Status Eligibilities: The Eligibility to Exist and Authority to Act in Refugee–Host Relations

Abstract This study of refugee resettlement contributes a novel conceptual framework to the sociology of forced migration. Drawing on interviews with Syrian refugees in their first year of resettlement in Ontario, Canada, we demonstrate how successful sponsorship counters the “non-person” status associated with refugee recognition. During displacement, refugees mobilize their pre-conflict roles to secure self-rescue against forces of conflict. During resettlement, refugees assert their eligibility to exist and authority to act as “persons” in a reception context that challenges the normative authority of their pre-conflict social roles. Refugee–host interactions that affirm pre-conflict social roles provide the basis for shared trust and enhance the experience of resettlement, confirming statuses which counter the structural violence of refugee role confinement.