Who is Recognised as a Refugee? Insights from Diverse Disciplines

Abstract

The implementation practices of ‹who is a refugee› vary widely in their approaches and outcomes. Scholarship in legal anthropology, sociolegal studies and comparative political science aims to understand and to explain the different (and often inconsistent) outcomes of when individuals seek asylum. In this forum article, I provide an overview of this scholarship, critically reflecting its benefits and limitations. The multidisciplinary research on refugee status determination shows that outcomes depend heavily on extraneous political factors, institutional design, and the personal predispositions of individual decision-makers. It is, however, often limited to European asylum systems, with a strong focus on decision makers’ discretion. In light of these limitations of the existing scholarship, the article concludes with a brief overview of the RefMig project’s research, which has aimed to offer a more global view of practices.