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From asylum seekers to kin: the making and effects of kinship between Norwegian citizens and migrants

March 2023
Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies 50(3):1-19

March 2023
50(3):1-19

DOI:10.1080/1369183X.2023.2183354

Authors:

Norwegian Centre for Violence and Traumatic Stress Studies

Citizen humanitarianism in Europe has been contrasted and compared to professional aid through attributes like cultivating affectionate and intimate relationships with migrants. Bringing this literature into conversation with anthropological theory, this article explores the building of kinship between Norwegian citizens and asylum seekers from the Middle East. Drawing on long-term fieldwork, digital observations, and interviews with Norwegian citizens, we discuss the selective formation of these relationships and some of the personal and political effects and tensions they generated. We show that the ‘conversion’ of asylum seekers to kin challenged established hierarchies of vulnerability and deservingness while reinforcing other logics, including the primacy of psychological trauma and affinity. Moreover, ‘kinning’ instigated obligations to support migrants and facilitated cultural exchange and political engagement. While sometimes causing pain and tensions with Norwegian authorities or other family members, caring for migrants as kin was considered meaningful and redemptive by our informants, whose motivations were both personal and future-oriented. Ultimately, we argue that kinship relations and care between Norwegian citizens and asylum seekers both challenge and reinforce conventional models and imaginations of humanitarianism. We also reflect on the transformative potential of these relationships and suggest avenues for further research.

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From asylum seekers to kin: the making and effects of kinship between

Norwegian citizens and migrants

Abstract







 

!"



#$$





$$

#



"

%



#



Keywords: &



#'()*+

Introduction

-./,012

3!4./,(5!

3./,)5

,

36-./,)784./.,591

2.

39:./,;7-./,(7<./,)5

!

37=

-./.,7->./.,5?

"3./,+5

3  ././5

@2

 





#



36./,.74"#./.,5@



12./,0#"A?"



 

sønn 35datter 35barnebarn

1B@

121212#

12

3./,+5

&2

2-"C

D3-./,(5CD3>./,+5C

D3E././5@12

12384./.,5

35?2

#3,)),512

4

3  

./.,7-./,(7-./,)7<./,)5F



9

@



2#

-3./,)5A

12

F





@#

kinshipkinning#



@



G 

'=

H@





What is kinship?

="9

"3./,(5=



F

67

-

3,))+5

3G./,(5

-6

I3.//,,J*51

2 -3./,*5

12=1

"

&23.,59

3./,+5F



6K

123<./,,.,(5

69 

C35"

12

D3./,;./)7./,05 1



23G

./,()5



@

#

F23.//*512!F

121



23J;05#

12

9FK

123J;;5@





Methodology

@"

3 ./.,7>5#

&&12

A./,0

#

@





?8./,(L8././3,56L

-././3.5="



>

23F./,05

@

"

35



3$$

53>./..5#



@

%3.//;5

@



@././"+/?

!

 &

0/;/9

#

#

A

38./.,59

./,;3-./,(5

&3>F

./.,5

@9

=



!

F&K



#A-

9

9

#

&F

*12

9

2



Making kin



 

3 @",)3.5

3,5=

$

3./,)5

;



@K

H



Personal connection

#

F

$$kjemi 356

A-&

F./,;6

=

A&-

12F

pappa 35A

F

=

kjemiGI"



A=FI

12



Vulnerability

9

9

9 

,(@

6



3-./,(5"12

K3A"6./,+5

-./,0-

&

9J

F

3  ././59

9

9

9K



9=

26





&=

6



'1212

-9"

9'1F

@F

=2

?2

12

6;/8

A?9./,;8

M2

6

81'

298

#

J9./,0

3*,N59K?9-3./,(5

9

(

88

@8

12

@1282

"

Migrants’ initiation and intersubjectivity

@2

F

6A

-12GI

1212K9I



AF



3 ./,)59$$

I

-



?2



=C

12D3 ./,;./)59

9 

3!A

./,+5



3 ./.,5=

1212

>

A

9-#

-1@2

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

3A.//;5

@

62

9

-F

"

-

3

./..59

-



3./..7  ././5

&

Caregiving and mutuality

3./,+5



@2

F

"73./,(5

9

L



9

6

0/;/9

-

@

L–



6



K=





?





@

3-./,)5



3->./.,5=

-3./,*51&2

1&212



3 ./.,59



The effects of kinning

=



#',5.5

*5J5



Thickening obligations

?

G-23./,)5A

12

=

&

-6

?

--%

6!

