Speaking Out of Place by David Palumbo-Liu

Author:David Palumbo-Liu [Palumbo-Liu, David]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Public Policy, Capitalism, Political Ideologies, Political Science, World, Economic Policy, General
ISBN: 9781642595857
Google: ohovzgEACAAJ
Goodreads: 58923564
Publisher: Haymarket Books
Published: 2021-12-07T00:00:00+00:00

The Place of Refugees

Since its invention in the late nineteenth century, the concentration camp has been a place of rightlessness, and the suspension of life. It is a holding cell for those who, according to the rulers, belong nowhere. Of them, Arendt declared, “[T]he human masses sealed off in them are treated as if they no longer existed, as if what happened to them were no longer of any interest to anybody, as if they were already dead and some evil spirit gone mad were amusing himself by stopping them for a while between life and death before admitting them to eternal peace.”26

In November 2007, Italy enacted an emergency decree that brought Arendt’s words into the twenty-first century. The measure allowed local prefects to expel from Italy citizens from other European Union states. This decree effectively overrode previous reciprocal agreements within the EU, and ushered in a new, and continuing, set of policies designed to strip people of basic human rights. The Italian decree denied these immigrants any possibility of appealing an expulsion order. In sum, it made their very presence in a court of law a matter of their being “out of place.” As legal scholar Ayten Gündo˘gdu says: “What was denied … was not merely access to law. The Italian case exemplifies how the unmaking of legal personhood often goes hand in hand with the destruction of political and human standing. The deportation order and the levelling of homes endeavored to remove the Roma immigrants from the political and social fabric of Italy.”27 In these camps, refugees are unable to discern any of the features of normal life—they cannot find work to organize their days around; they have no access to independent housing, and, of particular importance to the present study, they cannot create “public spaces where one can act and speak in the presence of others.”28

The deprival of access to a public space where ideas, grievances, or arguments can be voiced runs contrary both to any idea of human rights, and also to the professed values of the humanitarian organizations that are often put in charge of the campus. Gündo˘gdu notes: “If humanitarian organizations are willing to encourage certain forms of self-sufficiency (for example basket-weaving), they strongly discourage initiatives that challenge the administration of life in camps. When refugees barter or trade food, for example, they risk confiscation of that food or even arrest by local police. Their attempts to lead ordinary lives can be stunted in various ways due to the structural conditions of camps.”29 If refugees are released from these camps, argues migration scholar Loren Landau, they should be given the means through which to recuperate these rights:

This means providing them with not only legal status to work, which is the first stage, but also the opportunity to organize politically to challenge discriminatory obstacles and, more importantly, to enhance the social networks there is so important in improving welfare and security….

In this model, we no longer measure success solely in nutritive or legal status but

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