Journal articles on the topic 'Netherlands Emigration and immigration Government policy'

Since Poland joined the European Community, it has been transforming from a country of emigration into an emigration-immigration one. Year by year an increase of immigrants coming to Poland has been observed, which involves the Polish government and local authorities taking actions within the implementation of migration policy. The multifaceted processes of integration take place on the levels of linguistics, culture, education, and social activation aimed at combating social exclusion of this group of Polish inhabitants.

AbstractThis article attempts to put carrier sanctions policies in a broad perspective by looking at the immigration context, the rationale behind the policy, the changing character of borders and the regulatory environment of this policy. Carrier sanction legislation can be understood as a remote control instrument, which is supplementary to controls before and at the border and internal controls, whereby the concept of the border as a line between states is abandoned. The second part of the article focuses on the implementation of the carrier sanctions policy in the Netherlands. The Dutch government tries to overcome the principal-agent dilemma arising from involving a third party in enforcement, by installing a system of 'contiguous measures', both negative and positive, to stimulate carriers to perform controls on their passengers' documents. Responsibilities are imposed on carriers but the state, by using 'soft' and 'hard touch' legislation, remains in control.

Marriage migration has become the most common form of immigration from Turkey to the Netherlands. The Dutch government increasingly pursues restrictive admission policies for the immigration of partners from non-EU countries. This article shows that the tightened income and age restrictions were to some extent successful in limiting Turkish marriage migration. It is also demonstrated, however, that the power of the state to control this migration flow is constrained by two main factors: coping strategies of Turkish couples and international obligations, including the Association Agreement.

Purpose – How do economic prosperity, health expenditure, savings, price-stability, demographic change, democracy, corruption control, press freedom, government effectiveness, human development, foreign aid, physical security, trade openness and financial liberalization play-out in the fight against health-worker crisis when existing emigration levels matter? Despite the acute concern of health-worker crisis in Africa owing to emigration, lack of relevant data has made the subject matter empirically void over the last decades. The paper aims to discuss these issues. Design/methodology/approach – A quantile regression approach is used to assess the determinants of health-worker emigration throughout the conditional distributions of health-worker emigration. This provides an assessment of the determinants when existing emigrations levels matter. Findings – Findings provide a broad range of tools for the fight against health-worker brain-drain. As a policy implication, blanket emigration-control policies are unlikely to succeed equally across countries with different levels of emigration. Thus to be effective, immigration policies should be contingent on the prevailing levels of the crisis and tailored differently across countries with the best and worst records on fighting health-worker emigration. Originality/value – This paper has examined the theoretical postulations of a World Health Organization report on determinants of health-worker migration.

This article investigates how changes in immigration policies affect migration as a vote-defining issue at upcoming elections. So far, the literature on issue voting has mostly focused on the role of issue entrepreneurs in politicizing new issues. In this article, however, we introduce policy change as a new potential determinant in the process of issue evolution. Moreover, in contrast to most of the literature that investigates the role of policy outcomes (such as economic growth or unemployment) on voting decisions, we analyze the effect of laws which can be directly attributed to governments and political parties. We focus on within-country variation and analyze national election surveys from the Netherlands, Denmark, and Germany between 1994 and 2011. These surveys include information on both self- and party-placements regarding immigration issues. To measure policy changes, we use data on immigration policies from the newly built Immigration Policies in Comparison dataset. While we expect a general reform effect, we investigate in more detail whether liberal and restrictive reforms have a similar effect on votes for left/right, government/opposition parties. It is shown that both liberal and restrictive reforms lead to increasing issue voting. While we show that government parties are not more affected than opposition parties, we see that party ideology partly plays a role.

Abstract Subject and purpose of work: The article is devoted to factors influencing the migration decisions of young Poles to the Kingdom of the Netherlands, and to showing the differences in their perception of the country of emigration and the country of immigration. The elements of youth policy in Poland and the Netherlands were also presented. The hypothesis adopted in the paper was that the decisions of young people in the labor market are mainly influenced by short-term financial aspects. Materials and methods: The observations and assessments used in the article were formulated based on the research literature on the subject, the statistical data collected by the institutions of Poland, the Kingdom of the Netherlands and the European Union, a questionnaire survey and own experiences gained from mobility. Results: The article outlines the course of migration trends of Poles and presents the causes of changes in the choice of the destination country for migration. It presents factors encouraging young people to take up employment in the country and those encouraging them to search a job abroad, specifically in the Netherlands. The barriers and facilities that may be encountered by young people seeking employment in the labor market in both countries were indicated. The reasons for the emigration of young people from Poland were discussed based on the results of the current study, that is a 400-person research sample obtained from an online survey. The aim of the study was to identify three important factors influencing the decision to emigrate and to evaluate this decision. Conclusions: The conducted analysis shows the complexity of the problems of migration of young people. Economic, political, social, cultural, and environmental factors have a significant influence on the decisions made. From the point of view of young people, the unattractive domestic labor market in terms of finance and development, and all the resulting consequences are the biggest problems.

The paper presents the policy of the Young Turks and the attitude of the Government of the Kingdom of Serbia towards the emigration of Muhajirs from Bosnia and Herzegovina to the Ottoman Empire, and later their return to the homeland. The Serbian Government opposed the emigration of Muslims from Bosnia and Herzegovina to the Ottoman Empire and refused to provide assistance to those who moved to the area under the sovereignty of the Ottoman Porte. On the other hand, the Government of the Kingdom of Serbia supported and helped the movement of Muhajirs back to their homeland. For the purposes of writing this paper, we used primarily published and unpublished archival material of Serbian origin, the contemporary press, and relevant literature.

Purpose – Owing to lack of relevant data on health human resource (HHR) migration, the empirical dimension of the health-worker crisis debate has remained void despite abundant theoretical literature. A health worker crisis is growing in the world. Shortages in health professionals are reaching staggering levels in many parts of the globe. The paper aims to discuss these issues. Design/methodology/approach – A quantile regression approach is used to examine the determinants of health-worker emigration throughout the conditional distributions of health-worker emigration. This provides an investigation of the determinants when existing emigrations levels matter. The author assesses the determinants of emigration in the health sector through-out the conditional distribution of HHR emigration. Findings – The findings have been presented in two main strands: when existing emigration levels are low and when existing emigration levels are high. In the former case (when existing emigration levels are low), wealth-effects have the following implications. First, while economic prosperity is a good tool against nurse brain drain in middle income countries (MICs), health expenditure is a good instrument against physician brain drain in low income countries (LICs). Second, whereas positive demographic change fuels the problem in LICs, it mitigates the issue in their MIC counterparts. Third, savings, government-effectiveness, foreign-aid and inflationary pressures only accentuate the problem for both income groups. Fourth, corruption-control becomes a vital tool for emigration-control in both income-brackets. Fifth, while trade openness mitigates physician emigration in LICs, financial openness has the opposite effect on nurse emigration. In the latter case (when existing immigration levels are high), the following conclusions have been drawn. First, While economic prosperity fights nurse emigration only in LICs, savings is a tool against physician emigration only in their MIC counterparts. Second, health expenditure and inflationary pressures are relevant tools in the battle against physician resource flight. Third, whereas, government effectiveness is an important policy measure for mitigating emigration in LICs, human development plays a similar role in MICs. Fourth, democracy, press-freedom, foreign-aid and financial openness fuel emigration in either income strata. Fifth, population growth and trade openness are important tools in the fight against brain-drain. Sixth, the HIV infection rate is a deterrent only to nurse emigration. Originality/value – This paper complements existing literature by empirically investigating the World Health Organization hypothetical determinants of health-worker migration in the context of globalization when income-levels matter. In plainer terms, the work explores how the wealth of exporting countries play-out in the determinants of HHR emigration.

