14 results on '"*AMBIGUITY"'
Search Results
2. Lebanon's response to the Syrian refugee crisis – Institutional ambiguity as a governance strategy.
- Author
-
Nassar, Jessy and Stel, Nora
- Subjects
- *
SYRIAN refugees , *GOVERNMENT policy , *SOCIAL institutions , *REFUGEE camps , *AMBIGUITY , *CRISES , *POLICY analysis - Abstract
In comparison with other regional host countries Lebanon's response to the Syrian refugee crisis is characterized by a remarkable degree of institutional ambiguity. Government policy has centered on the prohibition of formal refugee camps and adopted regulations with regard to registration, residence, and work which drive refugees into illegality. This is partly the result of the chaotic and overwhelming nature of any refugee crisis, which is only reinforced by the Lebanese government's limited resources and capacities and the country's dysfunctional political system. However, institutional ambiguity in the context of the Lebanese response to the Syrian refugee crisis is not merely contingent. Departing from agnotology theory, this article demonstrates that there is also a strategic component to the institutional ambiguity that now determines the life of Syrian refugees in Lebanon. On the basis of fieldwork among Syrian refugee communities, elaborate policy analysis, and an extensive literature review the article reveals the political utility of maintaining uncertainty and precariousness. These insights have profound implications for the analysis of refugee politics and the formulation of policy recommendations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]
- Published
- 2019
- Full Text
- View/download PDF
3. The refugee camp as a space of multiple ambiguities and subjectivities.
- Author
-
Oesch, Lucas
- Subjects
- *
REFUGEE camps , *SOVEREIGNTY , *PALESTINIAN refugees , *SOCIAL marginality , *SOCIAL integration ,JORDANIAN politics & government - Abstract
Analyses of refugee camps have criticised Agamben's conceptualisation of exception, understood as the juridical production of ‘bare life’ by the sovereign. They have emphasised the multiplicity of actors and exclusionary dynamics involved in the production of exception, as well as the politicisation of space. This scholarship has however stayed framed around an ‘exclusionary paradigm’. This article proposes a complementary way to move beyond Agamben's analysis of the camp by reconsidering the idea of a ‘zone of indistinction’ between exclusion and inclusion. It refers to Palestinian refugee camps in Jordan, where many dwellers have a dual status of ‘refugee-citizen’. It analyses how the subject and citizenship are ambiguously constructed as simultaneously excluded and included – and not solely included through an exclusion. To explore these complex spatial dynamics of exclusion and inclusion, the analysis addresses the exercise of three forms of power – sovereignty, discipline and government – by focusing on the materiality of the camp and the practices of authorities managing space. These powers are ambiguously contributing to the inclusion of the camp and its dwellers in the territory of the Jordanian state, as well as in the neoliberal city of Amman, while maintaining the character of the camp as an excluded humanitarian and temporary space. Through this process, camp dwellers are recast not only as assisted subjects and beneficiaries, but also as autonomous and productive subjects, as well as entrepreneurs and consumers. This article therefore argues that the camp needs to be re-considered as a space of multiple ambiguities and subjectivities aimed at creating a differentiation in the city. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]
- Published
- 2017
- Full Text
- View/download PDF
4. Corrigendum to "Keeping migrants at the margins. Governing through ambiguity and the politics of discretion in the post-2015 EUropean migration and border regime" [Political Geography 97 (2022) 102643].