-

3>F./.,5



#$

6

-&$9$9



&O96-&

9G

-192

?<=!",)F"

9

898

&

I#192

8

!

8







=

3./,;7-

>./.,5-

"3>#./,J5

F-3./,)512

1"2@

12

69

O

=

'1=

PQ=&2G9

9-"

91#2H

#2



9

3R./.,5

Cultural exchange and politicisation

97

9

A-

1#2=3./,+5

AA

-

K12G-3./,)5



A

#

A

6



26

7

>-2



=

&2

6A1

2-8

91

2 2

 







-

2

821=

2-2

121"2

12=K





3 ./.,5F



@





-23



51

23!4.//J5@

&

&G

35-

123<./,(5

?2

"3./,+7

-./,)5

#



"

=292

@

'C12



2D

3<<./,)'J)76./,)7-./,(5

3./,*5

-

@

-

3>5

#



35

Tensions with biological relatives

6

#

3A

.//;7F.//*5123>,)(+5

3#

,)),5

F9-3./,)5

A

2=

99

9

9129

#9

F92

&1Omy29





6I2

AA

F

FI2

AAG92

2

%

3>,)(+5

@

F

6

2?



@



12

Meaning and redemption

912

6

&

 

&F



@

123 

./,05

6A

&F



-9-

1PFQ2

8'1F



2#82



18S=

2



3 ./,0,*J7-./,(592K

2G-

3./,)5

-



-

9&9

12





9



 

%2

@

7

$2 

6

3 ./.,5



Discussion and Conclusion





-&

 



6

K

-

@

124

-23,)((512

older white women intervening to save young brown men

from the violence of the Norwegian stateF

23 ./,053-

./,*5

@K'=



HG



62



3<./,)5%CP

QD3@./,;.0;5-



F





3 ./.,5123  ././5

F



384./.,5@





9



?

 2



36./,.56->3./.,,()51

and 2

2&

?

""

6-3./,)5

122

1"29

2

=



?

2

3#,))*5

"

6

3./,05@



35F



6

&!K

 



212@"

"

3 ./,05@Kwhom

whose future

#2





@2

12

9

29

F







K

3@./,;.;05

G2

K 2

12

%



93./,+7 

./.,7-./,)5



#

K1212

35

?KL

expectedLK

9

K



3./,05@

"3./,+5

"3A./,,5F









3

"5"K

'#

36./,;5H



H9

K

K?'



3./,05H

@K'

=



#"

#-23./,)5

2



& F



&

Acknowledgments

9-%





Disclosure statement

@

Ethical considerations

9

%>

!3-!5

References

9:=./,;C1>4<2' G

4 DCitizenship Studies./305';.)L;J;

GG6G4./,+C1 2'@

I4 #>@

6DIdentities.J305'0.JL0J,

./..C9F>'6<>

6DPublic AnthropologistTJ3.5',*0",0)

A./,+C@'

DEuropean Law Journal .*305'*)0"J/0

84A"6./,+C@stimmung: 

A2DHAU: Journal of Ethnographic Theory

+3*5',/0",*0

./..C3!5><'?=

>>DJournal of Contemporary

Ethnography 0,3.5',)+L...

I./,+C!4-1#2

ADSocial Inclusion03*5'*(LJ(

<<.//;5C%DTQualitative

research in psychologyT*3.5'++",/,

84-./,(C@> 4@

'@DJournal of Ethnic and Migration StudiesJJ3,*5'.,;*L

.,(,

EU././C<FD=Humanitarianism: Keywords

9!G..JL..;G'

./,;C@=6F'@

4!DHistory and Anthropology.+3J5'*)*LJ,/

F./,)C@D

American Ethnologist J;3*5'.;,L.+0

8./,+C>9 1 2DPRIO Policy Brief.

-< 89G<./,)Policing Humanitarianism:

EU Policies against Human Smuggling and Their Impact on Civil Society.G'

4

8,))+Heat of the Hearth: The Process of Kinship in a Malay Fishing Community.

?'4

G./,*The Ironic Spectator: Solidarity in the Age of Post-Humanitarianism

'44

!<!4.//JAnthropology in the Margins of the State. -6'-

9>4

!A35./,+The borders of “Europe”: Autonomy of Migration, Tactics of

Bordering!'!%4

!4!./,(Solidarity Mobilizations in the “refugee crisis”: Contentious Moves.