The aim of this paper is to consider measures that contribute to the regulation of temporary and circular migration, as well as reintegration in the countries of the Western Balkans, which have long faced numerous and diverse challenges of labor emigration. Immediately after the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic, a large number of migrant workers returned to the countries of the Western Balkans. Migrant workers, especially those who are staying abroad temporarily, have faced sudden and numerous migration challenges, but they also want to return to work abroad as soon as the conditions are met. Therefore, in order to improve the position and protect the rights of international migrants as efficiently as possible in the future, it is necessary to develop measures that can complement the activities of the Western Balkan countries to regulate and encourage temporary and circular migration, as well as reintegration of migrant workers upon return. This is particularly important in the context of the complex challenges posed by the COVID-19 pandemic, as the contribution of both highly-skilled and low-skilled foreign workers has been shown to be an integral part of the sustainability of the state system in immigration countries. They will increasingly direct immigration policies towards measures to attract the necessary foreign workers. Therefore, emigration countries should work on improving legislation, developing inter-institutional cooperation and strengthening the capacity of actors at both national and local levels of government and building an approach that includes cooperation of whole of government approach, including the scientific and civil sector. After the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic, it was shown that migration policy should rapidly develop measures that reduce the costs and negative effects of migration to the lowest possible level, both for migrants and their families who often remain in the country of origin.

This article is devoted to the relationship between interwar Ukrainian political emigrants and local authorities in the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes (Yugoslavia). A comparative analysis of the attitude of the Yugoslav authorities towards Russian and Ukrainian emigrants was conducted. The Russophilia of Yugoslav authorities, who viewed the Ukrainian question through the lense of the Russian emigrants, was described. The idea of Pan-Slavism had been spreading in the Balkans for a long time, which facilitated the legitimization of friendly relations between the southern Slavs (primarily Serbs) and Russians, whom Serbs considered as protectors from the Ottoman and Austro-Hungarian Empires. Yugoslavia sided with the anti-Bolshevik White Movement, an ally of the Entente, which had a positive impact on the situation of Russian emigrants. The young state was in need of professionals with a good command of foreign languages and European culture. Many emigrants met those requirements. Therefore, in the early 1920s, several thousands of emigrants worked in the public service. The reigning Karadjordjević dynasty had marital ties with the Romanov dynasty. A former Russian diplomat was among advisers to the king and the head of government. The immigration from the former Russian Empire was addressed by the Royal Court as well as several ministries and central government institutions. Direct support to the immigrants was provided by the State Commission for Assistance to Russian Refugees. Yugoslavia was a center of political and religious immigration for Russians and a provincial center for Ukrainian emigration. It is concluded that the Yugoslav authorities did not distinguish Ukrainians from Russian emigrants, therefore, any specific policy towards them was not carried out. The degree of interaction of Ukrainian emigrants with local authorities in Yugoslavia varied geographically (Slovenia and Croatia, on the one hand, and Serbia and Macedonia, on the other) and in time (in the first half of the 1920s and from the mid-1920s until the beginning of World War II). Keywords: authorities, emigration, Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes, Yugoslavia.

Foreign-born population in Slovakia has been growing steadily over recent years. Since 2018, foreigners from the so-called third countries have become dominant within the immigrant population. The migration crisis due to the Pandemic seems not affected the patterns of migration to Slovakia. We would argue that the need in Slovakia‘s domestic labour market affected immigration flows more than anything else. Before the outbreak of the COVID-19 Pandemic, due to emigration flows, there was a shortage of labour in the country. However, as a result of the restrictive measures taken by the government in response to the Pandemic, changes are taking place, which also has an impact on the employment of foreigners. During the Pandemic, several laws regulating the legal status of foreigners in the Slovak Republic have been amended. This article focuses on the legislative developments in shaping the Slovak migration policy in the near future.

Agreement of Democratic Parties in the Years 1948-1950 – an Attempt to Consolidate the Milieu of Polish Political Immigration After his arrival to London in 1947, Stanisław Mikołajczyk undertook endeavors to form a national committee, which would be a projection of the World War II quadruple agreement, which brought together Polish Peasant Party (Polskie Stronnictwo Ludowe), Polish Socialist Party (Polska Partia Socjalistyczna), Labor Party (Stronnictwo Pracy) and National Party (Stronnictwo Narodowe). The creation of the Agreement of Democratic Parties was to be the initial step towards the future cooperation and functioning. Yet the National Party was not interested in such cooperation and the Agreement turned out to be a weak entity, unable to conduct active policy among Polish emigration. Differences between parties proved to be too big a barrier, among others regarding the question of the legality of Polish government in exile. The final blow to Mikołajczyk’s concept was the creation of Political Council by National Party, Polish Socialist Party and the Polish Liberty Movement “Independence and Democracy” (Polski Ruch Wolnościowy „Niepodległość i Demokracja”).

The success of anti-immigration parties (AIPs) in many European democracies poses a strategic problem for established actors: Immediate policy impact of AIPs can be averted by ostracizing them (i.e. refusing any cooperation), but this strategy may sway public opinion further in their favour. A comparative review shows large variation in the electoral trajectories of ostracized parties. We therefore propose a model of the context conditions that shape the repercussions of ostracism in public opinion. Under conditions that suggest substantial policy impact of an AIP were it to join a coalition government, ostracism should decrease the party’s electoral support. Vice versa, if context suggests strong “signaling” potential of an AIP if in opposition, ostracism should increase its support. To avoid apparent endogeneity of political context and party competition, the model is tested with a survey-embedded experiment on a representative sample from the Netherlands. Results confirm that ostracism is a double-edged strategy.

International labor migration is one of the most important elements of the modern global economy. Amid growing knowledge economy, migration of highly skilled specialists plays an increasingly important role. For Israel, as an immigrant society, migration issues have been of paramount importance since the early days of the independent state. However, in the first decades the discussion focused mainly around the influence of immigrants on the economic development of the country and identification of the most effective ways to adapt immigrants. At present, the Israeli economic model is built in such a way that the institutions of the knowledge economy are at its core, that requires a significant amount of labor with an appropriate level of skills. At the same time, today Israel witnesses emigration of such specialists, mainly to the United States. This paper is devoted to the analysis of the current situation. The article substantiates the relevance of the chosen topic not only for Israel, but also for other economically developed countries and gives a brief bibliographic review in the field. Next, the author analyzes the tendencies of high skilled work force immigration to Israel at the present stage through the analysis of the supply and demand in the country's labor market in the high-tech sector and assessment of the government programs created to attract foreign non-Jewish specialists to the country which appear to be not effective. The article also deals with the problems of emigration of high skilled workers from Israel. An overview of the magnitude of the phenomenon is given based on international comparisons; main reasons of the trend are identified and analyzed; government programs for the return of compatriots are assessed. It is argued that Israel should pursue a more effective policy to attract highly skilled non-Jewish immigrants into the country, which will fully realize the existing positive externalities and dampen the problem of brain drain.

In recent years, the issues of integration – related on the one hand to people referred to as foreigners, immigrants, newcomers, etc. – and on the other hand to host societies – have been gaining importance in the Central and Eastern European (CEE) countries, including Poland. Before the political and socio-economic transformation at the turn of the 1980s and the 1990s, it was a country relatively closed to international migration. Only in the early 1990s did it open up to migration fl ows. That was also the time when the state’s policy in this area had been gradually emerging. The preparations for EU membership enforced the process of developing a national migration policy. Poland’s accession to the EU in 2004 and to the Schengen zone in 2007 saw its full involvement in EU migration governance in terms of internal and external policies, and thus the further europeanisation of national law, public policy, and practices in the field of migration management. Recent years have seen a change in Poland’s migration status, which has now become an emigration-immigration state, and the near future may bring about its transition into a new immigration state, especially in connection with the influx of large numbers of forced migrants from Ukraine since the end of February 2022. At the time of writing, that is mid-2022, Poland does not have a formalised integration policy at the central level. National law provides integration measures only for benefi ciaries of international protection (persons with refugee status and subsidiary protection), which concerns a very small group of foreigners. However, the last two decades have seen increased involvement at the local government level (especially in cities) in integration. This is a process taking place in local communities with the support of other actors such as NGOs, informal associations, or universities. One such example is Warsaw, the capital of Poland, where the largest number of migrants, both voluntary and forced, live. This paper aims to explore the selected practices undertaken by some of Warsaw’s municipal institutions and offi ces, which can be treated as an important part of the local integration policy and which could be a role model for other cities less experienced in immigrant integration.