- Author
-
Heyer, Karl
- Subjects
- *
POLITICAL geography , *DISCRETION , *IMMIGRANTS , *AMBIGUITY , *PRACTICAL politics - Published
- 2022
- Full Text
- View/download PDF
5. Bordering through othering: On strategic ambiguity in the making of the EU-Turkey refugee deal.
- Author
-
Tekin, Beyza Çağatay
- Subjects
- *
AMBIGUITY , *CRITICAL discourse analysis , *OTHER (Philosophy) , *REFUGEES , *BORDER security - Abstract
This article scrutinises the identity-constitutive role of bordering practices by taking EU-Turkey cooperation on border control and refugee governance as a case. Using Foucault's notion of dispositif , this empirically oriented contribution critically reflects on the link between bordering, othering, and the reification of identities. More specifically, it undertakes a Critical Discourse Analysis of the EU border dispositif to elucidate how material structures and socio-spatial practices and discourses are mobilised in the processes of bordering. Throughout this article, special attention is paid to the strategic uses of ambiguity in refugee governance. Examining strategic ambiguity operative at the level of discourse, in institutional and legal structures, and routine daily practices, the multifaceted approach adopted in this study extends the analysis beyond the impact of strategic ambiguity on refugee's living experiences. The analysis demonstrates that strategic ambiguity relates to multiple domains of refugee governance and becomes a practical ideological tool, a normalising procedure for norm-breaking practices. Providing multiple layers of distinct but mutually reinforcing critical exploration, this study demonstrates how accumulated layers of knowledge, imageries, and historical narratives support institutional, legal and administrative practices in the ambiguous time/space of the EU-Turkey refugee deal. The analysis also exposes how the EU border dispositif translates difference into otherness, and contributes to the construction of European identity through the othering of refugees. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]
- Published
- 2022
- Full Text
- View/download PDF
6. Keeping migrants at the margins. Governing through ambiguity and the politics of discretion in the post-2015 EUropean migration and border regime.
- Author
-
Heyer, Karl
- Subjects
- *
AMBIGUITY , *SOCIAL marginality , *DISCRETION , *MIGRATIONS of nations , *IMMIGRANTS , *PUBLIC officers , *EDGE effects (Ecology) - Abstract
This article deals with the roles of ambiguity and discretion in the governing of migration and how they contribute to the marginalisation of migrants at the borders of EUrope. Building on ethnographic research and interviews conducted in Sicily, it connects legal-institutional ambiguities of two recent policy interventions in the field of migration governance in Italy – the Security Decree-Law and the Hotspot Approach – to the discretionary practices by public officials tasked with their implementation. By theoretically and empirically tracing the co-constitutive relationship of ambiguity and discretion, the article draws on and contributes to recent inquiries into grey areas of governance, particularly in the field of (critical) border regime studies. Based on two distinct cases, it analyses how ambiguity and discretionary local practices are related both to each other and to the contemporary fragmentary reconfiguration processes of the EUropean Migration and Border Regime, and shows how they intersect to form spatio-juridical grey areas that foster the spatial and social marginalisation of migrants in EUrope. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]
- Published
- 2022
- Full Text
- View/download PDF
7. The refugee camp as a space of multiple ambiguities and subjectivities
- Author
-
Lucas Oesch
- Subjects
History ,Materiality (auditing) ,Sociology and Political Science ,Refugee ,media_common.quotation_subject ,05 social sciences ,Geography, Planning and Development ,0211 other engineering and technologies ,0507 social and economic geography ,021107 urban & regional planning ,Gender studies ,02 engineering and technology ,Ambiguity ,Scholarship ,Sovereignty ,Sociology ,Palestinian refugees ,050703 geography ,Citizenship ,media_common - Abstract
Analyses of refugee camps have criticised Agamben's conceptualisation of exception, understood as the juridical production of ‘bare life’ by the sovereign. They have emphasised the multiplicity of actors and exclusionary dynamics involved in the production of exception, as well as the politicisation of space. This scholarship has however stayed framed around an ‘exclusionary paradigm’. This article proposes a complementary way to move beyond Agamben's analysis of the camp by reconsidering the idea of a ‘zone of indistinction’ between exclusion and inclusion. It refers to Palestinian refugee camps in Jordan, where many dwellers have a dual status of ‘refugee-citizen’. It analyses how the subject and citizenship are ambiguously constructed as simultaneously excluded and included – and not solely included through an exclusion. To explore these complex spatial dynamics of exclusion and inclusion, the analysis addresses the exercise of three forms of power – sovereignty, discipline and government – by focusing on the materiality of the camp and the practices of authorities managing space. These powers are ambiguously contributing to the inclusion of the camp and its dwellers in the territory of the Jordanian state, as well as in the neoliberal city of Amman, while maintaining the character of the camp as an excluded humanitarian and temporary space. Through this process, camp dwellers are recast not only as assisted subjects and beneficiaries, but also as autonomous and productive subjects, as well as entrepreneurs and consumers. This article therefore argues that the camp needs to be re-considered as a space of multiple ambiguities and subjectivities aimed at creating a differentiation in the city.
