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Social Science Refugees

Refugees Are (Not) Welcome Here

The Paradox of Protection in Canada

by (author) Azar Masoumi

Publisher
UBC Press
Initial publish date
Dec 2023
Category
Refugees, Immigration, Emigration & Immigration, Emigration & Immigration
  • Hardback

    ISBN
    9780774868716
    Publish Date
    Dec 2023
    List Price
    $99.00
  • eBook

    ISBN
    9780774868747
    Publish Date
    Dec 2023
    List Price
    $34.95
  • Paperback / softback

    ISBN
    9780774868723
    Publish Date
    Jul 2024
    List Price
    $34.95

Classroom Resources

Where to buy it

Description

State-controlled refugee protection in Canada has gone through paradoxical developments in recent decades. While refugee rights have expanded, access to these rights has tightened. Previously unrecognized groups – such as women experiencing gender-based violence and LGBT populations – are now considered legitimate refugees. Yet, the implementation of stringent administrative measures has made it harder for refugees to secure protection. Refugees Are (Not) Welcome Here draws on archival and media sources, interviews, and organizational data to examine how refugee claims are administered within a complex and contradictory regime that maintains significant legal and bureaucratic silos. Azar Masoumi explains why state-controlled refugee protection persists despite its many failures, not only in Canada but globally. This rigorous study deftly argues that the paradoxical interplay between refugee law and claim-processing bureaucracies is symptomatic of a larger illogic: reliance on the exclusivist mechanisms of the nation-state to ensure the universal application of rights. Ultimately, this book illuminates just how this paradox has turned refugee protection into an unfulfilled promise.

About the author

Awards

  • Short-listed, W. Wesley Pue Book Prize, Canadian Law and Society Association/Association canadienne droit et société.

Contributor Notes

Azar Masoumi is an assistant professor in the Department of Sociology and Anthropology at Carleton University. She has been published in Canadian and international journals including Social and Legal Studies, Studies in Social Justice, Social Identities, Feminist Legal Studies, the Oñati Socio-Legal Series, and Social Justice: A Journal of Crime, Conflict, and World Order.