Este artículo se pregunta si: ¿la política migratoria restrictiva elaborada y puesta en marcha por el gobierno francés, a través de la aceleración de las salidas y de la reducción de las entradas, que pretende reducir el número de inmigrantes y favorecer une inmigración de trabajo tratando de atraer a los más cualificados, permitirá hacer frente a los nuevos retos impuestos por el envejecimiento de la población, el aumento de la mortalidad y la disminución de la población activa? Defendemos la hipótesis según la cual, esta política carece de sentido en un contexto caracterizado por un bajo saldo migratorio, porque la llegada continua pero reducida de inmigrantes no compensa el envejecimiento de la población, provocará una falta de mano de obra, un declive de la actividad económica y una crisis del sistema de pensiones, por el aumento de los jubilados y el descenso de la población activa. Más allá, se repercutirá tanto en el crecimiento económico como en el Estado de Bienestar. A pesar de estos datos, el gobierno francés se empeña en aplicar su política de inmigración en razón de las ideas de los gobernantes, de la presión de la extrema derecha y de la visión cortoplazista de los cargos electos.This article asks whether the restrictive policy on migration drawn up and implemented by the French government speeding up emigration and reducing immigration in an effort to reduce the number of immigrants and encourage an immigrant workforce, in an attempt to attract more skilled workers, will enable them to overcome the new challenges imposed by the ageing of the population, the increase in the mortality rate and the reduction of the active population.We defend the hypothesis that this policy does not make any sense in a context characterised by a low balance of migration, because the constant albeit reduced stream of immigrants arriving in the country is no compensation for the ageing population. It will lead to a lack of manpower, a decline in economic activity and a crisis in the pension system, because of the increase in the number of pensioners and the slump in the active population. Beyond that, it will have repercussions on both economic growth and on the Welfare State. Despite these facts, the French government is set on applying its policy on immigration in line with the ideas of the people in power, of the pressure from the extreme right and of the short-term view of the politicians.

Incorporating Muslim Migrants in the West: The French Model of IntegrationThe Muslim emigration to France is connected with many social, religious and political problems. The worshippers of Islam were admitted to settle, but not to integrate with French society and the national economy. Although, according to the French scheme of integration, all people are equal before the law and it is unlawful to emphasise differences, life in France does not reflect the Republican idea any more, and instead of creating the French nation as one community, a multicultural society unable to assimilate newcomers is being born.There are numerous stereotypes in French society that push aside Algerians and Moroccans, especially those living in the suburbs, and put them in conflict with the French legal system. This approach should change and the French must cease perceiving Muslims as strangers and realise they are lawful citizens, an inseparable part of their everyday life. The successive generations of Muslim immigrants should no longer be pushed to the margins of social life because of their ethnic origin, name, religion, and culture.The violent riots in France in 2005 and 2007, however, were caused not only by cultural conflict but also by the recession of the French economy. The main problem in the French suburbs is the high level of unemployment (40%) caused by the numerous meanders of the immigration policy. Instead of facilitating employment for immigrants, the government demands special professional training even for jobs which do not require such qualifications.

Although Salvadoran emigration to the United States is one of the most important migratory flows emanating from Latin America, there is insufficient information about the predictors of first unauthorized migration from El Salvador to the United States. In this study, we use data from the Latin American Migration Project–El Salvador (LAMP-ELS4) to perform an event history analysis to discern the factors that influenced the likelihood that a Salvadoran household head would take a first unauthorized trip to the United States between 1965 and 2007. We take into account a series of demographic, social capital, human capital, and physical capital characteristics of the Salvadoran household head; demographic and social context variables in the place of origin; as well as economic and border security factors at the place of destination. Our findings suggest that an increase in the Salvadoran civil violence index and a personal economic crisis increased the likelihood of first-time unauthorized migration. Salvadorans who were less likely to take a first unauthorized trip were business owners, those employed in skilled occupations, and persons with more years of experience in the labor force. Contextual variables in the United States, such as a high unemployment rate and an increase in the Border Patrol budget, deterred the decision to take a first unauthorized trip. Finally, social capital had no effect on the decision to migrate; this means that for unauthorized Salvadoran migrants, having contacts in the United States is not the main driver to start a migration journey to the United States. We suggest as policy recommendations that the United States should award Salvadorans more work-related visas or asylum protection. For those Salvadorans whose Temporary Protected Status (TPS) has ended, the United States should allow them to apply for permanent residency. The decision not to continue to extend TPS to Salvadorans will only increase the number of unauthorized immigrants in the United States. The United States needs to revise its current immigration policies, which make it a very difficult and/or extremely lengthy process for Salvadorans and other immigrants to regularize their current immigration status in the United States. Furthermore, because of our research findings, we recommend that the Salvadoran government — to discourage out-migration — invest in high-skilled job training and also offer training and credit opportunities to its population to encourage business ventures.

The article considers the formation of the demographic situation in Ukraine during its independence, namely - from 1991 to 2022. The authors analyzed the main demographic indicators - birth rate, mortality rate, natural increase, average life expectancy in the country over the past thirty years. In the first years of our country's acquisition of statehood, in addition to positive natural population growth, the increase in its number was also facilitated by a positive balance of migration due to a significant influx of immigrants. However, the deepening socio-economic crisis in 1992-1995 led to a sharp decline in birth rates, a deepening of natural population decline due to negative natural growth, and mass migration abroad in search of work. For the first time since this period, a negative balance of migration was recorded in Ukraine, and from that time until 2022, the volume of emigration exceeds immigration. Indicators of natural population movement have significant differences in the regions of Ukraine, urban and rural settlements. The highest values ​​are traditionally preserved in Volyn, Rivne and Zakarpattia oblasts, and the lowest ones are in Chernihiv and Sumy oblasts. The study allowed us to draw conclusions about the negative demographic phenomena - a rapid decline in population due to a significant decrease in birth rates, high mortality rates, the spread of the phenomenon of "aging" of the population. All this leads to the inevitable depopulation in the country, which confirms the demographic loss of about 10 million people during the study period (due to natural population decline and high migration in the mid-1990s and early XXI century). The demographic situation in rural areas remains particularly catastrophic. Negative demographic trends are exacerbated by the mass exodus of young people to study and work in the cities. Among the main factors that influenced the formation of the current demographic situation in Ukraine are: socio-economic (high unemployment, migration abroad, low level and quality of life compared to other countries in the European region), environmental (high level of industrial pollution) certain regions, uncontrolled application of mineral fertilizers to agricultural land, radiation emissions associated with the Chernobyl disaster), natural (Covid-19 epidemic), military (active phase of the Russian-Ukrainian war in 2022). The demographic catastrophe in Ukraine, connected with the beginning of the Russian-Ukrainian war in 2022, deserves special attention. The huge direct and indirect losses suffered by the country are due to the direct deaths during the hostilities, as well as the mass migration of people abroad since the beginning of the war. The losses will be assessed by demographers and statistical services after the war, but it is already worth considering the directions of a comprehensive demographic policy in Ukraine in the postwar period, which will restore the country's demographic potential. This work requires the coordinated work of demographers, geographers, economists and government and local government representatives. The authors outlined only the most important vectors of the formation of a new demographic policy in postwar Ukraine. They plan to pay more attention to these aspects by continuing further research. Keywords: population reproduction, birth rate, mortality, natural movement, life expectancy