'4  

F./,0C64'>GRDCurrent

Anthropology 0;3,,5',*+",J0

6!./,.Humanitarian Reason: A Moral History of the Present.'%

4

6!./,;6'K.The Nation, 09

./,;9./8./..'VVVVV"

""V

69" 9-./,)C9'A=

!FDThird World QuarterlyJ/3,/5',+;)L,+(/

6 G435./,)Refugee Protection and Civil Society in

EuropeG'4  

A=./,,Current Anthropology 0.3J5' 0*+"000

A .//;C=I'@>!>

"D=Neo-nationalism in Europe and beyond:

Perspectives from Social Anthropology9A ;)L),

O'

F./,0Ethnography for the Internet: Embedded, Embodied and Everyday.G'

4

F-.//*CI'@G@&@9

6DJournal of the Royal Anthropological Institute)3*5'J;0LJ(J

=9=-./..C#H@44

9F=>A?DVoluntas: International

Journal of Voluntary and Nonprofit Organizations **3.5: *)+LJ/+

8 A./.,C =1F2'@<

=>DInternational Migration0)3*5',,*L,.J

8 A4./.,Citizen Humanitarianism at European Borders

G'>

G-./,(C91I942H=-

I9%DJournal of the Royal Anthropological Institute.J3.5'

.0;L.+J

G./,0The Need to Help: The Domestic Arts of International Humanitarianism

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Social DynamicsJ.3.5'./0L.,+

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-ID=The Cultural Analysis of Kinship: The Legacy of David. M

Schneider, >6 ?,*,",;+'%

=4

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9D=Citizen Humanitarianism at European

Borders A84,+L*JG'>

F./.,Humanitarian Shame and Cosmopolitan Nationalism: Norwegian

Volunteers at Home and Abroad3!%5

=IF8F-G./,(CI=>'

=6D=Kinship in International RelationsI

F=,L./G'>

?9-./,(C#2-H9 9"4#

D9.*8./..

'VVV"VV./,(V/0V9""W"

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DTSecurity Dialogue0.')(",/;

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D365

>@./..C9 44

!?DTTJournal of Contemporary Ethnography,"..

>@FF./.,C!=F

'9>&9-DJournal of Ethnic and

Migration Studies',L,(

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92D=Feminism and Kinship Theory-O8

,,)L,*,-'-%4

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9-DMobilization: an International Quarterly,)3.5',;0L,(J

>I./,+C-'

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- ./,*What Kinship Is-And Is Not.'%4

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8>DJournal of Ethnic and Migration StudiesJJ3,5';0L

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GA.+,L*,*%'%=4

-GI>./.,C9G'A">

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 A84G'>,+(",).

-=./,)C-><A'

@4%K>HDSocial Inclusion+3.5',.(L

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International Quarterly (*3.5'.00".+,

<>./,)C-F'>>-

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Ethnic and Racial Studies ISSN: (Print) ( Homeless or refugee? Civil Society Actors and the (un)making of internal borders in an Italian frontier town Homeless or refugee? Civil Society Actors and the (un)making of internal borders in an Italian frontier town

Article

Full-text available

May 2024
ETHNIC RACIAL STUD

Migrants’ access to the national territory is filtered through categorisation processes that entangle the legal–administrative statuses produced by immigration controls with stratified access to social and political rights, representing a form of internal bordering. Drawing upon qualitative data on Civil Society Actors (CSAs) who provide services to homeless migrants in an Italian frontier town, this article identifies two main types of practices that can be used by CSAs to reshape internal borders: either de-institutionalising internal borders through the circulation of non-state resources or engaging with institutionalised internal borders by expanding or ensuring migrants’ access to state resources through a mix of cooperation and conflict with governmental actors. The article contributes to the broader debate on the role of CSAs in drawing internal borders in frontier towns and discusses the policy implications of CSAs’ actions at the local level and beyond

A Hierarchy of Refugees: Fixing Vulnerability among Refugees from Mali in Burkina Faso

Article

Full-text available

Oct 2022

Nora Bardelli

This article discusses the pragmatic dimension humanitarian classifications and discourses play in hierarchical and discriminatory practices taking place in the refugee regime. It does so by focusing on the notion of “vulnerability,” very much used in contemporary humanitarianism. The paper deconstructs the two main uses/understandings of this notion: its use as a humanitarian tool to categorize those most in need among the humanitarian beneficiaries – i.e. its use to categorize “people with specific needs;” and its “unofficial” use by humanitarian workers. In addition to being both limited and stereotyped, they are further in contradictions with each other; yet, they both ultimately reproduce hierarchies and inequalities among refugees from Mali. Eventually, performing the ideal, vulnerable refugee becomes impossible for urban refugees in Burkina Faso, and most other refugees too, thus making it harder for them to be perceived as legitimate refugees in the eyes of the humanitarian community.

