Description
This paper will explore the 2015 so-called refugee ‘crisis’ from a postcolonial perspective dealing with what has been referred to as counter migration – not from Europe, but into Europe. It engages with the idea that international relations are related to aspects that can be globally postcolonial. The fact that the world is divided into two spheres and judged accordingly, means that colonial legacies are taking new forms. One of these forms is othering in dealing with refugees/asylum seekers, translated into the connotation of “politics of exclusion”.
The politics of exclusion will be shown through the clash between the nation-state and multiculturalism, exploring how Homi Bhabha’s notion of hybridity can fit into the context of the” refugee crisis”. It argues that a refugee is someone forcibly placed between two spaces and othered in both spaces.
The European Union as a body will be taken as an example to demonstrate the failure in dealing with a so-called refugee crisis that lead to othering, by putting more people under the label of the threat to national security and identity.
It is important to address these terms together to get a better understanding of refugee studies and the legacies of the past in international relations.