The author brings forth a range of information on forced migration of the Serb population from the Croatian part of the Independent State of Croatia in 1941 (NDH). Almost one third of the population were Serbs in the NDH. One of the methods of solving ?the Serbia issue? in the NDH was migrating the Serbs into Serbia. The other methods were forced conversions of the Serbian population, namely physical killings. The adopted legal provisions made the terror policy over Serbian population legitimate. A conference was held on June 4th in the German legation in Zagreb. At the meeting it was agreed that Slovenians from Styria were to be moved to NDH, and Serbs from the NDH to Serbia. Deportation was to be carried out in three waves. The first wave was to last from June 7th to July 5th and 5000 Slovenian intellectuals from Lower Styria were to be deported directly to Serbia, except for catholic priests who were to be deported to the NDH. Orthodox priests from the NDH were to be deported to Serbia together with their families. In the second wave, lasting from June 10th to August 30th, 25,000 Slovenians from Slovenia were to be deported to the NDH and NDH was to deport just as many Serbs. In the last wave (from September 15th to October 31st), 65,000 Slovenian peasants from the Gorenjska region (Upper Carniola region) were to be deported to the NDH, and NDH was to migrate just as many Serbs to Serbia, as well as 30,000 Serbs whose citizenship was not acknowledged by the NDH. The government of the NDH founded an office for this purpose under the name State Directorate for Renewal. The migration of the Serbs from NDH began in June of 1941. Volunteers from the Salonika Front were then moved from their properties in Slavonia and Srem. Their total number was about 28,000. Then the Orthodox priests were migrated. According to the lists made by the NDH authorities, 327 of them were migrated from the NDH. 104 priests from the Croatian part of NDH were moved away in an organized manner. One part of them managed to escape before they were arrested. The migration of priests was carried out through transit camps in Caprag and Pozega. Massive deportations of the Serbian population through transit camps in Caprag, Bjelovar and Pozega began with the arresting of Serbs in Zagreb in the first half of July 1941, and then continued in other districts of northern Croatia and Bosnia. The total number of migrations in an organized manner from the Croatian part of the NDH up to the beginning of September 1941, according to the name list drawn up in 2012, amounted to 9875 Serbs, although that number was not final since there were greater disparities for certain districts. By the end of September 1941, the Ustashas migrated 14,733 Serbs out of the NDH in a legal way. Croatians from Dalmatia, Herzegovina and the Croatian Zagorje as well as displaced Slovenians primarily originally from Styria, moved into their houses. The authorities of NDH confiscated the property of the forced out Serbs. Other forms of the Ustasha terror, like massive killings, caused intensive illegal emigration of Serbs from NDH to Serbia, which, according to German data, had already increased to around 180,000 relocated Serbs by the end of July, although it seems this number exceeded 200,000 by the end of September. Organized migration was ceased in October 1941 after the German authorities in Serbia forbid further immigration of Serbs from the NDH mainly because of the uprising in western Serbia. Part of the banished Serbs from the Pozega concentration camp were returned home to the districts of Osijek, Garesnica, Krizevac, Virovitica and Ludbreg. However, from the documentation of the Commissariat for Refugees in Belgrade, it is evident that the research on the migration of Serbs from Croatia and the whole of NDH was not finished in 1941, so the number of 200,000 of forced migrants who have left is not final.

In the Netherlands, the government has become involved in public service interpreting by issuing measures shaping the professional conditions for interpreters and by monitoring the quality of their services. Under the Sworn Interpreters and Translators Act (2007) a register was set up for interpreters who meet predefined requirements for “basic interpreter competencies”. According to the 2007 Act, institutions in the legal domain as well as in the immigration and police services are obliged to work exclusively with certified interpreters. In this way, the government has contributed to the professionalization of legal interpreting. In recent years however, this development has been reversed in other sectors of public service interpreting (PSI). Some forms of PSI, it would seem, are more equal than others. In public health for example, there are only advisory regulations concerning the use of interpreters, and there is no obligation to work with certified interpreters. Although the government was initially involved in the administration and financing of interpreting agencies in all the fields of PSI, over the years it has gradually transferred this responsibility to the users of these services. In 2012, the government stopped most of its funding of healthcare interpreting. In spite of the presence of several indicators of professionalization of interpreters in the Netherlands, such as certification, a code of ethics, compensation and a system of continuing education for interpreters, their effectiveness is limited because they concern only interpreters working in the legal domain or in immigration and police services. The level of professionalization in PSI as a whole could be increased if the government were to implement its theoretical stance that both legal and healthcare interpreting are matters of public interest enshrined in the Dutch law, and if other fields of PSI besides legal interpreting were included in the existing framework for certification, training and continuing education.

Abstract Background While the literature on the relationship between populist radical right (PRR) parties and public health is still relatively scarce, early evidence suggests that PRR parties and their exclusionary policy agenda could be a threat to population health and health equity. The aim of this case study is to take a closer look at the standpoints and influence of the Dutch Party for Freedom (PVV) on national health and healthcare policies. The PVV is considered the main PRR party in the Netherlands and has been part of the 2010-2012 center-right coalition government. Methods This case study was informed by various information sources including academic literature, publicly available data, party manifestos and other statements issued by the PVV, coalition agreements, newspaper articles and interviews. Results Two key characteristics of PRR parties can be identified in relation to the PVV's standpoints on health and healthcare: authoritarianism (believing in the value of obeying and valuing authority) and nativism (believing that there is an ethnically united people with a territory). This is, for example, exemplified through strong support for the expansion of home and elderly care, while simultaneously opposing free, non-acute healthcare for refugees and asylum seekers who have not (yet) financially contributed to the healthcare system. Conclusions Health and healthcare are generally not priority issues for the PVV, whose political agenda tends to focus on immigration and law and order. While the party takes a leftist position on some aspects of the healthcare system, a nativist rhetoric remains present.

This review focuses on a monograph written by Jayne Persian, lecturer at the University of Southern Queensland (Australia). The work is the first complex study devoted to the adaptation of former “displaced persons” (more particularly, émigrés from the Soviet Union) in Australia between the 1940s and 1960s. The work refers to an extensive complex of documents from the National Archives of Australia, the National Archives (United Kingdom), the Noel Butlin Archives Centre, Australian National University, and interviews with former “displaced persons” residing in Australia. The study is very important because it provides new information on the second wave of Soviet emigration, which is seldom examined by contemporary Russian scholars. Persian demonstrates that political factors played an important role in how the Australian government granted immigration permission. Quite frequently, Australia preferred people who shared anti-communist positions. Therefore, many former collaborators of the World War II era came to Australia; this hindered cooperation between the USSR and Australia. Persian shows that “new Australians” had difficulty integrating into society. The government tried to assimilate them, which pushed the immigrants to seek isolation in their communities. This book helps us understand the controversial character of the state policy of historical memory, a problem that is also very important for contemporary Russia.

Abstract Issue With increasing of numbers of people moving in Europe and around the world, the health of migrants has become a key global public-health issue. Migrants in an irregular situation (MIS) represent an important part of the migration phenomenon, whether they have become irregular by entering a country without authorisation or by overstaying a visa, including whose applied unsuccessfully for asylum. Description of the problem Overstaying of visas is not unusual in EU countries and during 2015 and 2016 in particular, many countries experienced a large number of unauthorised entrants. Health policies for MIS are increasingly a matter of concern. Using the 2015 Migrant Integration Policy Index Health strand (MIPEX HS) it is possible to conduct an analysis of health policies, focusing on access to health services by MIS. Results Among the 34 European countries covered by the MIPEX HS, Italy’s overall score of 65 is exceeded only by Switzerland (70) and Norway (67). Averaging the indicators of access for MIS, Italy obtains the highest score (83), followed by Denmark, France, the Netherlands, Romania, Spain, Sweden and Switzerland with 67. Its score for legal entitlements to health care is 75 (the same as Sweden), while reporting of MIS to the immigration authorities is prohibited and there are no sanctions against helping them. However, legislation introduced by the new government in 2018 has restricted some of their rights. Lessons Current migration to Europe requires dealing with short-term health needs as well as strengthening public health and health systems in the long term. This presentation will discuss the lessons that can be learned from the comparative analysis of health policies for MIS using the MIPEX HS. Key messages Affordable health care is a human right, which should not be denied to any migrant. Policy analysis plays a key role in identifying interventions for promoting health equity.

