‘Just eating and sleeping’: asylum seekers’ constructions of belonging within a restrictive policy environment

Parker, Samuel (2018) ‘Just eating and sleeping’: asylum seekers’ constructions of belonging within a restrictive policy environment. Critical Discourse Studies. pp. 1-20.

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Abstract

The ‘refugee crisis’ in Europe has drawn attention to the reasons why people risk desperate journeys to seek safety. However, less research has focussed on what happens to those on the move once they have reached their destination country. In recent years the UK government’s ‘hostile environment’ policy for asylum
seekers has taken precedence over attempts to integrate
refugees, creating a system in which destitution, dispersal and detention have all become pervasive features. This paper takes a discursive psychological approach to the analysis of interviews with asylum seekers in Wales, UK. It argues that participants draw on economic repertoires of effortfulness to construct accounts in which belonging is dependent upon being able to contribute to the economic and civic life of the host society. It further highlights
how participants construct accounts in which restriction from the asylum system is positioned as the reason for not belonging and that time spent as an asylum seeker is policy-imposed liminality. The findings suggest that allowing asylum seekers to work would be a key step forward in integration policy and contribute to generating a greater sense of belonging.

Item Type:	Article
Dates:	Date Event 26 September 2018 Accepted 14 November 2018 Published Online
Subjects:	CAH04 - psychology > CAH04-01 - psychology > CAH04-01-01 - psychology (non-specific)
Divisions:	Faculty of Business, Law and Social Sciences > College of Psychology
Depositing User:	Samuel Parker
Date Deposited:	25 Sep 2019 11:08
Last Modified:	11 Jun 2024 13:03
URI:	https://www.open-access.bcu.ac.uk/id/eprint/7962