Refugees and others enduring displacement: Structural injustice, health, and ethical placemaking

As states persist in conceiving of asylum as a privilege rather than an entitlement, vast numbers of people displaced by conflict, disaster, famine, and dire poverty continue to dwell over long periods of time in conditions of isolation and severe deprivation.In this paper we contribute to the argument that long-term displacementthe fact of it and its management in settings such as refugee camps-is a manifestation of and perpetuates global structural injustice.Along with others we argue that the systems and processes established for addressing displacement: 1) profoundly undermine equal opportunity; 2) contribute to a loss of political community, identity, and agency among displaced people; and 3) obscure privilege from the privileged.All three effects can result in long-term consequences for the displaced population and host societies.We argue that this expansion of opportunities for some and constraint for others constitutes structural injustice on a global scale due to migration movements in and in between countries.The account we offer is distinctive for it foregrounds the significance of place in the processes through which structural injustice is unfurled against migrants, asylum-seekers and refugees living in conditions of long-term displacement.At the center of our analysis is a conception of people as ecological subjects, for whom placeunderstood as more than spatial locationis a key determinant of global structural justice, as it shapes (enables or constrains) people's experience, identity, health, and capabilities.We argue the ideal and practice of ethical place-making (EPM) has rich potential to respond to structural and global injustice in this context.EPM, understood here as a remedial responsibility, can mitigate the harms of encampment and segregation in urban enclaves.At the same time, it can serve as a catalyst in reforming the structures and processes that generate injustices and in forging ties of solidarity.We conclude by clarifying the way that ecological subjectivity grounds responsibilities of justice to displaced people.we thus have responsibilities of justice to asylum-seekers and other migrants in the immediate and long-term.Drawing on Iris M. Young's (2000) account of the structural injustice of segregation, work by Hannah Arendt, Serena Parekh, and Kelly Oliver on the plight of refugees and asylum-seekers, and the anthropological research of Michel Agier and others on camp settings and informal settlements, here we add to the understanding of the injustice of chronic displacement and encampment (and the like) and offer a partial remedy.We argue that prevailing conditions: contribute to a loss of political community and identity; radically threaten agency and equal opportunity; and obscure privilege from the privileged.We further maintain that structural injustice in this context involves the moral experience of a loss of place and, then, implacement in inhospitable, deprived, and depraved environs for protracted periods.More responsible, more just, policy and planning around displacement should organize around a conception of people as ecological subjects.We describe these responsibilities in terms of the ideal and practice of ethical place-making, an essential element of an enabling, or capabilities-oriented, conception of justice (Eckenwiler, 2012; 2016).Grounded in an ecological conception of persons, ethical place-making (EPM) sees people as embedded socially and spatially, and enmeshed in structural injustice.It takes account of the ways in which asylum-seekers and others enduring long-term displacement are situated in asymmetrical social, political, and economic structures and relations of power that have contributed to their being uprooted, and that make the current conditions in which they dwell not just unsustainable, but hostile.Constructively, it facilitates the formulation of an account of what ecological subjects generally and refugees particularly need to flourish and to be treated fairly as they await settlement (and eventually within a new given society)a process from which all benefit on our account.Presented here as a remedial responsibility, EPM has the potential to mitigate some of the harms of encampment and, at the same time, serve as a catalyst in advancing global structural justice.From the perspective of policy making around refugee reception and resettlement, ethical place-making should serve as a guiding ideal and a principle for the policies and practices of international institutions, states, local government, and civil society. The Systems for Asylum, Refugee Management, and SegregationFrom the international moral consensus that people fleeing their states or otherwise displaced should be protected and assisted came the moral triumphs of the UN Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees and the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR, 1951).The Convention's principle of non-refoulement holds that a state cannot deport [is obligated to welcome] any person who meets these criteria.The Convention also commits states to treating them in a way that is "as favourable as possible".These two pillars-one strikingly vague-stand as the international community's ethical commitments.There is no obligation for states to assist other states in supporting refugees.While the Refugee Convention covers people with a well-founded fear of being persecuted for reasons of race, religion, nationality, membership of a particular social group or political opinion, here we explicitly include all refugees, climate refugees, people fleeing disaster, armed conflict, famine, victims of trafficking, internally displaced persons (IDPs), and others suffering under long term displacement, particularly when lived out in camps or other isolated areas.Many displaced people fall outside the scope of the Convention, but are often protected under supplementary or other