IntroductionBritish initiatives to manage both the number of arrivals of asylum seekers and the experiences of those who arrive have burgeoned in recent years. The budget dedicated to asylum seeker management increased from £357 million in 1998-1999 to £1.71 billion in 2004-2005, making the Immigration and Nationality Directorate (IND) the second largest concern of the Home Office behind the Prison Service in 2005 (Back et al). The IND was replaced in April 2007 by the Border and Immigration Agency (BIA), whose expenditure exceeded £2 billion in 2007-2008 (BIA). Perhaps as a consequence the number of asylum seekers applying to the UK has fallen dramatically, illustrating the continuing influence of exclusionary state policies despite the globalisation and transnationalisation of migrant flows (UNHCR; Koser).One of the difficulties with the study of asylum seekers is the persistent risk that, by employing the term ‘asylum seeker’, research conducted into their experiences will contribute towards the exclusion of a marginalised and abject group of people, precisely by employing a term that emphasises the suspended recognition of a community (Nyers). The ‘asylum seeker’ is a figure defined in law in order to facilitate government-level avoidance of humanitarian obligations by emphasising the non-refugeeness of asylum claimants (Tyler). This group is identified as supplicant to the state, positioning the state itself as a legitimate arbiter. It is in this sense that asylum seekers suffer a degree of cruel optimism (Berlant) – wishing to be recognised as a refugee while nevertheless subject to state-defined discourses, whatever the outcome. The term ‘forced migrant’ is little better, conveying a de-humanising and disabling lack of agency (Turton), while the terms ‘undocumented migrant’, ‘irregular migrant’ and ‘illegal migrant’ all imply a failure to conform to respectable, desirable and legitimate forms of migration.Another consequence of these co-opted and politically subjugating forms of language is their production of simple imagined geographies of migration that position the foreigner as strange, unfamiliar and incapable of communication across this divide. Such imaginings precipitate their own responses, most clearly expressed in the blunt, intrusive uses of space and time in migration governance (Lahav and Guiraudon; Cohen; Guild; Gronendijk). Various institutions exist in Britain that function to actually produce the imagined differences between migrants and citizens, from the two huge, airport-like ‘Asylum Screening Units’ in Liverpool and London where asylum seekers can lodge their claims, to the 12 ‘Removal Centres’ within which soon-to-be deported asylum seekers are incarcerated and the 17 ‘Hearing Centres’ at which British judges preside over the precise legal status of asylum applicants.Less attention, however, has been given to the tension between mobility and stillness in asylum contexts. Asylum seeker management is characterised by a complex combination of enforced stillness and enforced mobility of asylum seeking bodies, and resistance can also be understood in these terms. This research draws upon 37 interviews with asylum seekers, asylum activists, and government employees in the UK conducted between 2005 and 2007 (see Gill) and distils three characteristics of stillness. First, an association between stillness and safety is clearly evident, exacerbated by the fear that the state may force asylum seekers to move at any time. Second, stillness of asylum seekers in a physical, literal sense is intimately related to their psychological condition, underscoring the affectual properties of stillness. Third, the desire to be still, and to be safe, precipitates various political strategies that seek to secure stillness, meaning that stillness functions as more than an aspiration, becoming also a key political metric in the struggle between the included and excluded. In these multiple and contradictory ways stillness is a key factor that structures asylum seekers’ experiences of migration. Governing through Mobility The British state utilises both stillness and mobility in the governance of asylum seeking bodies. On the one hand, asylum seekers’ personal freedoms are routinely curtailed both through their incarceration and through the requirements imposed upon them by the state in terms of ‘signing in’ at local police stations, even when they are not incarcerated, throughout the time that they are awaiting a decision on their claim for asylum (Cwerner). This requirement, which consists of attending a police station to confirm the continuing compliance of the asylum seeker, can vary in frequency, from once every month to once every few days.On the other hand, the British state employs a range of strategies of mobility that serve to deprive asylum seeking communities of geographical stillness and, consequently, also often undermines their psychological stability. First, the seizure of asylum seekers and transportation to a Removal Centre can be sudden and traumatic, and incarceration in this manner is becoming increasingly common (Bacon; Home Office). In extreme cases, very little or no warning is given to asylum seekers who are taken into detention, and so-called ‘dawn raids’ have been organised in order to exploit an element of surprise in the introduction of asylum seekers to detention (Burnett). A second source of forced mobility associated with Removal Centres is the transfer of detainees from one Removal Centre to another for a variety of reasons, from the practical constraints imposed by the capacities of various centres, to differences in the conditions of centres themselves, which are used to form a reward and sanction mechanism among the detainee population (Hayter; Granville-Chapman). Intra-detention estate transfers have increased in scope and significance in recent years: in 2004/5, the most recent financial year for which figures are available, the British government spent over £6.5 million simply moving detainees from one secure facility to another within the UK (Hansard, 2005; 2006).Outside incarceration, a third source of spatial disruption of asylum seekers in the UK concerns their relationship with accommodation providers. Housing is provided to asylum seekers as they await a decision on their claim, but this housing is provided on a ‘no-choice’ basis, meaning that asylum seekers who are not prepared to travel to the accommodation that is allocated to them will forfeit their right to accommodation (Schuster). In other words, accommodation is contingent upon asylum seekers’ willingness to be mobile, producing a direct trade-off between the attractions of accommodation and stillness. The rationale for this “dispersal policy”, is to draw asylum seekers away from London, where the majority of asylum seekers chose to reside before 2000. The maintenance of a diverse portfolio of housing across the UK is resource intensive, with the re-negotiation of housing contracts worth over a £1 billion a constant concern (Noble et al). As these contracts are renegotiated, asylum seekers are expected to move in response to the varying affordability of housing around the country. In parallel to the system of deportee movements within the detention estate therefore, a comparable system of movement of asylum seekers around the UK in response to urban and regional housing market conditions also operates. Stillness as SanctuaryIn all three cases, the psychological stress that movement of asylum seekers can cause is significant. Within detention, according to a series of government reports into the conditions of removal centres, one of the recurring difficulties facing incarcerated asylum seekers is incomprehension of their legal status (e.g. HMIP 2002; 2008). This, coupled with very short warning of impending movements, results in widespread anxiety among detained asylum seekers that they may be deported or transferred imminently. Outside detention, the fear of snatch squads of police officers, or alternatively the fear of hate crimes against asylum seekers (Tyler), render movement in the public realm a dangerous practice in the eyes of many marginalised migrants. The degree of uncertainty and the mental and emotional demands of relocation introduced through forced mobility can have a damaging psychological effect upon an already vulnerable population. Expressing his frustration at this particular implication of the movement of detainees, one activist who had provided sanctuary to over 20 asylum seekers in his community outlined some of the consequences of onward movement.The number of times I’ve had to write panic letters saying you know you cannot move this person to the other end of the country because it destabilises them in terms of their mental health and it is abusive. […] Their solicitors are here, they’re in process, in legal process, they’ve got a community, they’ve got friends, they may even have a partner or a child here and they would still move them.The association between governance, mobility and trepidation highlights one characteristic of stillness in the asylum seeking field: in contra-distinction to the risk associated with movement, to be still is very often to be safe. Given the necessity to flee violence in origin countries and the tendency for destination country governments to require constant re-positioning, often backed-up with the threat of force, stillness comes to be viewed as offering a sort of sanctuary. Indeed, the Independent Asylum Commission charity that has conducted a series of reviews of asylum seekers’ treatment in the UK (Hobson et al.), has recently suggested dispensing with the term ‘asylum’ in favour of ‘sanctuary’ precisely because of the positive associations with security and stability that the latter provides. To be in one place for a sustained period allows networks of human trust and reciprocity to develop which can form the basis of supportive community relationships. Another activist who had accompanied many asylum seekers through the legal process spoke passionately about the functions that communities can serve in asylum seekers’ lives.So you actually become substitute family […] I think it’s what helps people in the midst of trauma when the future is uncertain […] to find a community which values them, which accepts them, which listens to them, where they can begin to find a place and touch a creative life again which they may not have had for years: it’s enormously important.There is a danger in romanticising the benefits of community (Joseph). Indeed, much of the racism and xenophobia directed towards asylum seekers has been the result of local community hostilities towards different national and ethnic groups (Boswell). For many asylum seekers, however, the reciprocal relations found in communities are crucially important to their well-being. What is more, the inclusion of asylum seekers into communities is one of the most effective anti-state and anti-deportation strategies available to activists and asylum seekers alike (Tyler), because it arrests the process of anonymising and cordoning asylum seekers as an homogenous group, providing instead a chance for individuals to cast off this label in favour of more ‘humane’ characteristics: families, learning, friendship, love.Strategies for StillnessFor this reason, the pursuit of stillness among asylum seekers is both a human and political response to their situations – stillness becomes a metric in the struggle between abject migrants and the state. Crucial to this political function is