Civil society, the state, and private sponsorship: the political economy of refugee resettlement

ABSTRACT

In the wake of the most recent refugee crisis the private sponsorship programme re-emerged in Canada as a just and novel solution to precarious migration. The private sponsorship programme expands the role of civil society in humanitarian resettlement, while simultaneously depicting the programme as a grassroots movement of engaged and active citizens. My purpose in this article is to materially and historically situate the ideological conditions that coordinate refugee migrations, with a particular focus on private sponsorship and neoliberal ideology. I argue that while private sponsorship may appear as a humanitarian solution to precarious migration, it simultaneously furthers the deeply political project of privatising immigrant welfare, localising consciousness, and depoliticising the experiences of refugee youth. Privately sponsored refugees encounter the same forms of deskilling and downward mobility as racialised newcomers. At the very same time, however, the private sponsorship programme deploys a narrative of grassroots community action to conceal the ways in which Canada is a racially divided economy and society.

KEYWORDS:

• Ideology
• privately sponsored refugees (PSRs) ;refugee migration
• political economy of resettlement
• refugee youth

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes

1. The research includes semi-structured interviews with 36 recently arrived refugees from the Middle East and North Africa and is referenced throughout as personal communications.

2. In contrast to official accounts of how private sponsorship works my research with refugee youth suggests a more chaotic and haphazard process. Additionally, Syrians, particularly Palestinian-Syrians, in Lebanon often experience difficulties registering with the UNHCR.

Additional information

Funding

Funding was provided by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada [767-2017-1515].

Notes on contributors

Genevieve Ritchie

Genevieve Ritchie is a PhD candidate and SSHRC doctoral fellow at the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education. Her research critically interrogates the political and economic relations that coordinate the lives of refugee youth as the move through cycles of transit, transition, and resettlement.