Location

University of Richmond, Richmond, Virginia

Document Type

Paper (UR Campus Access Only)

Description

Following a line of inquiry I traced during my fieldwork in Paris, France, Amman, Jordan, and Kathmandu, Nepal, this research addresses how the International Humanitarian Organization (IHO) frames its role at the European border. As two of Europe’s leading IHOs, the International Organization for Migration (IOM) and the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) are the subjects of this research’s critical look into how the IHO is an entity by which problematic bordering practices are carried out. In order to analyze the ways in which these organizations frame their operations, I have dissected the language of 282 press releases garnered from these institutions. Through a coding scheme I’ve designed within a Critical Border Studies (CBS) framework, particular patterns of ideas have become manifest in the graphical representations of aggregate data. Both IOM and UNHCR employ the ethos of a neoliberal rationality to justify or veil certain migration management activities, ones similarly constitutive of the managerialist mentality taken to “solve” Europe’s enduring refugee crisis to no avail. Through this illustration, I will conclude with a discussion about a term I call quasi-humanitarianism and the necessity of a CBS approach for conceptually reevaluating humanitarianism at Europe’s borders.

Comments

Department: History

Faculty Mentor: David Brandenberger

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Reconceptualizing the International Humanitarian Organization: IOM and UNHCR at Europe’s External Borders

University of Richmond, Richmond, Virginia

Following a line of inquiry I traced during my fieldwork in Paris, France, Amman, Jordan, and Kathmandu, Nepal, this research addresses how the International Humanitarian Organization (IHO) frames its role at the European border. As two of Europe’s leading IHOs, the International Organization for Migration (IOM) and the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) are the subjects of this research’s critical look into how the IHO is an entity by which problematic bordering practices are carried out. In order to analyze the ways in which these organizations frame their operations, I have dissected the language of 282 press releases garnered from these institutions. Through a coding scheme I’ve designed within a Critical Border Studies (CBS) framework, particular patterns of ideas have become manifest in the graphical representations of aggregate data. Both IOM and UNHCR employ the ethos of a neoliberal rationality to justify or veil certain migration management activities, ones similarly constitutive of the managerialist mentality taken to “solve” Europe’s enduring refugee crisis to no avail. Through this illustration, I will conclude with a discussion about a term I call quasi-humanitarianism and the necessity of a CBS approach for conceptually reevaluating humanitarianism at Europe’s borders.