the complex relationship between stillness and social visibility: if an asylum seeker can command their own stillness then they can also have greater influence over their public profile, either in order to develop it or to become less conspicuous.Tyler argues that asylum seekers are what she calls a ‘hypervisible’ social group, referring to the high profile association between a fictional, dehumanised asylum seeking figure and a range of defamatory characteristics circulated by the popular printed press. Stillness can be used to strategically reduce this imposed form of hypervisibility, and to raise awareness of real asylum seeker stories and situations. This is achieved by building community coalitions, which require physically and socially settled asylum seeking families and communities. Asylum advocacy groups and local community support networks work together in the UK in order to generate a genuine public profile of asylum seekers by utilising local and national newspapers, staging public demonstrations, delivering speeches, attending rallies and garnering support among local organisations through art exhibitions, performances and debates. Some activist networks specialise explicitly in supporting asylum seekers in these endeavours, and sympathetic networks of journalists, lawyers, doctors and radio producers combine their expertise with varying degrees of success.These sorts of strategies can produce strong loyalties between local communities and the asylum seekers in their midst, precisely because, through their co-presence, asylum seekers cease to be merely asylum seekers, but become active and valued members of communities. One activist who had helped to organise the protection of an asylum seeker in a church described some of the preparations that had been made for the arrival of immigration task forces in her middle class parish.There were all sorts of things we practiced: if they did break through the door what would we do? We set up a telephone tree so that each person would phone two or three people. We had I don’t know how many cars outside. We arranged a safe house, where we would hide her. We practiced getting her out of the room into a car […] We were expecting them to come at any time. We always had people at the back […] guarding, looking at strangers who might be around and [name] was never, ever allowed to be on her own without a whole group of people completely surrounding her so she could feel safe and we would feel safe. Securing stillness here becomes more than simply an operation to secure geographic fixity: it is a symbolic struggle between state and community, crystallising in specific tactics of spatial and temporal arrangement. It reflects the fear of further forced movement, the abiding association between stillness and safety, and the complex relationship between community visibility and an ability to remain still.There are, nevertheless, drawbacks to these tactics that suggest a very different relationship between stillness and visibility. Juries can be alienated by loud tactics of activism, meaning that asylum seekers can damage their chances of a sympathetic legal hearing if they have had too high a profile. Furthermore, many asylum seekers do not have the benefits of such a dedicated community. An alternative way in which stillness becomes political is through its ability to render invisible the abject body. Invisibility is taken to mean the decision to ‘go underground’, miss the appointments at local police stations and attempt to anticipate the movements of immigration removal enforcement teams. Perversely, although this is a strategy for stillness at the national or regional scale, mobile strategies are often employed at finer scales in order to achieve this objective. Asylum seekers sometimes endure extremely precarious and difficult conditions of housing and subsistence moving from house to house regularly or sleeping and living in cars in order to avoid detection by authorities.This strategy is difficult because it involves a high degree of uncertainty, stress and reliance upon the goodwill of others. One police officer outlined the situation facing many ‘invisible’ asylum seekers as one of poverty and desperation:Immigration haven’t got a clue where they are, they just can’t find them because they’re sofa surfing, that’s living in peoples coffee shops … I see them in the coffee shop and they come up and they’re bloody starving! Despite the difficulties associated with this form of invisibility, it is estimated that this strategy is becoming increasingly common in the UK. In 2006 the Red Cross estimated that there were some 36 000 refused and destitute asylum seekers in England, up from 25 000 the previous year, and reported that their organisation was having to provide induction tours of soup kitchens and night shelters in order to alleviate the conditions of many claimants in these situations (Taylor and Muir). Conclusion The case of asylum seekers in the UK illustrates the multiple, contradictory and splintered character of stillness. While some forms of governance impose stillness upon asylum seeking bodies, in the form of incarceration and ‘signing in’ requirements, other forms of governance impose mobility either within detention or outside it. Consequently stillness figures in the responses of asylum seeking communities in various ways. Given the unwelcome within-country movement of asylum seekers, and adding to this the initial fact of their forced migration from their home countries, the condition of stillness becomes desirable, promising to bring with it stability and safety. These promises contrast the psychological disruption that further mobility, and even the threat of further mobility, can bring about. This illustrates the affectual qualities both of movement and of stillness in the asylum-seeking context. Literal stillness is associated with social and emotional stability that complicates the distinction between real and emotional spaces. While this is certainly not the case uniformly – incarceration and inhibited personal liberties have opposite consequences – the promises of stillness in terms of stability and sanctuary are clearly significant because this desirability leads asylum advocates and asylum seekers to execute a range of political strategies that seek to ensure stillness, either through enhanced or reduced forms of social visibility.The association of mobility with freedom that typifies much of the literature surrounding mobility needs closer inspection. At least in some situations, asylum seekers pursue geographical stillness for the political and psychological benefits it can offer, while mobility is both employed as a subjugating strategy by states and is itself actively resisted by those who constitute its targets.ReferencesBack, Les, Bernadette Farrell and Erin Vandermaas. A Humane Service for Global Citizens. London: South London Citizens, 2005.Bacon, Christine. The Evolution of Immigration Detention in the UK: The Involvement of Private Prison Companies. Oxford: Refugee Studies Centre, 2005.Berlant, Lauren. “Cruel Optimism.” differences : A Journal of Feminist Cultural Studies 17.3 (2006): 20—36.Border and Immigration Agency. Business Plan for Transition Year April 2007 – March 2008: Fair, Effective, Transparent and Trusted. London: Home Office, 2007.Boswell, Christina. “Burden-Sharing in the European Union: Lessons from the German and UK Experience.” Journal of Refugee Studies 16.3 (2003): 316—35.Burnett, Jon. Dawn Raids. PAFRAS Briefing Paper Number 4. Leeds: Positive Action for Refugees and Asylum Seekers, 2008. ‹http://www.statewatch.org/news/2008/apr/uk-patras-briefing-paper-4-%2Ddawn-raids.pdf›.Cohen, Steve. “The Local State of Immigration Controls.” Critical Social Policy 22 (2002): 518—43.Cwerner, Saulo. “Faster, Faster and Faster: The Time Politics of Asylum in the UK.” Time and Society 13 (2004): 71—88.Gill, Nick. "Presentational State Power: Temporal and Spatial Influences over Asylum Sector." Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers, 2009 (forthcoming).Granville-Chapman, Charlotte, Ellie Smith, and Neil Moloney. Harm on Removal: Excessive Force Against Failed Asylum Seekers. London: Medical Foundation for the Care of Victims of Torture, 2004.Groenendijk, Kees. “New Borders behind Old Ones: Post-Schengen Controls behind the Internal Borders and inside the Netherlands and Germany”. In Search of Europe's Borders. Eds. Kees Groenendijk, Elspeth Guild and Paul Minderhoud. The Hague: Kluwer International Law, 2003. 131—46.Guild, Elspeth. “The Europeanisation of Europe's Asylum Policy.” International Journal of Refugee Law 18 (2006): 630—51.Guiraudon, Virginie. “Before the EU Border: Remote Control of the 'Huddled Masses'.” In Search of Europe's Borders. Eds. Kees Groenendijk, Elspeth Guild and Paul Minderhoud. The Hague: Kluwer International Law, 2003. 191—214.Hansard, House of Commons. Vol. 440 Col. 972W. 5 Dec. 2005. 6 Mar. 2009 ‹http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm200506/cmhansrd/vo051205/text/51205w18.htm›.———. Vol. 441 Col. 374W. 9 Jan. 2006. 6 Mar. 2009 ‹http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm200506/cmhansrd/vo060109/text/60109w95.htm›.Hayter, Theresa. Open Borders: The Case against Immigration Controls. London: Pluto P, 2000.HM Inspectorate of Prisons. An Inspection of Campsfield House Immigration Removal Centre. London: HM Inspectorate of Prisons, 2002.———. Report on an Unannounced Full Follow-up Inspection of Campsfield House Immigration Removal Centre. London: HM Inspectorate of Prisons, 2008. Hobson, Chris, Jonathan Cox, and Nicholas Sagovsky. Saving Sanctuary: The Independent Asylum Commission’s First Report of Conclusions and Recommendations. London: Independent Asylum Commission, 2008.Home Office. “Record High on Removals of Failed Asylum Seekers.” Press Office Release, 27 Feb. 2007. London: Home Office, 2007. 6 Mar. 2009 ‹http://press.homeoffice.gov.uk/press-releases/asylum-removals-figures›. Joseph, Miranda. Against the Romance of Community. Minnesota: U of Minnesota P, 2002.Koser, Khalid. “Refugees, Trans-Nationalism and the State.” Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies 33 (2007): 233—54.Lahav, Gallya, and Virginie Guiraudon. “Comparative Perspectives on Border Control: Away from the Border and outside the State”. Wall around the West: State Borders and Immigration Controls in North America and Europe. Eds. Gallya Lahav and Virginie Guiraudon. The Lanham: Rowman and Littlefield, 2000. 55—77.Noble, Gill, Alan Barnish, Ernie Finch, and Digby Griffith. A Review of the Operation of the National Asylum Support Service. London: Home Office, 2004. Nyers, Peter. "Abject Cosmopolitanism: The Politics of Protection in the Anti-Deportation Movement." Third World Quarterly 24.6 (2003): 1069—93.Schuster, Lisa. "A Sledgehammer to Crack a Nut: Deportation, Detention and Dispersal in Europe." Social Policy & Administration 39.6 (2005): 606—21.Taylor, Diane, and Hugh Muir. “Red Cross Aids Failed Asylum Seekers” UK News. The Guardian 9 Jan. 2006. 6 Mar. 2009 ‹http://www.guardian.co.uk/news/2006/jan/09/immigrationasylumandrefugees.uknews›.Turton, David. Conceptualising Forced Migration. University of Oxford Refugee Studies Centre Working Paper 12 (2003). 6 Mar. 2009 ‹http://www.rsc.ox.ac.uk/PDFs/workingpaper12.pdf›.Tyler, Imogen. “'Welcome to Britain': The Cultural Politics of Asylum.” European Journal of Cultural Studies 9.2 (2006): 185—202.United Nations High Commission for Refugees. Refugees by Numbers 2006 Edition. Geneva: UNHCR, 2006.

