doctoralThesis
Despolitización y resistencias en la paradoja del refugio. Experiencias de colombianos en Ecuador y Canadá
Fecha
2017Autor
Medina Carrillo, Adriana Marcela
Institución
Resumen
International Refugee Law (IRL) defined refugee status as an exceptional situation and therefore as a 'humanitarian' condition, which had the effect of making refuge a situation excluded from the rights attributed to the political dimension. Some authors (Nyers, 2006; Agamben, 1998; Arendt, 1974) find that the aforementioned definition resulted in an apparent 'inclusive exclusion' of refugees in their countries of destination, and this has resulted in a contradiction. This doctoral study addresses this contradiction and it identifies it as The Refuge Paradox. Initially, this paradox is analyzed from the narratives of Colombian refugees in Ecuador, organized together in the National Federation of Colombian Refugee Organizations (FENARE - Federación Nacional de Organizaciones de Refugiados Colombianos), and other residents in the Canadian cities of Toronto and Calgary. Their experiences reveal the problems that refugees have in their countries of destination when they seek to be recognized as subjects of international protection, and simultaneously, subjects with the possibility of mobilizing, organizing and taking action (Bauman, 2002). Later, the study goes on to point out exactly what the paradox is about, how it is expressed in real life, what its causes are and what it represents for the refugee population. To accomplish this, the historical frameworks of International Refugee Law (IRL) are analyzed with the Forced Migration Studies (FMS) from the above and below perspectives of states, international organizations and refugees.