Investigating the spatial and temporal dimensions of non-refoulement
- How are Syrians in Lebanon and Turkey subjected to removals?
- How are Syrians navigating and resisting different forms of removals?
- What are the human, social and political consequences of these removals?
Removal infrastructures for Syrians in Lebanon and Turkey (REMOVED) is an ethnographic study of the spatial and temporal dimensions of the principle of non-refoulement in Lebanon and Turkey. This legal concept stipulates that no person can be sent back to a country where they risk being subjected to inhumane or degrading treatment.
The REMOVED research project empirically interrogates the principles of non-refoulement by approaching removal infrastructures as part of the multi-scalar entanglements of authorities, institutions and norms. Through interviews, observations and case studies, REMOVED generates empirical insights into removal practices and experiences in Lebanon and Turkey. Resisting binary distinctions between voluntary and forced returns, the project conceptualizes disparate mobility control practices, such as obliged returns, repatriations and (re-)entry controls, pushbacks, pullbacks, deportations, jointly as removals.
The REMOVED research project empirically interrogates the principles of non-refoulement by approaching removal infrastructures as part of the multi-scalar entanglements of authorities, institutions and norms.
Through interviews, observations and case studies, REMOVED generates empirical insights into removal practices and experiences in Lebanon and Turkey. Resisting binary distinctions between voluntary and forced returns, the project conceptualizes disparate mobility control practices, such as obliged returns, repatriations and (re-)entry controls, pushbacks, pullbacks, deportations, jointly as removals.
The study of removal infrastructures opens new theoretical horizons for the study of refugee returns and migration governance in three ways.
First, the project examines removal practices beyond the mere implementation of laws and policies, highlighting thus the importance of non-legal norms.
Second, the project examines the role of a broad range of frontline border workers, meaning all actors in positions of authority who are in direct contact with Syrians, highlighting thus also the roles played by non-state actors and mundane practices of control.
Third, the project examines possible conflicts over spatial power, highlighting thus the emergence of new scales in migration governance.
Why is this project relevant?
While three out of four refugees are hosted in low- or middle-income countries,[1] European countries’ externalization of their protection responsibilities to neighbouring countries, such as Lebanon and Turkey, which face stark economic and political challenges, pave the way for legally and morally contested practices, from clientelism (Spijkerboer 2021) to increasing informality in migration and mobility governance (Koinova 2024).
The escalation of Israel’s attacks to Palestine and Lebanon, and its subsequent war on Lebanon recently required a series of reconsiderations on both the research design and our ethical and academic responsibilities for the safety and security of team members and research participants. Yet, the rationale and objectives of the project are even more relevant today as the European Commission plans to increase voluntary returns to Syria through "appointment of a special envoy for Syria." In the meantime, it is recorded that approximately 560,000 Syrians and Lebanese have so far fled from Lebanon to Syria[2] and Turkey opens its doors for Lebanese people.[3]
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Project aims
By connecting the legal principle of non-refoulement with anthropological theories on mobility control (De Genova 2002) and mobility infrastructures (Lin et al. 2017), this project aims to contribute to forced migration studies in at least three ways.
First, the project integrates into the study of forced migration infrastructures the topic of removals and contributes to the growing body of literature highlighting that deportations (Gibney 2013) and coerced returns (Sahin-Mencutek and Triandafyllidou 2024) are also forms of forced migration.
Second, the project highlights multiple displacements, including people’s decision-making and South- South(im)mobility trajectories after removal (attempts). Analyzing removals through the lens of infrastructures allows us to conceive of displacement not as a single, linear crossing of a line separating two places, and focus on the multi-faceted mediated space of im/mobilities and their historical, spatial and capitalist entanglements (İşleyen and Qadim 2023; Kaşlı 2023; Walters 2002). Just like the original flight trajectory, removals are processes that result in a series of potentially temporary stays, non-permanent returns, recurring displacement, structural and physical insecurities, which all have repercussions on family structures and social networks (Alpes et al 2023).
Third, the project feeds scales (Baud and Schendel 1997; Xiang 2013) as an alternative approach to aggregation levels into discussions on (supra)state influences on displacement processes as it generates empirical data on multi-scalar encounters between Syrians and actors with affiliations to different countries and institutions.
Why is this research important?
Since the outbreak of the Syrian war, Europe has sought to externalize its protection responsibilities, amongst others by keeping Syrians put in Lebanon and Turkey. Prospects for legal stays are in practice limited in these neighbouring countries of Syria. Lebanon is not signatory to the 1951 Geneva Convention and Lebanese legislation does not foresee access to asylum. Even before the country’s default on public debt in 2020 and the onset of hyperinflation, Lebanon prioritized returns over integration. With Israel’s attacks on Lebanon since last year, Syrians and Lebanese people have experienced multiple displacements both within Lebanon and towards Syria and further north.
Turkey, while signatory of the 1951 Geneva Convention, does not allow Syrians to access full refugee status either, because it applies a geographical limitation. While Turkey in theory has opened pathways for Syrians to citizenship, it has also for long called for a ‘safe zone’ in Syria. While increasing its detention capacity with funds from the EU-Turkey Statement, Turkish authorities reinforced these calls after its 2019 cross-border operation in Northern Syria, forcing thousands of Syrians to sign ‘voluntary return documents’ (Global Detention Project 2021, 9, 19). In this unchartered legal context and with a growing housing crisis in post-earthquake Turkey, it remains to be seen whether these emergency relocations and voluntary return efforts will result in permanent removals of Syrians from Turkey.
Research partners and funding
Research team
- Dr Zeynep Kaşlı (co-Principal Investigator)
- Dr Jill Alpes (executive Principal Investigator) (Sciences Po Paris, Lebanese American University)
- Dr Zeynep Ceren Eren Benlisoy (ISS research fellow)
- Musa Kurt (ISS research fellow)
- Mariam Altaema (Yıldırım Beyazıt University, Ankara)
- Roger Asfar (Editor in Chief and Researcher - Taadudiya platform)
- Xiang Biao (Max Planck Institute for Social Anthropology)
- Jasmin Lilian Diab (Lebanese American University)
- Nefise Ela Gökalp-Aras (Swedish Research Institute in Istanbul)
- Nadia Hardman, Lea Müller-Funk (University for Continuing Education Krems)
- Maissam Nimer (Özyeğin University)
- Nicolas Puig (French National Research Institute for Sustainable Development)
- Matthieu Rey (Institut français du Proche-Orient)
- Zeynep Şahin-Mencütek (Bonn International Center for Conflicts Studies)
- Stephanie Schwartz (London School of Economics and Political Science)
- Nora Stel (Radboud University)
References
[1] https://www.unhcr.org/refugee-statistics/insights/explainers/refugee-hosting-metrics.html (Last Access 6 November 2024)
[2] https://www.infomigrants.net/en/post/60935/new-eu-commission-plan-for-voluntary-repatriation-of-syrians (Last Accessed 6 November 2024)
[3] https://www.euronews.com/my-europe/2024/10/19/president-erdogan-says-turkeys-doors-are-open-to-refugees-from-lebanon (Last Accessed 6 November 2024)