(De)constructing Refugee Vulnerability: Overcoming Institutional Barriers to Ethnographic Research With Refugee Communities

Article

Full-text available

Apr 2022
J CONTEMP ETHNOGR

Bronwyn Bragg

Drawn from 18-months of ethnographic research with resettled refugees living in a mini-enclave in one Canadian city, this article explores what ethnography offers research with resettled refugees. By interrogating the process of securing ethics approval from the Research Ethics Board (REB), I examine the figure of the refugee at the heart of liberal projects aimed at "saving" refugees. I demonstrate that the REB's reluctance to approve this project stemmed not only from conventional bureaucratic overreach related to ethnographic research but also from an unexamined and problematic idea of what it means to be a refugee. I discuss the gaps between institutionally perceived forms of vulnerability and the actual vulnerabilities that shape life for refugee women. I argue that vulnerability and risk must be understood as contextual and contingent, rather than inherent. Second, I explore the implications of positioning refugees as always already vulnerable on research practice and the value that ethnography offers for overcoming these blind spots.

Saving the souls of white folk: Humanitarianism as white supremacy

Article

Full-text available

Nov 2021
SECUR DIALOGUE

Polly Pallister-Wilkins

Diverging interpretations of humanitarian exceptions: assisting rejected asylum seekers in Norway Diverging interpretations of humanitarian exceptions: assisting rejected asylum seekers in Norway

Article

Full-text available

Aug 2021

This study explores the tension between regulations aimed at hindering the mobility of irregular migrants in Europe and the individuals who identify with humanitarian ideals and assist rejected asylum seekers. Drawing on legal document analysis and qualitative interviews with individuals who have supported rejected asylum seekers from Afghanistan, this study analyses how the term 'humanitarian assistance' is interpreted both legally and socially in the Norwegian context. Although Norway has implemented a humanitarian exception from criminal liability for humanitarian assistance to irregular migrants, the concept of humanitarian assistance is narrowly interpreted as life-saving assistance provided by publicly known formal organisations. This is in contrast with the broader understanding of humanitarian assistance maintained by the respondents, who understand the term as support beyond mere physical survival and which includes upholding human rights. It is shown that even though respondents align themselves with international human rights and humanitarian motives, they might still be prosecuted by the EU and national legislation. It is argued that the criminalisation of acts that are commonly deemed as morally right and humanitarian challenges fundamental principles of the use of punishment as a tool to prohibit harm in society. ARTICLE HISTORY

Refugees’ Transnational Livelihoods and Remittances: Syrian Mobilities in the Middle East Before and After 2011

Article

Full-text available

Jul 2021

Ann-Christin Zuntz

Pursuing an ethnographic approach, this article explores how Syrians’ pre-war kinship-based networks have oriented livelihoods strategies for refugees in Jordan after 2011. Drawing on long-term fieldwork (2015–2017) in northern Jordan, I argue that seasonal migration was a livelihoods strategy for Syria’s rural poor long before 2011, serving as their old-age provision and contributing to rural development. Since 2011, conflict-induced displacement and border closures have reshaped Syrians’ transnational kinship-based networks: geographically, but also with regard to the diversification of sources of income and gendered responsibilities. In Jordan, Syrian refugees mobilize pre-war transnational ties to access jobs in agriculture and the humanitarian sector, and distribute their income through kinship-based cross-border networks. These ethnographic findings challenge a localized understanding of refugee livelihoods, demonstrating that the household economies of refugees, migrants, and those left behind, in Syria, Jordan, the Gulf countries, and now Europe, are intertwined. In closing, I provide recommendations about how a networked understanding of refugee livelihoods can inform the COVID-19 emergency response, and help create decent jobs for displaced people in the Global South.

Who Needs the Experts? The Politics and Practices of Alternative Humanitarianism and Its Relationship to NGOs

Article

Full-text available

May 2021

Drawing on fieldwork in Greece, we examine the politics and practices of autonomous volunteering in the context of the migration crisis. This involves individuals engaging in activities to support migrants through non-registered, self-organized and self-governed groups that work independent from and in some cases, even in opposition to NGOs. We consider autonomous volunteering as a form of collective action and argue that it constitutes an alternative humanitarianism . While recent literature has sought to identify the rise of emergent practices of alternative humanitarianism in Europe, research has often overlooked how autonomous volunteers distinguish themselves from, relate to and collaborate with NGOs and conversely, how NGOs view and engage with them. We found that despite their critiques of NGOs and their determination to work independently, there were instances of cooperation between autonomous volunteers and NGOs. These interactions did not become substantive alliances, as the work of NGOs and autonomous volunteers continued to be disconnected from each other.

