TY - JOUR
T1 - The Refugee as Invasive Other
T2 - [Originally published in Social Research Vol. 84 : No. 1 (Spring 2017)]
AU - Ignatieff, Michael
N1 - Publisher Copyright:
© 2024 The New School.
PY - 2024/3/1
Y1 - 2024/3/1
N2 - A liberal politics is, in moral principle at least, a universalist politics: a politics that assumes that there is no “other”; there is only “us,” all entitled to equal treatment. This ideal inspired the 1951 Refugee Convention, which now faces a crisis of consent in Western societies because of the sheer numbers of people claiming refugee protection. Public opinion is also turning against the universalist premise. Citizens ask why they should extend citizenship rights to strangers and why their state shouldn’t be able to exclude whom it wants from its borders. How to respond to this crisis of consent? By defending the universalist right of persons in distress to seek asylum, but also by appealing to citizens to reconceive their relationship to strangers as a gift: they give welcome to strangers as a gift that confers obligations on the beneficiary, namely the obligation to live by the rules of the society that made the gift of asylum.
AB - A liberal politics is, in moral principle at least, a universalist politics: a politics that assumes that there is no “other”; there is only “us,” all entitled to equal treatment. This ideal inspired the 1951 Refugee Convention, which now faces a crisis of consent in Western societies because of the sheer numbers of people claiming refugee protection. Public opinion is also turning against the universalist premise. Citizens ask why they should extend citizenship rights to strangers and why their state shouldn’t be able to exclude whom it wants from its borders. How to respond to this crisis of consent? By defending the universalist right of persons in distress to seek asylum, but also by appealing to citizens to reconceive their relationship to strangers as a gift: they give welcome to strangers as a gift that confers obligations on the beneficiary, namely the obligation to live by the rules of the society that made the gift of asylum.
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85189663880&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1353/sor.2024.a923118
DO - 10.1353/sor.2024.a923118
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:85189663880
SN - 0037-783X
VL - 91
SP - 211
EP - 220
JO - Social Research
JF - Social Research
IS - 1
ER -