Abstract
Mainstream studies of forced migration often commit one fundamental fallacy, argue Arar and FitzGerald in The Refugee System: A Sociological Approach, their book on the origins and consequences of forced migration. The fallacy is to analyze forced migration in “siloes,” thus obscuring the interconnectedness of migration stages and their historical, political, economic, and geographical context. As a remedy, the authors develop a systems approach to “examine the interplay among individuals and much larger institutions and historical forces” (p. 18) vis-à-vis forced migration. The approach is inspired by Aristide Zolberg, Suhrke and Aguayo's (1989) seminal work Escape from Violence, which was among those starting conversations on the transnational nature of refugee flows and the influence of state policies upon them. Arar and FitzGerald go further by combining the analysis of states’ and international institutions’ policies with refugees’ decision-making across histories and geographies. The authors showcase how top-down and bottom-up processes shape one another by drawing on an impressive array of literature alongside the longitudinal qualitative case study of a Syrian family.
The Refugee System consists of 8 chapters and a conclusion, calling for a more contextualized and nuanced analysis in refugee and migration studies. Chapter 1 introduces the advantages of their systems approach in contrast to “siloed” studies, wrongly employed by policymakers and academics. They then explore definitions of refugees, calling to distinguish “categories of practice” as employed by international institutions from “categories of analysis” (chapter 2) before outlining the historical construction of the refugee regime (chapter 3). Chapter 4 focuses on a bottom-up perspective, allowing reflections on forced migrants’ agency: Drawing on Oded Stark's (1991) framework of the “new economics of labor migration,” the authors demonstrate how migration decisions are made on a household level to distribute risks and opportunities. Chapters 5 through 7 pertain to state policies’ influence on migration: Chapter 5 examines which state goals are attached to the state of origin's exit policies, ranging from denying its population's flight to promoting it; Chapter 6 unpacks various forms of hosting forced migrants in Global Southern states before chapter 7 turns to the increased power of Global Northern states, allowing them to regulate admissions into their territories. Continuing with a focus on migrants’ perspectives, chapter 8 explores how forced migrants use and shape transnationalism and diaspora networks under governmental constraints.
Three contributions set the book apart: First, it challenges binary thinking by questioning the artificial analytical differentiation between refugees and other migrants as well as between states based on their geographic location and formal adherence to the 1951 Convention. Various migrant-typologies are unpacked based on the degree of movement and experience of coercion, resulting in an “(im)mobility chessboard” (p. 42), with typologies ranging from migrants within their state of origin to those killed upon return. Their work also challenges understanding migration management in the Global North and South as unrelated processes, highlighting how one state's policies affect migration in another due to the system's feedback effects. Moreover, they warn researchers against adopting international institutions’ categorizations when analyzing states’ migration policies: If, for example, scholars were to read “non-signatories of the 1951 Refugee Convention” as states not hosting refugees, it would obscure analysis of states hosting forced migrants through different means, e.g. non-signatory Saudi Arabia hosting Syrians as visitors.
Secondly, The Refugee System moves away from euro-centric perspectives common in migration studies. When detailing the Refugee Regime's history, the authors utilize non-European examples pre-Convention, challenging ideas that refugee management practices only arose in Europe due to post-World War refugees. The authors further de-essentialize the Global South, detailing how Northern states have determined whether to host refugees based on state goals, not humanitarian practices, for which Southern states are criticized. Thirdly, they address the question of migrants’ agency by unpacking their decision-making. In contrast to studies that often focus on how state policies impact migrants’ decisions, the authors demonstrate how migrants shape policies.
However, the approach proposed in The Refugee System raises one central question: How should academics employ the systems approach in their work? My primary critique is that the book itself does not offer a straightforward answer: In fact, the necessary breadth required for analyses considering all factors shaping migration flows requires sacrificing the equally crucial analytical depth. Thus, readers need practical advice on how the systems approach should inform academic work. Rather than attempting to employ a systems approach in its entirety, researchers should understand it as a call for action, a warning of oversimplifying their analyses and categorizations—encouraging them to think more broadly about contextualizing their work. Successfully implemented, this understanding turns the book's biggest weakness into its biggest strength. The Refugee System will interest readers with sociology, political sciences, migration, and area studies backgrounds. For students, the book's entirety or individual chapters can serve as a comprehensive literature review of the field's significant debates. Moreover, due to its analytical contributions, seasoned scholars and practitioners will find it equally insightful.