The heat Of the hearth: The Process Of Kinship In A Malay Fishing Community

Book

Oct 2023

Janet Carsten

Janet Carsten offers a vivid and original investigation of the nature of kinship in Malaysia, based upon her own experience of life as a foster daughter in a family on the island of Langkawi. Kinship relations are crucial to personal and social identity, and in Malay culture identity is mutable and fluid: it is given at birth through ties of procreation, but it is also acquired throughout life by living together and sharing food. The author shows that the heat of the hearth is not only necessary for cooking and sharing food, but central to domestic life, including childbirth and reproduction. Kinship is a process not a state; people become kin largely through the everyday actions of women in and between households. The incorporation and assimilation of newcomers--`making kinship'--is central to the social reproduction of the village communities; domestic life is thus central to the political process. Janet Carsten gives the reader a fascinating `anthropology of everyday life', including a compelling view of gender relations; she urges reassessment of recent anthropological work on gender, and a new approach to the study of kinship.

Humanitarian shame and cosmopolitan nationalism: Norwegian volunteers at home and abroad

Thesis

Sep 2021

Heidi Mogstad

Following the so-called refugee crisis unfolding on the Greek islands in 2015, a multitude of citizen-led agencies emerged to mitigate or contest the EU’s policies of securitisation and containment. This dissertation explores the trajectory of one of these initiatives: a Norwegian humanitarian volunteer organisation Dråpen i Havet (A Drop in the Ocean, DiH). Established by a mother-of-five with no prior experience in humanitarian or social work, DiH aspires to “make it easy” for ordinary people to help refugees in Greece, but has undergone a process of partial professionalisation, leading to larger responsibilities inside and outside Greek refugee camps. The organisation also tries to scale up their acts of care and hospitality to the Norwegian state and to influence co-nationals who do not share their humanitarian sensibilities. The dissertation is based on 18 months of ethnographic fieldwork in Greece and Norway. Chapter 1 discusses the emergence of a new humanitarian geography and the rise of “Fortress Europe.” Chapter 2 and 3 trace DiH’s trajectory from spontaneous volunteering to “NGOization” and explore the organisation’s shifting and contested efforts to “fill humanitarian gaps” on Europe’s southern border. Chapters 4 and 5 examine DiH’s widespread appeal amongst Norwegian citizens and the organisation’s vision of volunteering as a transformative experience. These chapters also explore volunteers’ pathways to help refugees in Greece and ambivalent experiences of returning home and negotiating different worlds and relationships. Chapter 6 analyses DiH’s political turn and efforts to witness and mobilise for more inclusive asylum policies and positive public orientations towards refugees in Norway. The conclusion discusses the redemptive potential of volunteering. Taken together, the chapters challenge enduring representations of humanitarian actors and volunteers as “rootless cosmopolitans” or “transnationals” motivated by either selfish or altruistic concerns to help distant strangers. Conversely, the dissertation shows that DiH staff and volunteers felt deeply ashamed by Norwegian affluence and their government’s restrictive asylum policies and increasingly worried over the moral health and future of the Norwegian state and society. The dissertation argues that DiH staff and volunteers can be understood as “cosmopolitan nationalists,” called to help as indignant and ashamed Norwegian citizens and mobilising against what they perceive as an illicit, inward-looking nationalism. Drawing on feminist and anthropological work on the politics of affect, the dissertation analyses shame (skam) as both culturally and politically contingent, expressed on personal and collective levels and simultaneously on behalf of and against the nation. Contrary to popular and scholarly assumptions, DiH staff and volunteers experience shame as largely productive and self-affirming. However, the dissertation argues that its political force is hampered by its reliance upon (and reproduction of) a sanitised and romanticising national narrative. While primarily a contribution to the study of humanitarianism, nationalism and border politics, the dissertation addresses anthropological and philosophical debates on ethics, affect, cosmopolitanism and liberalism. It further provides windows into changing and increasingly fragmented and hostile humanitarian and political landscapes on the fringes of Europe. Analysing volunteers’ post-utopian and redemptive aspirations, the dissertation identifies “sticky attachments” to national and humanitarian frames and imaginaries yet also some cracks and openings.

Approaching Biographical Life: Grassroots Humanitarianism in Europe

Chapter