- Published
- 2017
8. Editor's note to 'Lebanon's response to the Syrian refugee crisis – Institutional ambiguity as a governance strategy' [Political Geography 70 (2019) 44–54]
- Author
-
Kevin Grove
- Subjects
History ,Sociology and Political Science ,Political geography ,Corporate governance ,Political science ,Political economy ,media_common.quotation_subject ,Geography, Planning and Development ,Refugee crisis ,Ambiguity ,media_common - Published
- 2021
9. Uncertainty, exhaustion, and abandonment beyond South/North divides: Governing forced migration through strategic ambiguity.
- Author
-
Stel, Nora
- Subjects
- *
FORCED migration , *SYRIAN refugees , *GLOBAL North-South divide , *AMBIGUITY ,DEVELOPING countries - Abstract
Forced migration studies struggles to counterbalance policy assumptions that the governance of displaced people is of a fundamentally different nature in the Global South and North. This paper contributes to a growing body of critical scholarship that questions the epistemic segregation and theoretical demarcation that reproduce such exceptionalism. It mobilizes the idea of strategic institutional ambiguity to innovatively interrogate routinely assumed differences between migration governance in the Global South and North. It juxtaposes in-depth empirical case-studies of refugee governance in Lebanon, the country with the world's highest per capita number of refugees, with a review of critical research on EUropean governance of forced and irregular migrants. This exploration demonstrates that the rationales and manifestations of the 'politics of uncertainty' that refugees are subjected to in Lebanon closely mirror those of the 'politics of abandonment' and 'exhaustion' that migrants face in EUrope. Under both regimes, strategic forms of ambiguity operate to spatially and temporally marginalize refugees and render them controllable, exploitable, and deportable. • In Lebanon, state authorities govern Syrian refugees through partially strategic forms of non-policy and institutional ambiguity. • In EUrope, migration governance practices center on imposing informality, liminality, and exceptionalism. • This is done by creating and upholding convenient policy ambivalence and implementation gaps. • This highlights important parallels between the governance of forced displacement in the Global South and North. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]
- Published
- 2021
- Full Text
- View/download PDF
10. Editor's note to "Lebanon's response to the Syrian refugee crisis – Institutional ambiguity as a governance strategy" [Political Geography 70 (2019) 44–54].
- Author
-
Grove, Kevin
- Subjects
- *
POLITICAL geography , *SYRIAN refugees , *AMBIGUITY , *CRISES - Published
- 2021
- Full Text
- View/download PDF
11. Biofuels and the politics of mapmaking
- Author
-
Peter Dauvergne and Kate J. Neville
- Subjects
History ,Sociology and Political Science ,Exploit ,media_common.quotation_subject ,Geography, Planning and Development ,Ambiguity ,Contentious politics ,Negotiation ,Politics ,Information asymmetry ,Scale (social sciences) ,Environmental politics ,Sociology ,Cartography ,media_common - Abstract
On a world scale companies and governments are acquiring tracts of land from rural communities across the developing world in what some describe as a global “land grab.” Yet looking into local settings reveals that negotiations and arrangements are often piecemeal and halting, with little resemblance to a coordinated seizure of land. Conflicting maps, overlapping territorial claims, and unclear acquisition processes are creating land disputes, mistrust, and ambiguity. Resulting cycles of contention are enabling companies to obtain—even appropriate—some land. Still, in at least some locales the process is doing more to undermine development opportunities for all parties. To probe into these local politics of mapmaking, this article draws on fieldwork from 2010 to 2011 in Tanzania's Rufiji District, located in the lower floodplain of the Rufiji River. Companies, one might surmise, should be able to exploit information asymmetries to wrest control of land from local villagers. Interviews, primary documents, and field observations reveal, however, that this is not occurring as much as one might expect along the lower Rufiji River. The politics of such land acquisitions, we argue, would seem to be better understood in terms of cycles of contentious politics, as an ongoing process in which movements and counter-movements vie for control through the strategic use of images, maps, and discourse. This research extends the understanding of the processes changing global agriculture and energy production by bridging the frames of the “politics of mapping” and “cycles of contention” to more fully reveal how and why control over land and resources is shifting in the global South.
