcTinG AnD nAviGATinG SuSPiciOn
chapter 7 Mixed Migration and the Humanitarian Encounter
Sub-Saharan Asylum Seekers in Israel
ilil Benjamin 177
chapter 8 Transgendered Asylum and Gendered Fears in
US Asylum Law and Politics
Sara l. mcKinnon 206
chapter 9 “And Suddenly I Became A Lesbian!”
Performing Lesbian Identity in the Political Asylum Process
rachel A. lewis 225
chapter 10 Political Asylum Narratives and the Construction
of Suspicious Subjects
Amy Shuman and carol Bohmer 245
Conclusion
Amy Shuman and Bridget m. Haas 265
Contributors 275
Index 279
Acknowledgments
The idea for this volume started to take shape when we, the editors of this
volume, organized a panel, “Asylum and Politics of Suspicion,” for the 2014
American Anthropological Association (AAA) conference in Washington,
DC. Several of the contributors to this volume presented papers at the panel
or served as discussants. Thanks to Heath Cabot for chairing that panel and
for her insights and important contributions to that discussion. Following
the AAA panel, we received funding from the Wenner-Gren Foundation and
the Mershon Center for International Security Studies at the Ohio State
University (OSU) to hold a day-and-a-half workshop on Asylum and the
Politics of Suspicion in March 2015 at OSU. We thank the Wenner-Gren
Foundation and Richard Herrmann, director of the Mershon Center, for
their generous support, without which the workshop would not have been
possible. We would like to also thank Nick Spitulski, program coordinator at
OSU, for his outstanding job handling the logistics of the workshop, arrang-
ing transportation, lodging, and meals for the group. The OSU workshop
brought together participants of the earlier AAA panel as well as additional
scholars doing important work on political asylum. The papers presented at
that workshop were revised and crafted into the essays you see in this volume.
We would like to thank the contributors who participated in the origi-
nal workshop and contributed their essays to this volume. The depth and
breadth of intellectual work represented in these pages is impressive, and we
are very fortunate to be able to include their work together in this book.
We would like to thank the editors and staff at Ohio University Press
/ Swallow Press, including the editors of the Series in Human Security:
Geoffrey Dabelko, Brandon Kendhammer, and Nukhet Sandal; and man-
aging editor Nancy Basmajian. Thank you to copyeditor Don McKeon for
his excellent work. We would particularly like to thank Rick Huard at Ohio
University Press, who has guided this project toward completion. The edi-
tors and authors of the volume would like to thank two anonymous review-
ers, whose thoughtful and valuable feedback strengthened the individual
chapters and the book as a whole.
vii

introduction
Negotiating Suspicion, Obligation, and Security
in Contemporary Political Asylum Regimes
BriDGET m. HAAS AnD Amy SHumAn
Asylum seekers are increasingly the focus of global debates
surrounding humanitarian obligations on the one hand and concerns sur-
rounding security and border control on the other. Asylum seekers are at
turns portrayed as innocent victims in need of humanitarian protection and
as “queue jumpers” or threats to the body of the host nation. Recent coverage
of the European migration crisis illustrates these competing representations
of asylum seekers.
On September 2, 2015, newspapers across the globe carried the sober-
ing image of the lifeless body of Alan Kurdi, a three-year-old Syrian boy
who had washed up on a beach in Turkey. He, along with his mother and two
siblings, had died fleeing their homeland in search of safety in the European
Union (EU). This incident served to reframe the narrative of the migrant
crisis that had started earlier that year and had reached immense proportions
by this time. The view of migrants, and Syrian ones in particular, began to
shift from suspicious Other or potential terrorist to humanitarian victim.
1