No longer where they were, not yet where they are: the experiences of recently arrived refugees in Scotland

Abstract

This thesis examines some of the social and political implications of European and British immigration policy through the personal experiences of twenty refugees who have been living in Scotland for less than five years. Particular emphasis is placed on the deconstruction of the , deserving political refugee, and its replacement with the , bogus economic refugee, in political and public discourse. Refugees are consequently finding it increasingly difficult to 'find a place' that will provide them with the security and safety they require, consequently placing the humanitarian imperative of being able to seek refuge under threat.

The thesis is in two sections. The first section is contextual and contains an examination of changing anthropological perspectives in the shift towards locating personal perceptions of belonging and identity within the structural, social and spatial concerns of transnationalism. A review of the various allegiances and agreements that facilitate European immigration and asylum policies provide the framework for a discussion on how the rhetoric of British national identity may be used to justify restrictions and control on asylum seekers by the demonization of them as bogus'.

Section two is experiential and begins with a methodological review of the fieldwork process outlining the relationships and techniques that formed the basis for the research. Narratives from several individual refugees are presented in which they describe their experiences of uncertainty and social isolation which are further exacerbated by a legal process in which some decisions regarding asylum claims may take several years. These narratives are then situated within an anthropological framework which addresses some of the contradictions and incongruities of spatial and structural belonging. The analysis then draws to a conclusion with the fusion of the personal and the political, locating refugees in the space (or non space) of an extended and uncertain liminality which places them outside the traditional parameters of nations and cultures.