This paper investigates linkages between two apparently disparate government initiatives. Together they function symbolically to maintain Australia’s moral order by excluding filth, keeping personal and national boundaries tight and borders secure. The Commonwealth government recently set aside over five million dollars to improve continence in the Australian population (incontinence is the inability to control movements of the bowel or bladder, producing leakage of filth in the form of urine and faeces). The Strategy funded research into prevalence rates, treatment strategies, doctor education, a public toilet mapping exercise, and public awareness through a telephone helpline and patient information pamphlets. Almost simultaneously with the continence initiative, concerns over the influx of asylum seekers to Australia lead the federal government to focus more resources on strengthening Australia’s border protection. This paper explores the two phenomena of personal and national boundary maintenance as aspects of classification dilemmas based in conceptions of filth, pollution and cleaning rituals. Continence and Boundary Maintenance Elias has pointed out that the development of rules of decorum around bodily control was the very essence of ‘the civilizing process’ in Western cultures. Currently, we see bodily control as a prerequisite for becoming an adult, and the loss of control is a sign of a loss of responsible adulthood, a ‘spoiled identity’ (Goffman; Murcott; Hepworth). However, Foucault pointed out that the body, through the imposition of the State and the medical profession, has become a target for self-work, resulting not in self-empowerment but in subjection. Through the ‘new micro-physics of power’ (Foucault 139), the bladder and pelvic floor have become sites in need of control. Analysis of discourses around incontinence, both in the public and private spheres, indicate a concern with issues of control and agency, particularly the moral imperative to be in control of one’s body and the feelings of incompetence produced by the loss of control. Incompetence, self blame and guilt are evident in sufferers’ talk about their condition (Tilbury et al.; Murcott). The negativity surrounding incontinence is connected with the construction of urine and faeces as filth – but is this construction of dirtiness ‘natural? Mary Douglas argued that cultural classification creates the order of social life and has an inherently moral dimension. A consequence is that things which cross categorical boundaries are impure and therefore dangerous, because they threaten the rules of classification. Douglas suggested that there is nothing inherent in ‘unclean’ things which make them dirty. Soil in the garden is ‘clean’ whereas on the carpet it is ‘dirty’, spaghetti on a plate is clean, but on your trousers it is dirty. Douglas concluded that dirtiness is not about the stuff itself, but about it being in the wrong location. We are left with the very old definition of dirt as matter out of place. This is a very suggestive approach. It implies two conditions: a set of ordered relations and a contravention of that order. … Dirt is the by-product of a systematic ordering and classification of matter, in so far as ordering involves rejecting inappropriate elements (Douglas 48). Like the fear of deviance generally, fear of pollution by ‘dirty’ things is strongly emotive because of its threat to the larger moral order. In the same way that moral panics, scapegoating, and witch hunts occur where there is a threat to the collectivity’s boundaries, clean-ups are in order where there is a perceived social crisis which threatens social classification and order. They serve as purges, drawing attention to the violated moral order, and to the State’s ability to secure it. Cleaning rituals function symbolically to reaffirm the social order. Thus, an insistence on continence is symbolic of something deeper than a fear of infection from leaking urine and faeces. Douglas suggests that issues of dirt and cleanliness in relation to the human body are actually about wider social concerns. The body is a tabula rasa on which the concerns of society are writ small. The biological body is a symbol of the social body. Elias argued bodily control and social control are linked – for example we are careful to control publicly bodily functions such as farting, belching and yawning. Now if bodies serve as symbols of society, then concern over group boundaries will be expressed symbolically as concerns over bodily boundaries. Bodily orifices, those entrances and exits which define the boundaries of the body most obviously, become sites of some significance, and those dirty things which traverse these openings/closings challenge and destabilize the system of categorization which society holds sacrosanct. But why, one might ask, the recent concern over bodily boundaries? Continents and Border Protection On the ABC’s 7.30 Report (20 June 2002) anchor Kerry O’Brien introduced a story about ‘the migrant problem’ in the Netherlands with a comment about the Dutch desire to control the ‘flooding’ in of refugees through their ‘weakening borders’ and noted the growing public concern to ‘seal their leaking border’. While such imagery obviously references the story of ‘the little Dutch boy and the dike’, it was directly relevant to Australian audiences because Australia was in the midst of its own ‘refugee crisis’ (see Saxton; Manne; Pickering; Gelber). The ‘Tampa crisis’, in September 2001, saw a Norwegian freighter, the Tampa, rescue 433 asylum seekers from their sinking boat which was headed for Australia. Australia denied the Tampa permission to enter its waters and ports, so it was left out to sea for days, while the Australian government negotiated a face saving solution to the problem. This was the ‘Pacific solution’ – whereby asylum seekers are moved to nearby Pacific nations to be ‘processed’ off shore, in exchange for monetary incentive to these struggling economies. Asylum seekers were demonized by the press and by politicians for threatening to throw themselves and their children overboard. Prime Minister John Howard suggested some were likely to be terrorists, and the then Minister of Immigration Philip Ruddock asked the rhetorical question: ‘Are these the sort of people we want as Australians?’ Discursive analyses of media coverage (news reports, opinion columns and letters to the editor) of the arrival of asylum seekers indicate that they were represented as illegal, illegitimate and threatening (Saxton), and constructed as deviant in a variety of ways, including being diseased (Pickering). The language used to describe the ‘threat’ is revealing: terms such as ‘swamped’, ‘awash’, ‘latest waves’, ‘more waves’, ‘tides’, ‘floods’ and ‘migratory flood’ (Pickering 172). Most importantly, a ‘national rights’ discourse emerged, asserting Australia’s authority over its physical and cultural space, and its right to ‘protect its territory and character’ (Saxton 111) from potentially polluting pariahs, the excrement of other nations, refugees. The net result of these activities was the putting in place of a series of emergency measures to ensure Australia’s borders were ‘protected’, including moving the legal definition of borders, rigorous enforcement of imprisonment in detention centres, providing a two thousand dollar incentive to return to their countries of origin, and increased sea and air surveillance. Recent moves by the government to make seeking asylum more difficult have continued this trend. Continents and Continence Now what do incontinence and the Tampa crisis have in common? Obviously both are attempts to contain filth, ensuring boundary maintenance of the individual and the national body. The desire of the Australian government to clarify Australia’s boundaries by reducing them to its mainland is indicative of a concern with keeping national boundaries precise and clear. The threat of breaches from outside spurs this attempt to ensure closure, but it is simultaneously evidence of the fear of violation. Australia’s attempts at boundary maintenance are forms of ‘pollution rituals’ designed to maintain the definition of Australia as the domain of white Anglo-Saxon Christians (Hage; Saxton; Pickering). Being racially, ethnically and religiously different, asylum seekers challenge cherished notions of what ‘we’ Australians are – they are matter-out-of-place, challenging the integrity of the nation. As Pickering notes: ‘Asylum seekers transgress many boundaries: physical, geographic, language, legal, national, social and political. In so doing they routinely disrupt established, although precarious, orders’ (Pickering 170). The ‘breach’ panic, and consequent attempts to fortify ‘fortress Australia’, function symbolically to reaffirm the social order and maintain the classification of in-group and out-group. Conclusion The parallels drawn between these two initiatives are not meant to assert a causal relationship, but rather a form of ‘elective affinity’ (Weber). Thus, my argument is rather more than a recognition of the ways in which body metaphors are used as ‘convenient way[s] for talking or thinking about the moral and political problems of society’ (Turner 1), but less than a suggestion that one is in a direct causal relationship to the other. If pollution behaviour is that which condemns objects or ideas which might confuse cherished classifications, then government attempts to keep national boundaries contained and bodies secure are both examples of pollution behaviours. The National Continence Management Strategy and the concerns about Australia’s border protection are both symbolic manifestations of the same concern over unsealed boundaries and boundary crossings. Both result from a barely contained hysteria manifest in a fear of things coming in, and things going out, and a frustrated recognition of the impossibility of keeping entries and exits secure. The National Continence Management strategy mirrors the macro concerns over boundary maintenance and security. The tightening up of movements of matter across bodies, and movements of people across nations, are signs of attempts to control identity. But from whence has this concern arisen? One possibility is the general destabilising of national identities resulting from the broad postmodern recognition of hybridity and fluidity in the construction and maintenance of identity. A specific example of this is the fact that while Australia has long been proud of its identity as a white nation of the Antipodes, at the same time it is developing an identity as multicultural. The traditional values of white society are being challenged and the resulting destabilization is threatening (Hage; Ang; Phillips). Postmodern constructions of identity as contextual, fuzzy, and open ended, destabilize identity as singular and unproblematic. Hall and du Gay, Bhabha, and others have noted the discomfort attendant on a version of identity which is hybrid and liminal, which challenges the notion that categories are clear cut and people are either ‘in’ or ‘out’. This discomfort results in the need to shore up individual and national identities through efforts to define and maintain boundaries and to contain them – in essence to re-establish and defend ‘fortress Australia’ by containing matter in its proper place, and excluding filth. References Bhabha, Homi, ed. Nation and Narration. London: Routledge, 1990. Douglas, Mary. Purity and Danger: An Analysis of Concepts of Pollution and Taboo. London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1966. Elias, Norbert. The Civilizing Process. Trans. E. Jephcott. Oxford: Blackwell, 1994. Foucault, Michel. Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison. Trans A. Sheridan. Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1979. Gelber, Katherine. “A Fair Queue? Australian Public Discourse on Refugees and Immigration.” Journal of Australian Studies 1 March 2003: 23-30. Goffman, Erving. Stigma: Notes on the Management of Spoiled Identity. New Jersey: Prentice-Hall, 1963. Hage, Ghassan. White Nation: Fantasies of White Supremacy in a Multicultural Society. Annendale NSW: Pluto Press, 1998. Hall, Stuart, and Paul du Gay, eds. Questions of Cultural Identity. London: Sage, 1996. Hepworth, Mike. Stories of Ageing. Buckingham: Open University Press, 2000. Manne, Robert, with David Corlett. “Sending them Home: Refugees and the New Politics of Indifference.” Quarterly Essay 13. Melbourne: Black, 2004. Murcott, Anne. “Purity and Pollution: Body Management and the Social Place of Infancy.” In Sue Scott and David Morgan, eds. Body Matters. London: The Falmer Press, 1993. Pickering, Sharon. “Common Sense and Original Deviancy: News Discourses and Asylum Seekers in Australia.” Journal of Refugee Studies 14.2 (2001):169-86. Saxton, Alison. “‘I Certainly Don’t Want People like That Here’: The Discursive Construction of Asylum Seekers.” Media International Australia Incorporating Culture and Policy 109 (Nov. 2003): 109-20. Tilbury, Farida, Pradeep Jayasuriya, Jan Taylor, and Liz Williams. Continence Care in the Community. Report to Department of Health and Aged Care, 2001. Turner, Bryan. “Social Fluids: Metaphors and Meanings in Society.” Body and Society 9.1 (2003): 1-10. Turner, Bryan, with Colin Samson. Medical Power and Social Knowledge. London: Sage, 1996. Citation reference for this article MLA Style Tilbury, Farida. "Filth, Incontinence and Border Protection." M/C Journal 9.5 (2006). echo date('d M. Y'); ?> <http://journal.media-culture.org.au/0610/06-tilbury.php>. APA Style Tilbury, F. (Nov. 2006) "Filth, Incontinence and Border Protection," M/C Journal, 9(5). Retrieved echo date('d M. Y'); ?> from <http://journal.media-culture.org.au/0610/06-tilbury.php>.