The Border Harms of Human Displacement: Harsh Landscapes and Human Rights Violations

Suzan Ilcan
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Suzan Ilcan: Department of Sociology and Legal Studies, University of Waterloo, Waterloo, ON N2L 3G1, Canada

Social Sciences, 2021, vol. 10, issue 4, 1-16

Abstract: Building on the work of critical migration and border studies, particularly the scholarship on the suffering of displaced people through border-related violence, the article focuses on bordering practices and human rights violations relating to the Syrian civil war. It advances the argument that during peoples’ fragmented journeys to seek safety and protection within and outside of Syria, which are often punctuated by stops and starts, they encounter one or more of three kinds of bordering practices—hardening of borders, expansion of borders, and pushbacks—that can injure them and violate international human rights and often the principle of non-refoulement. The article refers to these encounters as the “border harms of human displacement”. The analysis emphasizes the experiences of people on the move and the cruelties and spatial violence they endure. The latter include lengthy periods of walking and running, travel across hazardous lands and seas, family separation, state restrictions, and mistreatment by border authorities. Yet, in response to such difficulties, they continue to assert their agency by negotiating bordering practices and harsh landscapes.

Keywords: human displacement; human rights; border harm; spatial violence; migrant journeys; Syrian civil conflict (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: A B N P Y80 Z00 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2021
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

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