https://orcid.org/0000-0003-0208-8723
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ABSTRACT
As mentioned in official reports, the number of scholars migrating from countries with autocratic regimes or/and at war to neighborhoods or Europe is increasing due to continuing attacks on scientists and academic institutions in those countries. This paper studies this phenomenon through the analysis of the data collected through a research project involving interviews with 10 experts and 22 exiled scholars who fled their home countries to Germany after 2015. Within this context, the paper particularly focuses on the experiences of scholars, who were provided by academic humanitarian actors with scholarships/positions at universities or research institutes in Germany to continue their academic work in safety. The paper suggests defining the recently expanding supporting networks for at-risk scholars as ‘academic humanitarianism’, which refers to a domain of power and a regime of governing that emerged at the intersection of two social fields: higher education and humanitarianism. Analyzing their narratives on their academic experiences in Germany, the paper concludes that despite the target of academic humanitarian actors to integrate this superfluous population of academia into German higher education (GHE), the unintentional result is their ‘inclusive-exclusion’ due to conflicting social forces (re)producing epistemic and dispositional hierarchies that exist in German universities.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).
Notes
1 According to the UNHCR’s records, “89.3 million people worldwide were forcibly displaced at the end of 2021 as a result of persecution, conflict, violence, human rights violations or events seriously disturbing public order”. See https://www.unhcr.org/figures-at-a-glance.html (the last date of access is 27.09.2022).
2 For these pushing and pulling factors see Yarar and Karakaşoğlu, 2022.
3 Due to its large amount, it is impossible to cite here all publications related to the above-mentioned topic.
4 Using Bourdieu’s field theory, some would call these rules of the game. The metaphor of the game suggests that the field is governed by rules that people should follow if they like to be in the game, however, it is also a field of contestation, thereby involving struggle and tension over the rules and norms of the game.
5 On the basis of our expert interviews, we can state that this is the way in which academic humanitarian organizations in Germany define the problem and population they target. But this paper does not expand on and deal with these issues.
6 They address Cassirer’s (2000: 92 in Hilgers and Mangez Citation2015, 2–3) statement that ‘The field itself can no longer be understood merely as an additive whole, as an aggregate of parts. The field is not a thing-concept but a relation-concept; it is not composed of pieces but a system, a totality of lines of force’.
7 Here Bourassa’s (Citation2021) work might also have relevance since he is addressing the racial mechanisms which do not work simply through mere exclusion but through specific mechanisms of “productive inclusion” that – in consequence – operate as exclusive. For our context, Agemben’s approach is more suitable because it helps us to understand the realm of academic humanitarianism as a zone, which leads scholars to a limbo position.
8 Here she proposes the notion of the intersectionality to show the combined effects of sexism and racism on her own experiences as a black girl.
9 For the critique of this additive approach see Núñez Citation2014.
10 As Núñez (Citation2014) states works based on the intersectionality perspective have been criticized across various disciplines for emphasizing individuals’ experiences with certain social identities while ignoring the systems of power and oppression that shape the experiences of individuals. Here our analysis goes beyond such critiques thanks to the theories of Foucault and Bourdieu that we adapted in our work.
11 Shinozaki (Citation2017) also focuses on migrant academics and examines structural barriers that they encounter in GHE concerning their race or non-German citizenship and their gender. However, our method differs from hers not only because we use qualitative rather than quantitative data, but also because we do not attempt to measure or analyse the impacts of hypothetically chosen specific identities of one group on their experiences.
12 Donini (Citation2010) stated that although humanitarianism historically emerged in confrontation with power, it has now been transformed into a form of power. De Lauir agreed also with this analysis (De Lauir Citation2016).
13 As we mentioned above, for the anonymization and pseudonymization of the data, we removed some personal identifiers and replaced interviewees’ real names with pseudonyms.
14 See Phillips Citation2014, 291. But originally the limbo of unbaptized children as a concept and a topic of discussion roots back in Christian theology.
15 Kleimann explains them in detail in his article. Please see Kleimann 2018.
16 Here as we are analysing the position of exiled scholars among themselves by asking the question of why some are feeling more advantageous than others, their ethnic-national-religious identities appear less effective than their age.