- Published
- 2012
12. Lost in conceptualization: Reading the 'new Cold War' with critical geopolitics
- Author
-
Ian Klinke and Felix Ciută
- Subjects
History ,Sociology and Political Science ,Conceptualization ,business.industry ,Political geography ,media_common.quotation_subject ,Geography, Planning and Development ,Ambiguity ,Geopolitics ,State (polity) ,Political science ,Critical geopolitics ,Political economy ,Narrative ,Social science ,business ,media_common ,Mass media - Abstract
Focusing on the debates on energy security in Germany, this paper analyzes the structure, logic, and circulation of the “new Cold War” as a geopolitical narrative. We use the literature in critical geopolitics to analyze the conceptual implications of an apparent dissociation between the media and governmental stance toward the new Cold War and its embedded geopolitical logic. The relationship between the “kind” of geopolitics inherent in the new Cold War and the different “forms” in which it circulates suggests a blurring of boundaries between all such geopolitical forms, through multiple crossings-over between institutions, textual genres, and circulating actors. The media presence of the New Cold War also highlights the ambiguity of the “popular” in popular geopolitics, which is further refracted on other geopolitical forms which share its characteristics. This not only makes imperative the more precise formulation of key conceptual categories such as popular or banal geopolitics, but also calls into question the link between the state and particular geopolitical logics, as well as the relationship between the mass media and geopolitics.
- Published
- 2010
13. You are (not) here: On the ambiguity of flag planting and finger pointing in the Arctic
- Author
-
Philip E. Steinberg
- Subjects
History ,Sociology and Political Science ,Sovereignty ,Arctic ,media_common.quotation_subject ,Critical geopolitics ,Geography, Planning and Development ,Ambiguity ,Physical geography ,media_common ,Flag (geometry) ,The arctic - Published
- 2010
14. Scale frames and counter-scale frames: constructing the problem of environmental injustice
- Author
-
Hilda E. Kurtz
- Subjects
Environmental justice ,History ,Sociology and Political Science ,media_common.quotation_subject ,Geography, Planning and Development ,Environmental ethics ,Ambiguity ,Injustice ,Environmental studies ,Politics ,Legitimation ,Law ,Grievance ,Sociology ,Legitimacy ,media_common - Abstract
The concept of environmental injustice raises difficult questions about on how best to measure and address environmental inequities across space, and environmental justice politics are permeated by considerable debate over the nature and spatial extent of both problem and possible solutions. This paper theorizes the politics of environmental justice as a politics of scale in order to explore how environmental justice activists respond to the scalar ambiguity inherent in the political concept of environmental justice. With a case study of a controversy over a proposed polyvinylchloride production facility in rural Convent, Louisiana, I develop the concept of scale frames and counter-scale frames as strategic discursive representations of a social grievance that do the work of naming, blaming, and claiming, with meaningful reference to particular geographic scales. The significance of scale is expressed alternatively within these frames as an analytical spatial category, as scales of regulation, as territorial framework(s) for cultural legitimacy, and as a means of inclusion, exclusion and legitimation.
- Published
- 2003
Catalog
Discovery Service for Jio Institute Digital Library
For full access to our library's resources, please sign in.